About the Mangaka

Yoshizumi Wataru started out as a normal office lady, and had her first short published in Ribbon. She’s done several other works, the most notable being Ultra Maniac and Marmalade Boy, both of which have had anime incarnations, and both of which have been licensed and released in the west (both anime and manga formats). Wataru also has a website, but it’s all Japanese

About the Manga

Marmalade Boy was one of my first shojo stories, and it’s still today one of my favourites.

Wataru’s art is nothing spectacular, it’s pretty much your generic shojo art of the day. She does struggle with the art a few times, and I really wish they’d get away from the overly handsome characters, with the heroin being normal. To many cliche’s get in the way of the story.

Luckily this doesn’t really happen here. Wataru’s story, while feeling a bit short, is well thought out and flows well. The characters she creates are full of life and entertaining. Even the support characters have a life and presence, something that usually gets left by the way side.

Her story is nothing unique either, but it’s well thought out and handled really well. The relationships that she’s penned are fun to watch and explore. I also liked how Wataru doesn’t focus solely on the Yuu and Miki relationship, but rather explores others as well. The most prominent would be Nat-chan and Meiko, who have the forbidden teacher/student love affair going on.

For me this was an essential break in things, focusing solely on Miki and Yuu would of lead to the series suffocating itself. By spreading the focus occasionally to other elements it allows people to digest the their relationship, while still getting a look at others bound together through the friendships.

Sadly it does get a bit predictable, and the last two volumes are a bit dull because of it. Though I will confess to getting a bit misty eyed in the final volume, where Yuu and Miki decide to go against the odds, and then the end when the truth gets revealed.

Like a lot of shojo titles though, this one could have done with an extra volume or two. The ending is to fast paced and not enough time is given for the emotions to really build up to a level where they’d be really emotional. As in the feelings of loss and betrayal aren’t explored fully, so in the end the relief isn’t a profound as it could be. I’ve found this is true with a lot of shojo series, so it’s nothing really new. It’s a shame though that they rush the ending. I’m guessing it’s because they’re only given a set amount of volumes/chapters for a story.

This series was also treated to a huge anime, running for 76 episodes, and a movie that was a prelude to the manga. It also had a ten volume light novel series, with illustrations by Wataru. Sadly they were never licensed, though I hope at some point they are.

This series is now officially unlicensed, since Tokyopop lost the license for it when Shueisha entered into a new deal with Viz.

Tokyopop did a fairly decent job on this one, given they used to butcher their releases with American slang and stuff. A few terms do appear occasionally, but mostly I was happy with their release.

The only thing I hated was the covers of the volumes, they’re freaking gross!! At the time this series was released they were doing this thing with the orange spines, as a result the covers really looked bad, thankfully they got over it and swapped to a new cover design.

While I love this series, it’s not quite good enough to go on my Essential Read list, though it do think it’s one you should try at least once.

Where to Buy

Sadly, since this is now unlicensed, it’s very hard to find. amazon has it on their Market Place, though they remove it every now and then, since legally they aren’t allowed to sell it anymore. the best place to find it is eBay, which is where I found mine recently