Reviews

Mar 2, 2009
Mixed Feelings
Preliminary (52/62 chp)
The shoujo romance genre has such an enormous amount of stories published by many authors, that its extremely difficult to find a diamond in the rough. More often than not, all of these stories have extremely similar female and male leads in extremely similar situations that many times, differentiating a story from one manga to another can be difficult. Koukou Debut (High school Debut) is a manga that attempts to do that, and does so wonderfully for the first half of its story. However, it then takes a dive in the second half of the story and utilizes typical shoujo plot devices that makes it lose the identity it built up for itself during the duration of the first half of its run.

Koukou Debut is a story about the relationship between Nagashima Haruna (our female lead) and Komiyama Yoh (our male lead). Haruna is a girl who is determined to find a boyfriend now that she has entered high school, but has no experience whatsoever in the opposite sex. On the contrary, she tries everything that dating magazines say, but it all ends in futility. On a fateful meeting with Yoh, who's your typical bishounen male who has a cool and collected exterior, but soft on the inside, has sworn off women due to past experiences. However, he knows exactly what guys want and thus, Haruna asks Yoh to be her "trainer in love" to help her find a boyfriend. He reluctantly agrees to do so, on the one condition that she does not fall in love with him. Thus begins the journey between these two star-crossed lovers.

As far as shoujo romances go, this aforementioned plot is actually intriguing and somewhat original. However, this intriguing plot only lasts for the first half of the series, where in the second half, the plot becomes more or less several one-shot stories or events of daily happenings between the two. The author uses all of the cliche'd plot devices in the second half and it seems like it has become like every other shoujo out there.

The art, although very reminiscent of shoujo-type art, is very rough. As with all manga, the art improves as the story goes along, however, I feel the art actually worsens once you hit the last few chapters. Character designs seem really rough and incomplete at times, but I assume that's to be expected with 40+ page releases every month.

As the plot goes, so do the characters. Both leads are fairly interesting in the beginning of the story and the side characters do enough to help compliment the leads. However, Haruna - throughout the entire story - never develops from her insecure, crybaby self, as in almost every single chapter, she cries over the smallest of things. Yoh definitely goes under the most development through the story, but this is brought down by the lack of development of Haruna.

Even with all of its flaws, as a fan of shoujo romance, I still enjoyed this manga. It was able to bring about a certain charm with its supporting characters to help offset a weak main lead. In addition, one has to be in awe at Yoh and how he is able to handle every single fickle mood swing Haruna displays in each chapter. As I mentioned, the first half of the story really shines and gives Koukou Debut its identity. But for some odd reason, the mangaka decided to follow traditional shoujo plot devices with the second half, and in consequence, loses that identity it had built up.

I know I'm probably in the minority in my views of the manga, but I thought I'd give another view of this story. Regardless, any shoujo fan will undoubtedly love this story as it contains all the typical shoujo plot devices. However, if you're looking for something that goes outside the box and attempts to break the medium's constants, after reading the first half of the story, you'll have to look elsewhere for that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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