Shugo Chara!

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Shugo Chara's manga fixes a lot of the problems that I found were present in the anime; mainly, that the manga is much more streamlined and cuts out a large presence of filler, though not to the point that it actively distracts from the plot. In my personal opinion, Shugo Chara, beyond its first season, suffered from its anime adaptation (which should be noted, is the version I watched first), and that a lot of elements that were heavily distracting, such as forgotten or abandoned plot points, were drastically toned down. This gives the manga the likely feel that the anime was going for as ... well: that of a cheerful, light-hearted magical girl series. The series is simple enough to become invested rather easily, although some of the plot points could have done with being somewhat more nuanced.

As always, the actual story and message Shugo Chara wishes to tell is one of growing up and acceptance of change and the concept of idealization of one's self. The series has an extremely interesting nuance in the concept of what it considers to be superficial versus an actual part of someone's core personality, and this is likely the main draw of the story. Shugo Chara has several main characters with different layers of nuance and backstory that are slowly explained and contribute to who they are, standing strong as characters that are given realistic motives for their behavior. While the motives behind the development of Easter and how things got to this point are left somewhat vague for the majority of the story, I believe it was explained well and gives a nice subversion of the standard archetype of a main villain. It also serves perfectly as an antithesis to the series' core message, with Ikuto standing initially very strongly as the personal antithesis to Amu, whose core message relies on being the apparent emblematic representation of misfortune within the series.

While there were a few characters who particularly shone once they received character development, I believe that Utau was the ideal character to show the full range of what this series was capable of; Utau arguably went through the widest range of development, constantly changing in realistic, believable ways that would be relatable to most readers. In my opinion, the execution of the "road of stars" arc was only alright; it left a great deal of confusion as I felt that it was poorly depicted, which made it difficult to follow along with the path that the story intended to take, unless this was intentional.

The ending of the manga states that a Chara will always be within their owner, never disappearing; this one sentiment is a great way to showcase exactly why Shugo Chara's manga is worth a read. This implies that a Shugo Chara is part of the person's core personality, and that while a person may change, they'll never permanently "lose" their true self, even if it's lost or no longer visible. The ending also treated all of the characters excellently, giving them all true happiness that they would deserve. While the manga isn't perfect, as it can veer into the childish aspect and not fully explore the above concepts all of the time, I believe that it was a very enlightening read and would recommend it for those looking for a light entry into the magical girl genre. 7/10.

Alright, I'll be honest. This was an interesting series, though I have my reservations.

I'll be quick with a review because others have already gone into depth about the ups and downs of this story.

Pros:
The story concept is good; unique and wholesome.
It's cute.

*Slight spoilers ahead?*

... Cons:
-Cliche character tropes, every character has a trope and it almost hurts.
-Borderline pedophilia. Main character is in elementary school while the love interest is in highschool. What. I get 'forbidden love', but they try to make it seem normal in this anime.
-Amazingly stupid 'problems'. Jealous of a 10 year old? Fucking stop.

Anyway. This is a cute anime, and it is pretty good if you can ignore the age gap between the love interests.

In one line : // If you're into fanservice before anything else, this manga is for you. //

I've never been into Shoujo. Works targeting females very often present the same overused tropes with little to no variation ; therefore, I've never been too fond of them. If I do feel like reading one from time to time, I easily enter the "overdose" zone when it comes to them. To some extent, it can be argued it just isn't my thing, that Shounen, Seinen, etc. also lack variations overall and yes, I couldn't deny it is partly true.

That settled, how come I started Shugo Chara so ... long after its release ? Even though I never touched the Anime, I did vaguely know it from its popularity. And I was more or less pressed to someday touch that work. I could have gone with the Anime (from the fragments I saw it is way better than the manga, minus the number of fillers), but it was too long ; so I went for the manga, the original material. And it was a chore. It goes beyond me just disliking it. I could have dealt with it if it had qualities - regardless of my enjoyment - but its "qualities" are mainly "potential qualities" rather than factual one.

And I'll go through them a bit.



