Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sakura Tsukuba
Translation/Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
What They Say
An order from the student council threatens to destroy Arou’s school garden! To make matters worse, Kanade has glimpsed a future in which the beautiful student council president falls in love with him! Does Kanade have enough confidence in Arou to disregard her vision?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
A dispute over the gardening club’s plot size puts Arou at odds with the student council. A compromise is eventually worked out, but the conflict has an unexpected result –Kaicho, the beautiful student council president, falls in love with Arou! When Kanade’s powers give her a glimpse of Kaicho’s confession of love to Arou, Kanade’s confidence wavers. Will her budding relationship with Arou survive or will this provide troublemaker Namiki with the perfect opportunity to split them up?
Ah, the insecurities of a teenage girl’s heart… While both Arou’s and Kanade’s powers figure into the Arou-Kanade-Kaicho chapters, the story could have worked just as well without the couple’s supernatural talent. This arc primarily focuses on the introduction of Kaicho and the “threat” she poses to Arou and Kanade’s relationship. Even so, the story isn’t so much about conflict caused by love triangles as it is about Kanade trying to handle her own insecurities about her first romantic relationship. There’s never any real animosity between Kanade and Kaicho, and even though Namiki does take the opportunity to stir up from trouble, he’s not genuinely malicious about it. The only conflict really is over Arou’s garden, and even that gets resolved relatively amiably and quickly.
Out of the five chapters in this volume, my favorite has nothing to do with Arou and Kanade and everything to do with Namiki. Chapter 14 is a one-shot story of Namiki and his dog which includes a cameo of Kaicho and her younger brother. It starts off funny and cute, but we also get a glimpse of Namiki’s younger, less hardened self as well as some highly perceptive observations from Kaicho.
In Summary
I’ve dropped the text/translation grade down a notch as CMX uses the Japanese terms “ne-chan” (older sister) and “onii-chan” (older brother) but does not define them anywhere, which may be confusing for manga newbies. In addition, there are also some typos in the text. This volume includes a table of contents, cast of characters, and four pages of “Sakura Mail,” notes from the mangaka.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B-
Text/Translation Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: CMX Manga
Release Date: July 20th, 2005
MSRP: $9.99
