Ranked #3628

Dramatic Love Album (One Shot)

Wow. I loved this short piece. It's a one-shot but it's brilliant. The characterizations, the depth of the mangaka went to for you to understand the characters, it's impressive. It's roughly 45 pages of brilliance added with great artwork and Biishie that is out of this world.

Manabe is the lead. At first glance she seems to have a bad attitude, an atypical wall flower, definitely hates her professor, she also seems to be very stubborn, no non-sense, blunt, and reclusive. Introverted beyond belief, because of those personality flaws she's sort of given the stigma of being a "scary girl" nicknamed "corner girl" for the fact the sits in the corner of every class. One day as her luck would have it she is surprised in the park by Himuro Masa-sensei, he's the lead of the story an also her professor, who moonlights as a photographer.

He reads people well, his personality is not domineering but has depth and presence. However, when he first met her, he didn't know that Manabe was "corner girl"---he thought she was a beautiful model he's never seen before. It was during a rather over the top scene where he tries to grab so they can walk to class that he surprised to note that Manabe and Park Girl are one in the same.

The story starts there. Between Manabe and Himuro, although it begins with school life it then transcends into a social commentary about the parallels between adult life and school life. But not only that, it taps into the juxtaposition of the characters. One who hates aspects of nature while the other revels in it. Then the coming together on common ground, self confidence and of course love.

It's a good read and I loved it. I definitely recommend all to read it since my review will not give the story the justice it deserves. As a highlight it was done by the same author of SKIP BEAT and TOKYO CRAZY PARADISE. I've read TCP and still waiting to have the time to dedicate fully to SB. Both of them are extremely popular and I think this is just a snippet of the mangaka's skill as an author, an artists, and someone who has a great grasp on love and what her readers like.

Brilliant work.


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