Art :

It'll be rather short. The first chapters don't reflect a mastered art, the panels are sometimes off and the proportions, especially, are problematic. But it gets better along the way, sort of.

The limits of the mangaka seem to rapidly show off, though, as legs and sometimes the faces continue to be off. It would explain why she refrains from actually "showing" the fights. They last for one or two pages and during that time, the panels stick to the charas, static, instead of showing the actions, movements. In short, you have no idea what's really going on during those moments. Does it matter ? Apparently not, if those fights really mattered they would be longer (and I'll come back to it later) but "clarity" is a criteria nonetheless.

And the lack of clarity is also perceptible through the absence of backgrounds. Now, the relative absence of backgrounds in Shoujo (yes, it's not a genre and yet work targeting females tend to share the same codes) isn't something new and is part of its code ; however, there are a limits to everything and Shugo Chara break those : the pages should remain clear, no matter how little background they possess.



Story :

The concept in itself is interesting, however, the manga fails at properly exploiting and developing it. Everything (Embryo, Shugo Chara, X-Eggs, Humpty Lock and Dumpty Key, etc.) seems to be an excuse to deliver fanservice ; while pretending to be something else and that's exactly where the issue lies. I don't mind fictions which are nothing but a concentration of fansevice, when they know to be nothing else.

There's no proper "arc", most chapters are "pauses", as though something tenseful occurred needing for the readers and the charas to cool down ; the issue is those supposedly "key points" don't exist in the sense the pacing doesn't offer you the slightest variation in the tension bar.

And that's probably the roots of every narrative issues of this manga : the pacing. In a way, there's no way to get bored, but there's no time to get really entertained either. The manga keeps jumping from one thing to another, without developments and build-ups, for most of the manga, and through that goes to conveniences after conveniences leading to amusingly absurd situations. It tries giving valuable lessons to children, but they fall flat. As I said, everything is too convenient and easy for it not to ring artificial.



(SPOILERS!!!!!!)

EX. Kairi is a traitor and it shocks the Guardians. I’m completely fine with the idea, but maybe making him more than a background chara would have given his treason more impact ? He was as important as Yaya, then got a crush for Amu - solely because she's the protagonist - and then, tada !, betrayal. And he’s missed by the entire Guardians even though their relationships were never built out.

(SPOILERS END !!!!)



All in all, two themes are really developed : at the age of the protagonist, kids generally fall for the look of people : they have crushes, they aren't in love ; knowing the person is developing love. However, even the two charas (the one saying it and the one hearing it) do/continue paying attention to the look instead of the person, as though this conversation never occurred for the longest time. Even more ironically, it's a third chara that shows first he became aware of that dissonance and this is another issue with this manga : nothing seems to really matter. And I already explained the reason (see the paragraph above). To come back to the thematic, it was a pleasant surprise - I really was bothered with the overload of superficiality and didn't expect the mangaka to have a use for it - but it's a shame it didn't out-build itself properly.

The second one is the "would-be-self". How at the early teenagehood we are in an identity crisis and Shugo Charas are a good representation of it. Sadly...as I explained earlier, it is rapidly cast aside for more "important" matters : fanservice. Though the last arc tries to wrap everything tossed aside together to pretend it wasn't forgotten, but it doesn't work.

However, before going to the end of the manga, let's point out other things first.

Like the lack of information. Nothing surprising in itself with the preponderance of fanservice, but I do question the validity to have the first real piece of information in chapter 27.5 out of 48 (the "official" ending) outside of the main story (as it is an omake). As for other important information, you can wait for the last arc of the manga, an "epilogue" arc, which will try to cover everything left.

Also, on a more positive note, either the author improved or she suddenly realized her main flaw as the “save Ikuto” arc finally shows some notion of pacing. Even if it is still flawed and the arc afterwards, as well as the “adds” (aka “encore" chapters) which are even better balanced, they all show an improvement, which is an easy word compared to the mess it was before. And I only speak of the pacing, not if the events are even credible considering the quasi inexistent development of the charas and their relationships.

