Title: Midnight Secretary

Author & Illustrator: OHMI Tomu

Genre: Romance, Smut, Supernatural, Shoujo

Volumes: 4 (Ongoing)

Publisher: Shogakukan (Japanese)

Year: 2006

Official Summary (Aerandria):

Kaya thought she had found the perfect job when she became the private secretary of Kyouhei Touma - the director of a tableware company of the same name. Kyouhei is a capable director, but his arrogance and sluttish behavior are almost legendary. Kaya is doing her best to prove that she is capable in her work, but one night, by accident, she discovers his secret… of him being a vampire!

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I’m pro vampire, therefore I love it. Kaya is your typical shoujo female who thinks she’s not pretty, but is pretty. She lands a job as a devil’s secretary and is ‘perfect’ in what she does. At first, he didn’t want to hire her because she wasn’t pretty enough, but she asked him that she proves herself before he makes such a decision.

Not surprisingly, he kept her as his secretary and she then realized that he was a vampire during one night.

Only two volumes have been released so far and it hasn’t disappointed me yet. Please keep in mind that this volume contains scenes not suitable for children due to its mature content, but nevertheless, it’s a very interesting story that’s worth reading.

Another thing to note is that one of the story’s genres says ‘smut’, personally, at nine chapters, I haven’t stumbled across anything graphical yet, so if you’re not a fan of smut, it’s still safe to read.

I give it an 8/10 rating.

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Sources: Anime News Network, Aerandria

Title: Hana Yori Dango / Boys Over Flowers

Author & Illustrator: Yoko Kamio

Genre: Shojo

Volumes: 36 (Complete)

Publisher: Shueisha (Japanese)

Licensed by: Viz Media (English)

Year: 2004

Picture: I’m having problems uploading the picture from work, will do it as soon as I get home today - apologies XD

Official Summary (Anime News Network):

16 Year old Makino Tsukushi is 16-year old girl, from a mid-class family, who, due to her brains, gets into an ultra high-class school called Eitoku Gakuen. One day she accidentally gets on the F4’s, bad side *they’re a gang at school*, and from then on she suffers from hazing. She fights this back, and while doing so falls in love with one of the F4’s members. However, another one of the members also falls in love with her.

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Drama, love triangle, betrayal, lower class, upper class – all defines what you’ll find in this manga. When I first began reading, it was appealing. Even though the art/graphics was not something I was used to in this century, it had my interest. However, the more I read, the more I began losing interest.

The story just kept on dragging with unnecessary drama that was too much for me to adjust. There are some things just not possible in life. The story had a lot of ‘slice of life’ elements, but it threw that away with non significant things.

The problem is that I am not able to point many things out as I would be giving away a lot of spoilers. You’ll just have to read it and make your own opinion about it.

Please note that this story has been adapted to anime and J-Drama.

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Sources: Anime News Network

Title: Skip Beat!

Author & Illustrator: Yoshiki Nakamura

Genre: Shoujo

Volumes: 19 and still running

Publisher: Hakusensha (Japanese)

Licensed by: Viz Media (English)

Year: 2006

Official Summary (Viz media):

Kyoko Mogami followed her true love Sho to Tokyo to support him while he made it big as an idol. But he’s casting her out now that he’s famous! Kyoko won’t suffer in silence–she’s going to get her sweet revenge by beating Sho in show biz!

Note: The second (middle) picture above is just a costume that the boy (Sho) is wearing. This manga is completely normal and doesn’t have any demons or monsters in it.

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Title: Yellow

Author & Illustrator: Makoto Tateno

Genre: Yaoi

Volumes: 4

Publisher: Biblos (Japanese)

Licensed by: Digital Manga Publishing (English)

Year: 2005

Notes: Parental advisory – explicit content

Official Summary (Back Cover) - I got this from my manga copy:

Taki and Goh share just about everything – their apartment in the city, their job as elite drug “snatchers” and even dinner duty. But hot Goh wants to go much deeper undercover with his gorgeous partner. Too bad Taki doesn’t swing that way… or does he? If yellow is the warning color, will this team finally end up in-the-red (and in bed)?

Boys will be boys, and the hot guys of Yellow are no exception. An illicit thrill-ride from cover to cover, this hip drama turns up on the heat on every page and guarantees to get your heart fired-up!

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This title is one that I picked up randomly. I’m serious! I was browsing in a bookstore abroad and the cover art just made me pick it up. I read through the first volume and was like ‘hmm… okay.”
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Title: Glass no Kamen / Glass Mask

Author & Illustrator: Suzue Miuchi

Genre: Shōjo

Volumes: 42 and still running

Publisher: Hakusensha

Year: Began serializing in 1976

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My fellow readers, the only warning I am going to give you for this manga is that it’s long! However, even if it’s long – it’s worth every chapter. I stumbled across this by accident and found myself reading it out loud because I was so engrossed with the plot.

The original manga is different from anything I’ve read until now because it features the old types of drawings (refer to picture).

The story focuses on a girl (Maya) that always had an inspiration for acting. The story features her struggle as she runs away from her home and mother to get what wants. She faces hardships along the way until she gets the stardom that she aims for. She did not run away from home for home to be famous, but it was just for the simple reason that she was in love with acting. However, the faster she had climbed up, the faster she had fallen which resulted in a scandal that strayed her away from her dream.

The volume doesn’t always talk about the success of the girl, but it also focuses on how she fell and struggled to climb up again and prove to the world that she is as good as they had perceived her to be.

I liked it a lot because it aligns a lot with real life situations – hardships she faced were actual struggles. What I really liked about this was the fact that she was always praised and worshiped by others, but one mistake made everyone forget about her acting skills and good hearted nature and they always remembered her as the girl who did …

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