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absentminded_reader's review against another edition
2.0
This was a good series marred by two things for me: 1) Too large a cast without a lot of character development and 2) an ending that was fragmented and rather dull.
The story telling was solid since Wataru Yoshizumi was a seasoned mangaka by this point. And the situations were often funny. Also, the art was adorable. Nina Sakura was a cute character. I just felt the story felt thin compared to Marmalade Boy. This, I believe, was due to the simplistic conflicts. It was a story about a inept magical girl who found new ways each week to mess up her best friend's life. The similarity to Doraemon was even pointed out by the characters. Unlike Marmalade Boy, this was a short story that wrapped up in five volumes as opposed to Marmalade Boy's eight. I don't feel the story was long enough to balance three couples and a coming of age story arc with a bevy of side characters. Often mangaka will introduce new characters to spike reader interest, but the readers often lose interest when the main characters just aren't that interesting. I feel this was the case with Ultra Maniac.
As for the ending, it felt anti-climactic until the epilogue where things were tied up nicely. Perhaps introducing yet another character was too much to throw in the mix. Each new character took time away from Nina's story and her story was thin to begin with. The truth about Nina's academic capabilities was sprung on us without enough foreshadowing and felt more like a gimmick for ratings than an organic part of the story.
Still, I didn't mind reading the story. Consider Ultra Maniac more of a guilty pleasure.
The story telling was solid since Wataru Yoshizumi was a seasoned mangaka by this point. And the situations were often funny. Also, the art was adorable. Nina Sakura was a cute character. I just felt the story felt thin compared to Marmalade Boy. This, I believe, was due to the simplistic conflicts. It was a story about a inept magical girl who found new ways each week to mess up her best friend's life. The similarity to Doraemon was even pointed out by the characters. Unlike Marmalade Boy, this was a short story that wrapped up in five volumes as opposed to Marmalade Boy's eight. I don't feel the story was long enough to balance three couples and a coming of age story arc with a bevy of side characters. Often mangaka will introduce new characters to spike reader interest, but the readers often lose interest when the main characters just aren't that interesting. I feel this was the case with Ultra Maniac.
As for the ending, it felt anti-climactic until the epilogue where things were tied up nicely. Perhaps introducing yet another character was too much to throw in the mix. Each new character took time away from Nina's story and her story was thin to begin with. The truth about Nina's academic capabilities was sprung on us without enough foreshadowing and felt more like a gimmick for ratings than an organic part of the story.
Still, I didn't mind reading the story. Consider Ultra Maniac more of a guilty pleasure.
tora76's review against another edition
4.0
When Ayu does a favor for Nina, Nina decides to repay her by telling her her secret: she's really a witch from another world called Magic Kingdom. She wants to help Ayu out by doing some spells for her, but unfortunately the reason she's at Ayu's school is because she was flunking out of her magic school, so nothing she does quite goes as planned.
I wasn't that thrilled with the plot of this because I'm not that big a fan of magical stories, but the magic is really in the background here. Mostly this is the story of Ayu and Nina's friendship and their respective romances, and by the end I found I was enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.
I wasn't that thrilled with the plot of this because I'm not that big a fan of magical stories, but the magic is really in the background here. Mostly this is the story of Ayu and Nina's friendship and their respective romances, and by the end I found I was enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.
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