One of the unforeseen complications of remembering your past life: the people you loved not remembering their own past lives, and… your wife coming back as a man?
Creative Staff:
Writer/Artist: Mizuho Kusanagi
Translation: Nan Rymer
Adaptation: Sarah Tangney
What They Say
A high school boy is the reincarnation of a citizen of Pompei, and his friends around him are all also reincarnated (although they don’t remember it the way he does). His wife from the past is now a middle school boy, and his best friend is now a cute girl! Lots of comedy and gender confusion ensue!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Keidai’s high school life, perhaps a normal one from the outside, is anything but–he remembers his past life as a Pompeian citizen. Even worse, the people closest to him are also reincarnations of his friends and family members in Pompeii, but they don’t remember anything about it. This includes Keidai’s best friend (the male Loleus in Pompeii, but the female Serizawa in Japan), and his new next-door-neighbor Yuuma… Who was once Keidai’s wife, Serena!
If this sounds like the plot to a gender-bending romantic comedy… Well, it is. And yes, there are all the cheap comedic angles that you would expect, involving several scenes where Keidai drools over “Serena,” only to be reminded, usually via a punch from Yuuma, that things have changed. Of course, you also get the hints of a possible future romance between Keidai and Serizawa, but the author has the sense to not shove it in your face. It’s not what is important in this series, which might be why Tokyopop has it tagged as a comedy instead of a romance.
Even so, the real meat of the first volume isn’t the wacky humor or the hints at romance. It’s about Keidai and the issues that arise from, well, being surrounded by people who don’t remember the things that he does. The plot devices that are used to explore some of these concepts (the girl who likes Keidai, or the play in later chapters) aren’t original by any means, but there’s so much earnestness behind them that it’s hard to get upset. Through all of these various situations, all that our endearingly clueless hero wants is to be with the people that he loves–and it’s hard to argue with that.
In Summary:
The first volume of NG Life, although nothing mind-blowing, is definitely enjoyable. The struggles of Keidai’s present life are so inextricably tied to his past life that I never felt like one was dominating the other–and, even more remarkably, I actually cared about what he’s going through now and what he went through in Pompeii. I found the comedic aspects of the story to be genuinely funny, although I could see Keidai’s stupidity getting on the nerves of some readers, while the (serious) romance is kept at a refreshing minimum. And whether Keidai’s stupidity is annoying or endearing, the fact that a male is the main character is enough to differentiate this from much of the shoujo on the market today. The selling point for me, though, is the character relationships, particularly how Yuuma’s arrival is forcing Keidai to reexamine how he views his current life. This first installment shows a lot of promise, so I only hope that the rest of the series won’t disappoint.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: C+
Text/Translation Grade: C-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: TOKYOPOP
Release Date: March 17th, 2009
MSRP: $9.99
