THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER.
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Chapter summary below the fold:
Ever since she watched magical girl cartoons, sentai shows, and her beloved detective dramas as a little girl, Sasami Aoba has always wanted to be a defender of justice, even putting that as her "Future Dream" assignment for grade school.
It's now the present day and she has transferred to Hanagaki Girls' High School, giggling to herself as she looks at her opened student memo book. Her two classmates, Tokiwa and Minaguchi, spotted her and asks her what she's reading. "Oh, just checking the school regulations" Sasami says as she hurriedly puts away the memo.
They tell her that the school is pretty lax about the rules, that the teachers and upperclassmen are nice, and that the school is peaceful with no bullying.
"Peaceful?" asks Sasami. "So there are no scandals here?"
Unfortunately, the only "scandals" that ever occurs at the school is when they find out one of their teachers wears false teeth. Also, as Tokiwa who is part of the school newspaper staff complains, since that's the only type of story that makes the front page, nobody reads the school newspaper.
"So in that case, there's no need for policiers," Sasami says dejectedly.
"Policiers?" asks the two classmates. Sasami fumbles around nervously for a bit, thinking she said too much.
"Oh, you mean those policiers?" says Tokiwa.
"What are policiers?" asks Minaguchi. "I've never heard of them."
Tokiwa explains that policiers are special undercover police investigators sent to schools that are notorious for suicides caused by bulling and sexual misconduct by teachers, and those officers often disguise themselves as either teachers or or other staff members as they mix into the school. "Well, I only heard about them on the internet."
"Come on!" says Sasami nervously, "That's just an urban legend! We're not living in a manga!" That gives Tokiwa a great idea for the next issue of her school newspapers in which she'll feature various urban legends. She gets up to go and get the okay from her editor when she bumps into a classmate, Sakuraba, causing her to fall down.
"I'm sorry! Are you okay?" implores Tokiwa.
"I'm fine." replies Sakuraba as she leaves the three girls. Before she leaves the classroom she stares at Sasami.
"Why?" thinks Sasami. "I wasn't the one who pushed her." Sasami asks the two girls about Sakuraba and they tell her that she's a pretty nondescript girl who's sort of quiet and kind of sulky. She's also a serious student who studies by herself in the school library all the time. Sasami thinks she heard of the name "Sakuraba" before.
A few days later Sasami, who joined the newspaper staff on a "trial basis", and her two classmates search the school for the alleged "Seven Wonders of Hanagaki". Their search, however, turns up bupkus, and Sasami begins to wonder why she even came to Hanagaki in the first place, since it was a peaceful school just like the briefing said it was.
The three girls are now investigating the "Doujinshi of the Library", or a thin doujin manga hidden way in the back of the library that was written by a girl who committed suicide when nobody bought her work. Anyone who reads that doujin after school after the doors are locked will die. They appear at the library, but it's already locked. It's okay since Tokiwa has the keys. The girls enter the supposedly empty library, but they hear sounds. After Minaguchi shrieks, they spot someone towards the back who picked up a bunch of books from the table and took off. Tokiwa notices that the back bookshelf that is supposed to house a bunch of expensive books is open missing some books. Sasami, suspecting that the person is a thief, gives chase.
The suspect heads for the emergency exit, but before she reaches there, Sasami leaps off from a bookshelf and pounces on her. She pulls out her school memo, which is actually a badge. "Hold it right there! I'm the police!" yells Sasami as the other two classmates looks on in amazement.
Sasami takes a closer look at the culprit and notices that it's Sakuraba. "Huh? Sakuraba, are you a thief?"
"Are you saying I've stolen something?" says Sakuraba. It turns out she didn't steal any expensive books, she was just drawing a bunch of manga as a hobby. The back shelf was missing its expensive books because they were transferred to the library storage room last week. Sakuraba knows this because she's a library aide.
Sasami gives chase again, but not before begging her two classmates not to tell anyone about what happened in the library. "Wait, Sakuraba-san! I'm sorry! I-I was..." Her mind was racing. She finally got sent to that school as a policier but she blew her first case in just a week she's been there. If the station finds out about it... "I know this is asking too much, but can you please not tell anyone about what happened?"
"Why are you even following me?" asks Sakuraba. "You better go back and make sure those two girls don't say a word about this incident." Sasami is dumbfounded by that response. "You still don't get it, do you Assistant Police Officer Sasami Aoba?" Sakuraba pulls out her badge. "National Police Agency Criminal Investigations, First Special Investigations Bureau, School Crimes Task Force Office, Assignment 3, Sakuraba Midori - the policier of Hanagaki Girls' High School."
"Wait," asks Sasami, "wasn't I supposed to be the policier?"
"Maybe you were assigned to the wrong school?" says Sakuraba. The chapter ends with the caption "Not only did she mess up on her first case, the assignment itself was messed up?"
Well, honestly there wasn't a lot of action that should normally hook a reader to a new serialization, but I think there's enough potential for this to be a good read, especially with the cliffhanger at the end. Three stars.
Morinaga Milk is one of my favorite author, hands down. Her art is amazing!
I have high hopes for this.
First chapter just introduced the characters and the setting pretty much. Not much happened......
I really like the girl with glasses though. She's like a HBIC.
Well after reading the first chapter, all I can say is that I have no hopes for this. The story just looks stupid. I'll keep reading this for a while though, but after seeing what Morinaga did with Mare and the rest of the NanaxHitomi series I can see this story failing perfectly.
I think it's Morinaga Milk's first time making the black haired girl has long hair (normally its short)
... I dunno, I kinda like the idea of mystery + adventure + shoujo ai. :D
The girl from news paper club is kinda funny.
Who knows... the black hair girl might end up cutting her hair later on in the series. D:
I think this manga has a lot of potential if done right. Although, looking at Mare, I can't say I'm too confident on Morinaga Milk's ability to do mystery..
Who knows... the black hair girl might end up cutting her hair later on in the series. D:
I raged when she did that to Mari. D:<
I think this manga has a lot of potential if done right. Although, looking at Mare, I can't say I'm too confident on Morinaga Milk's ability to do mystery..
I thought the same thing, but do remember that Mare is over ten years old. I'm sure her story-writing abilities have improved a lot since then.
Gakuen Police »» Gakuen Police Chapter 1 Discussion
