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What a pair of idiots. In a completely good way of course, but seriously, when it comes to the main characters, what a pair of idiots.

So, since I found out that Kaichou wa Maid Sama ended recently, I decided to finally go and start reading it yesterday, since it's been on my to do list for ages. I'm already on Chapter 57. Yep. Haven't been able to put it down.

I just want to write a quick summary of what I personally feel are the highlights, and good supporting points, of this series:

1. The characters. They are all excellent, and I particularly love how, for ... once in a shoujo manga, both of the main characters are dominant and aggressive, won't take no for an answer and are always fighting hard to get what they want. In this way it's similar to Special A, but I enjoy that while these characters do have a sense of rivalry at times, that's not an overwhelming theme to the manga. The interpersonal dynamic between the two leads is always very well played out and I really appreciate that.

As for the characters themselves, while there are definite elements of their personalities that I could connect to other popular shoujo characters ie. Takumi is rich and has family secrets like Tamaki in Ouran Host Club and Misaki is ultra-hard working like Hikari in Special A or Tohru from Fruits Basket, I still found both of the characters interesting and rather refreshing because I feel like the author approached these personality traits in new ways and didn't just rely on archetypes. They also have different combinations of traits than any other shoujo I've ever read, but I don't have a highly extensive knowledge on the subject so perhaps this is just something new to me.

The supporting cast is also very strong, quite interesting. Not every background character has a superb and unique personality, but I feel that's also very reflective of life and they still all filled out the environment of the story very well and made for great sub plots. I've so far spent a good few minutes reading where my only response has been going "Aww, Yukimura!!" and "Oh god, not again Kanou-kun!"

2. Story. While the story isn't anything particularly new or original, it's presented in a fresh, clean and well-executed manner. I'm over halfway through reading at the time of this review and I haven't gotten bored yet. In fact, I've barely put it down to go to work. The sub plots are also cute and sometimes more entertaining than the main plots in particular chapters, so kudos on a job well done with that.

3. Art. While I find it's nothing to write home about, it's clean, the designs are cute and it backs up a solid story and wonderful characters. Also, some of the chibi and super-deformed character illustrations are absolutely adorable and are some of my favorites of the series.

I don't actually have any real complaints about this manga so far, the only reason it's rated a 9 and not a 10 is because I feel that it lacks the strength in absolutely all areas that would deserve a 10 and make it absolutely superbly outstanding in my mind.

So, to summarize! This is a very character driven story, if you enjoy strong female heroines AND strong male companions as well as cute and hilarious supporting characters, give it a shot!

This is the first manga that I have felt compelled to write a review of. Some minor spoilers to follow.

First of all, a warning to everyone, the description that MAL provides is very misleading. The so called "parallel dimension" is actually a computer world.

The art is decent, I had no complaints about it, though it wasn't spectacular.

The characters however, really ruined it for me. To be quite frank, they were stupid and unbelievable. There was a lack of communication between all members of Natsuki's family, leading to the collapse of a huge computer server and thus eminent nuclear war, because one family member took ... the ice used to cool the computer server to preserve a corpse. Because no one told him that it could lead to the destruction of the ENTIRE WORLD. And, I'm guessing, nearly did. And another thing that I found completely unbelievable is that, with imminent nuclear destruction and annihilation of the planet, several family members were fussing more over their recently departed matriarchs funeral. Come on people, I don't know anyone who would honestly put more stock in that than the end of the world. Add to this the man who created the villain appears to be suffering from severe narcissistic personality disorder and you have a completely whacked out cast in the worst kind of way. The only ones who didn't annoy me were the main characters, Natsuki and Kenji, and Kenji's school friend Sakuma.

The premise of the story I found really annoying as well. That this computer system, OZ, controls all nuclear warheads in the WORLD, completely connects every country and is used also to control minor things like traffic lights and plumbing systems. However, not only does it control most of the world through user accounts, but it also functions as a GAME SYSTEM for bored people of the world. In addition to its world destroying capabilities if hacked. The fact that this premise is so fantastically stupid greatly annoyed me, however, once I got beyond that, the characters were also extremely annoying. I was willing to overlook one but not the other.

The manga-ka clearly did not research human behavior at all, and seemed to simply have the characters act according to how convenient it was to advance the story. And it seems like they ran out of original ideas for how to destroy the world and decided to use a game computer system that supposedly everyone in the world is on. This lack of originality and annoying premise leads me to pronounce this title a 5, I would NOT recommend it to anyone unless you enjoy reading annoying things, and the only thing that saved the rating was the decent artwork and the two main characters who I did find myself rooting for. In fact, they are the only reason that I am going to finish reading the manga at all. I could care less if OZ destroys the world.