Before I jump into story facets, I want to take a minute to say how much I loved the art!!! It is one of the most beautiful manga serials I have ever read. The pages are so crisp and clean, even when there is chaos going on. The details are refined and drawn with such care that it took my breath away. Higashimura’s ability to draw is astounding and exceedingly adroit. There is sophistication and elegance in her artwork, even if it’s a comedy of this calibre. Okay, moving onwards…
Tsukimi is not your average josei protagonist. While she’s not in high-school, she’s still only 18 years old. She isn’t a tiny little thing with perfect shimmering hair, and a smile to make all the men flaunt to her thighs. She’s a chubby gal, with freckles, frizzy hair (LOTS of hair), glasses, and a severely lacking sense of style. I look at her and I can see the average person, which is a nice feeling to have. Even her “nunnery” flatmates are all misshapen with physical “flaws.” I honestly cannot remember the last manga series that I have read where this has been the case. You may not think that something as minor as this could be construed as a “big deal,” but it truly is one. I feel like by having characters who are imperfect, the author is saying that it’s okay to be imperfect, which is a concept that seems to be lost entirely on society today.
Princess Jellyfish was gut-achingly hilarious. It really is very funny…but only for about the first ten volumes. The mediocre things that can make the women of Amamizukan (the name of the residence) bust out into random bits of stagecraft is laughable. These particular moments are spread throughout the series, more so in the beginning than later on, and usually refer to a lot of Japanese pop culture (but there are some clever Western ones too!). I really enjoyed how the author unapologetically makes fun of the social-awkwardness of the characters. She does it in a way that says, “Yes, I am ridiculous in my nature, but it’s okay for me to be this way because it makes me comfortable in my own skin.” This goes back to the whole “it’s okay to be imperfect” thing I was talking about earlier.
What I didn’t like about Princess Jellyfish, is how predictable and repetitive it became. Every single time that the crew of women had a glimmer of hope for achieving their overall goal, or a positive path towards it, they get crushed down. I know that stuff like this can be necessary for the development of a good story, but when it happens every goddamn time, and in progressively predictable (or outrageous) ways, it can get exhausting. The manga is still ongoing, mind you, but it’s current point is just so dumb that I don’t even plan on continuing with it. That’s how bad it has gotten! I feel as if the author is stretching out the series just so she can make Kuranosuke realise some hefty emotions that he’s in denial about, maybe even buy him some time to act out on said emotions. The same could be said about Tsukimi as well. The obstacle that she chose to make all of this happen just doesn’t seem to fit with the story at all. I found it to be so terribly out of left field and completely unnecessary for the series. There were so many other ways she could have created the conflict needed to help with their emotion-finding progress. I enjoyed the fact that Princess Jellyfish didn’t rely on sex for storytelling. But Higashimura is going down that atypical josei route and it’s ridiculous. It all comes off as being the result of excruciatingly poor planning.
This is around the time the humour also begins to diminish. The nuns at Amamizukan and their melodramatics also become very stale and foreseeable. They make an idiotic choice (for plot progression), which they finally start to feel guilty about, yet the way they do so is very uncharacteristic, giving it a vibe of irrelevancy. There are other things that also began to irk me. Kuranosuke’s brother has contact with someone who is very important to our male star, but it never explains why, at least not well-enough for it make any sort of sense. It may come up later in the story, but at this point it would be completely out of nowhere for that to happen.
Long story coming to its end, when you hit volume ten or so, all of the elements that made Princess Jellyfish so enjoyable become a hot mess of regurgitation, only it’s attired differently for appeal. Everything from volume one unto ten is really fun, worthy of time and effort. But afterwards, it provides you with the exhausted essence that a chore would. I really wanted to give this series a full ten out of ten. I mean, come on, the expectations were so grand and marvellous!! However, I am inclined to give it six jellies outta ten.
