Saturday, January 31, 2015

Review: METEOR PRINCE Volume 1

METEOR PRINCE, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA – @VIZMedia

CARTOONIST: Meca Tanaka
TRANSLATION: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
LETTERS: Deron Bennett
EDITOR: Nancy Thislethwaite
ISBN: 978-1-4215-7908-5; paperback (January 2015); Rated “T” for “Teen”
200pp, B&W, $9.99 U.S., $12.99 CAN, £6.99 UK

Meteor Prince is a shojo fantasy romance from mangaka, Meca Tanaka (creator of Pearl Pink).  The series focuses on an unlucky teen girl and the handsome alien prince who is totally in love with her.  Meteor Prince originally appeared in Japan's LaLa magazine.

Meteor Prince, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 5) opens at Izayoi High School.  There, Hako Natsune, the “Queen of Bad Luck,” has just had another experience of bad luck.  The president of the school's Occult Research Club has drawn a spell circle, and is hoping to use it to rid Hako of her bad luck.

Instead, a naked teen boy seems to fall from Heaven.  He is Io, an alien prince, and he declares that Hako is destined to be his mate!  Does this mean that Hako's luck has changed?

 The Meteor Prince manga seems like a natural comic for me.  Since I was a child, I have loved comedies featuring aliens who come to Earth (and also of comedies about humans whisked into space).  I was a fan of “My Favorite Martian,” a short-lived, Saturday morning animated series that was a follow-up of the live-action, “My Favorite Martian,” a classic, black and white series from the “Golden Age” of American television.

So I should really love Meteor Prince Volume 1, but I am not that crazy about it.  It isn't bad.  It is simply one of those shojo fantasy romances that feature pretty art and are built around the familiar loves-me/loves-me-not relationship between a human girl and a boy who is not human.  While I like shojo manga (to an extent that still surprises me), I find myself only mildly interested in Meteor Prince.  Late in this volume, a new character appears that brings some added conflict and dilemma into the series.  So I am curious to see if the second volume is more of the same or if it will offer some surprise and perhaps, some more tension.

B-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


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