Manga Shojo Beat

[Guest ShonenSamuraiMugen]

New Shojo Beat manga comes to stores near you! Anyone read any Shojo Beat girl manga? I know it's for girls and all...but it's good stuff. Not as good as Shonen Jump, but it's getting there...

[Sage Kaley]

I love Shojo Beat ^^ I would say it's equal to Shonen Jump as I happen to like the exactly same amount of manga in each equally. (In other words, I like three stories in each)

I think my favorite story in SB is probably Godchild. I was hooked the minute I saw it had a morbidly wonderful Alice in Wonderland story. Nana and Absolute Boyfriend, both have me laughing and loving them.

I also like their new line of manga, like Full Moon wo Sagashite and Ultra Maniac. So many good romanticy, funny stories...

[celestialcharm]

I suscribed to it, but I have about 2-4 weeks before it comes! I love shojo manga, so I hope it's a good magazine!

[Dagger]

I bought the first issue, but I think I'm going to hold off on subscribing. Godchild is by far my favorite series (at least with just that first chapter to go by) in the magazine, although I hear that Nana gets much more interesting after the second Nana is introduced.

I found the concept behind Absolute Boyfriend to be simultaneously hysterical and repulsive; while there's a sense of glee and vindication to be discovered in reading such a shameless reverse Chobits, I would be quite surprised if the novelty didn't wear off two or three chapters in.

Baby & Me struck me as being out of place amongst the other offerings--that is to say, no bishounen, no adorably hapless Everygirl or name-taking role model to serve as a heroine. Neither of these things is an automatic strike against it, obviously, but it didn't do much to distinguish itself in general. I just don't see why Viz couldn't have replaced it with Full Moon wo Sagashite (which rocks) or one of their other non-serialized SB manga.

Crimson Hero was surprisingly fun--I'm not one to follow most sports manga, shounen or shoujo, but I might take a look at the graphic novels if I can get them cheap. Kaze Hikaru only managed to annoy the heck out of me, possibly because I've read vastly superior Shinsengumi-centric manga and possibly because getting a woman in the group is just such a ridiculous gimmick... even more so when they make the burgeoning romance with Okita (and of [i]course[/i] it had to be Okita) so very, very obvious.

In conclusion: Godchild is excellent and everything else can go rot, with the potential exception of Nana. I'm glad the mag has been done well so far, and I hope they will continue to keep edits to a minimum and successfully sell ad space to mainstream companies like Sephora. I'm also quite pleased that they haven't ruled out the possibility of running material related to BL series, contrary to what was reported at an earlier point; in the back of the third issue (which I glanced at because of the lovely Cain cover, but didn't end up purchasing), there's a full-page ad for La Esperanca.

Also, it vaguely bugs me that Viz spells the title with "shojo" instead of "shoujo," because now it seems like every other company out there is following their lead. I assume they don't seriously want to call it Virgin Beat...

~Dagger~

[Guest ShonenSamuraiMugen]

Cool... Looks like Shojo Beat is popular. Does anyone else like it? (Guys for instance...) Don't be shy!L.O.L!

[Guest eirht]

[color=#c0c0c0][font=Arial][size=1]I liked Shojo Beat, i've only read the second issue though. So far, my favorite story is Godchild. In a way, it's vampire-ish and I love the Victorian Era style.[/size][/font][/color]