It's also starting from this arc that the manga finally starts having some really touching moments and chapter 42 is the first justified "pause", even if the arc before didn't convey tension as well as it could have due to the lack of elaboration, be it storywise or characterwise.

Lastly two coated suggestivities : The final page of the official end of the manga is a huge "fuck you" and so is something occurring a few pages before where Amu got the lesson and understood and then "fuck you reader, I wanna mah happy ending even if I'm gonna kill the rule I just established cos it sells more ! and invent something in the very last "Encore" chapter". Yes, it's a bit crude to formulate it that way, but it really how it made me feel.

The second one is that I also cannot say I'm very fond of the "Encore" chapters that, even if they show correct pacing, seem to be “let’s pair charas up" chapters for the sake of having charas being together even if their relationships were never really developed.



Characters :

The pacing's issue underlying everything, it is with little surprise to end up with bland characters, though some carry some traits, a lot of them are shallow and will remain shallow. However, the mangaka tries to deepen a few of them near the end. Do they ever become proper characters ? Some of them will, yes, but as said before, most will remain shallow and charas shouldn't be shallow for 3/4 of a work. Less fanservice and more development would have been a good way to counterbalance it.

Funny enough, the manga seems to be aware of it to some extent as you have some small jokes toward it here and there, be it how sudden and "out of nowhere" some things are, or characters being supposedly gone and yet another character will consider the knowingly gone character as still there, or a chara conveniently being there, how ? "it doesn't matter" replies said character.

It is hard to feel empathy for most charas. Sure, you can feel attracted to the trope they vaguely try to reflect (I was attracted to Nadeshiko, for example), but with everything being so fast, it's rather hard to be attached for the characters themselves. For example, a chara stays for 10 chapters - mainly as a background character - and then leaves to reappear 7 chapters later and everyone acts as though it's been ages. Theoretically, it should also reflect the reader, but as a reader, I wasn't even given proper time to connect to said character. Why should I feel anything for him leaving and coming back ? Especially this quickly ? And that's just one example among many "it's been a long time" that occur.

Now about the timespan of this fiction, it's 2-3 years. During the first year, Amu crosses 5-7 times path with Ikuto. And I'm supposed to root for them ? To find their pseudo-feelings/relationship credible enough ? Why ? It's ironical to say, but Amu and Tadase had more development together than Ikuto and Amu. But the main male is Ikuto, so regardless of everything, it is to be expected to turn out that way.

Concerning Ikuto, he's the embodiment of the phantasm of young girls to have an older guy falling for them (because you’re so awesome ?). His development, like most charas, is quasi inexistent and rushed in to justify the "save Ikuto" arc, even if it fails due to the lack of development (yes, yes, I'm repeating myself over and over) and yet, you can rest assured he's a succeeding soft porn material (by soft porn I mean fictions or characters whose only existence is to make females/males drool in desire).

As for the rest of the cast, I brushed it already, they reflect the teenager identity crisis, I don't have much to say ; the idea is nice, but how it was conveyed, not so much... Sure, I could mention Amu which is supposed to represent the chara every young girl would want to be, but it's obvious, isn't it ?



Overall :

It is bad. Not the worst thing I've came across and I kudo it for improving, but it can't bandage the damages.

Am I surprised of its popularity ? Well, the Anime is popular and as I said, the fragments I saw were better qualitywise. The manga ? How many people read it just because of the Anime ? But well, that's not the subject.

So, let's turn the question differently : am I surprised this work, despite being bad, could sell enough to earn an anime adaptation ? Apart the fact quality and popularity don't always walk hand in hand, no I am not surprised. The targeted audience primarily don't care much for quality, it wants to sigh, to drool, to feel and it achieves that not really with the material provided, but through its own phantasms which fills in the numerous holes.

Would I recommend it to young girls then ? No. Young or not shouldn't justify bad quality. The manga had potential, it could have been done properly, the last quarter of it shows it is able to (more or less), but in the end, it was wasted.


PS : The manga has lots of erotical and sexual metaphors. Not saying if it's good or not, just wanted to point it out.