Instead of getting into a rant of how low the company has fallen, I will be reviewing a product that was created from thier love for money. (Notice how I say “product” and not something like “series”.) Knowing how this manga was nothing more than a product of Disney’s greed to make more money, I went and read it anyways (even though i’m sick of the all of the crap they have made in recent years, excluding the movies by Pixar). So why did I read this even though I know the manga was going to be bad? Well, I love manga, I loved Disney when I was a kid (didn’t we all though?) and the first volumes where sitting there at my local library and I thought “Why not?”. Now on that note, finally the real review on “Kilala Princess”.
Story: Just looking at the cover alone, I knew this was going to be another one of those run of the mill generic fantasy shojo stories. Sure enough, it was. Girl dreams of being a princess, mets a cute guy, cute guy is trying a find a princess, stuff happens, the two fall in love, etc. (And in the end it is quite obvious the princess he is searching for is Kilala anyways) What makes this special is the fact that the Disney Princesses (Trade Mark sign here) are thrown into the mix. But for a generic Shojo story that was made to cash in on the Disney Princess line, its not as bad as I thought it was gong to be. I found it much more enjoyable than the Kingdom Hearts manga (and ive never played the games either, I don’t have a PS2). I thought it was going to be just pure trash with no real plot and just having Disney characters parading about to sucker you into reading it, like all the other crap Disney makes now a days. But no, its almost like both the author and artist are true Disney fans themselves, and actually tried to give us something somewhat worthwhile to read with the princesses we know and love. So they managed to surpise me there, but i’m dispointed they didn’t try a little harder to come up with something a lttle more original. Then again, this was actually made for a younger audience and not hardcore anime fans who have seen it all.
Art: I like the art here. It has a nice blend of east-mets-west. The Disney characters look like thier usual western selefs and not Japan-itzed into anime-looking characters. (I don’t have a problem seeing Western characters drawn anime style though. Sometimes I like seeing the change, it gives a nice new spin on an old classic.....when done right of course.) As for the original characters, sure they look like the usual shojo manga characters, even the two guys looking for the princess look alot like those two guys from of off Tokyo Mew Mew (I forgot their names, and i'm too lazy to look them up right now). But the anime characters are drawn in such a way where when they are standing next to the Disney characters they don’t look too out of next to a western-syle drawn character. So I give the artist a kudos for that.
Also, I like the placement of the pannels and how the arrangement of the art to tell the story here as well. It has a really nice flow to it when you read it. Its not a jumbled up mess with gaps in the story from one pannel to the next, like what ive seen in other manga series spin-offs of a popular franchise (such as Cowboy Bebop and Code Geass for examples).
Character: Lets face it, when we where all young i’m sure just about all of us girly-girls (or once where, like me) out there had dreamed of being a princess at some point and living within the world of Disney. (I sure as hell did. Even dressed up as a princess for Halloween in Kindergraden and imagined living in the world of the Lion King when that movie first came out.) Kilala here is alot like a refection of how we where when we where a kid, and wanting to live out our dreams. Shes also alot like the kind of character you would find in your average Disney Channel-made movie, except she actually has a brain unlike the mindless idiots you see in those movies anymore.
As for the other characters. The anime ones are like your usual shojo cast personality-wise as well. As for the Disney characters, I guess they where in character, at least more so than what it could have been. I’m just glad they wheren’t like a broken record and be like “dreams come true, just belive in yourselef!” or some crap like that like what Disney keeps trying to shove into our faces in recent years. Or something lame like Kilala comes along and helps the Princesses out and there happy again, happily ever after. So the Disney characters here seamed to be handled somewhat better than if they could be directily by thier own company.
Enjoyment: As for enjoyment, I thought it was a fun lil series to read, its better than I thought it would be. Not the best or most original manga ever, but I wouldn’t mind picking up future volumes and reading them (if I can’t find anything else to read anyways, theres lots of other series I would much rather read). If this product was American-made and not Japanese-made like how it could have been, then I just know it would have become the trash I was expecting when I started reading this. (This just proves that the Japanese know how to treat fans better than Americans do.)
Overal, I think this manga would be best enjoyed by shojo manga readers who still love Disney or by young girls who love anime/manga or Disney. If your looking for something original, you won’t find it here, the only thing original (and the only real reason why anyone would even bother reading this) would be for the Disney characters. And they do pretty well with providing this manga just that.
So for another money-making Disney product, this one isn't half bad. I can even see this manga still being made even if the company wasn't being driven by greed....
