Kuragehime - my favourite anime of this season's ongoing series

I realize it's been a long time since I last wrote something. Although I do love my blog, I find it hard to pick things worth writing about since I've always appreciated quality instead of quantity.
This week however, I seem to have found a new reason to write (except for the newly increased number of followers; wow! I have 6 followers!!! those guys with over 200 followers are probably laughing their heads off at me now or will- that is if they ever happen to stumble upon my tiny little blog. Nonetheless, I'm truly tankful to all those willing to follow my blog and maybe even browse a little through the contents. Arigato gozaimasu!). That reason just happens to be a truly unique anime called Kuragehime.
Surprisingly, I've never before wrote about anime, though they do have quite a big part in the birth of this huge mania of mine for everything Asian. However, truthfully speaking, I hardly find any good anime to watch these days.
My first anime was Sailor Moon ( well, maybe it wasn't quite the first, but it was the one series that really got me into the whole anime "business"). Though looking back at it, I find it a bit immature and sometimes way too sappy for my tastes, I still enjoy watching it. All throughout the years, I've desperately tried to get a hold of those nostalgic feelings that this anime brought me, the same excitement, the crazy flutter of the heart, the small butterflies in the stomach that I used to have when I was a little child. Of course I'm passed 20 now, but there were some anime that brught me close to that same excitement I was talking about earlier: Fullmetal Alchemist, Death note, Denno Coil, Special A, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Darker than Black, Hunter x Hunter... which brings us to the topic of today's post.

Plot:

Kuraghime it's an anime inspired by the josei manga with the same title written by Akiko Higashimura (for those of you wondering, "kuragehime" literally means "jellyfish princess") and its plot is centered around the main character, Tsukimi, who is a jellyfish otaku. Tsukimi shares a house with other otakus, all of them obsessed with different things: Chieko adores kimono and other traditional clothing, Mayaya is obsessed with Records of Three Kingdoms and constantly makes references to them, Banba is a train otaku and Jiji is obsessed with mature men (yes, this one is by far the strangest kind of obsessions if you ask me).
The story starts one fateful night when Tsukimi walks by a pet store and sees two jellyfish in a tank. Being a true "jellyfish connoisseur" she realizes that the two species are incompatible with each other and one of them would soon die if kept in the same tank. Suppressing her fear of talking with men she approaches the shop assistant and desperately tries to convince him to move the jellyfish in separate tanks, but the man takes her for a crazy person and pushes her out of the store. At that point, Tsukimi is saved by a gorgeous lady who convinces the shop assistant into giving the jellyfish to Tsukimi and accompanies Tsukimi back to her house. Tsukimi is tired and she soon falls asleep completely forgetting about the beautiful woman in her room. When she wakes up though, she notices the woman had also fallen asleep in her room, but, surprise-surprise, she is in fact a HE!

Personal opinion:

As you may have already noticed, this anime has a very unique feel to it. First of all, there aren't many anime where the main male character is a cross-dresser. That is something that basically screams "original" in your face!
Sencondly, and probably the most important thing actually, it's the construction of the main character, Tsukimi. Tsukimi is a shy, innocent virgin who dreams of meeting Prince Charming, though she does nothing to help him come along and has a bizarre hobby. She is portrayed in a very realistic way and even though she's a total "looser" in terms of social life, she truly grows to the viewer and you come to like her and root for her. Even more so when she transforms into a breathtaking beauty after a make-over applied by our proffesional cross-dresser.
As for the cross-dresser, whose name is Kuranosuke, he turns out to be a totally normal man.In fact, the main reason to why he likes to wear women's clothes is because he wants to seem like an irresponsible guy so that all of the hard work is passed on to his older brother. The other reason is the fact that he loves make-up. Ah, what a wonderful man, nee!?
To be honest, the secondary characters piss me off. All those otakus are pretty much histerical frustrated women. The only one who I approve of is Banba-san and the only reason of my empathy is because Banba-san never talks.
However, one truly cute and lovable character is Kuranosuke's brother, Shu. Shu appears to be a very serious and strict person, but he blushes like a teenager when he sees Tsukimi (in her "Cinderella" version). As a matter of fact, the two have many things in common: they're both virgins and they're both really shy and , most likely, they're both want to get married. And, somehow, this annoys the hell out of Kuranosuke.

Well, as I'm sure everyone noticed judging by the enthusiasm with which I've written about this anime that, so far, I am truly enjoying it and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone!


EDIT:
So, Kat was kind enough to let me know that Tsukimi is not actually in her 30s. I apologize for the misunderstanding. As for Jiji, I accidentally wrote that she loves mature women, while I meant MEN. Sorry again for the mistakes.
Kat, thank you for pointing out my mistakes. It shows that you really took the time to read it carefully. I really appreciate that.

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GOONG MANHWA REVIEW

Synopsis:

The action in this manhwa takes place in a fictional Korea where the country is ruled by the monarchy. The main character is a lively and innocent girl by the name of Shin Chae-Gyung, who lives a normal and careless life as a mediocre student coming form a common family. One day, she hers the handsome prince Lee Shin, who goes to the same school as her, propose to a girl and being coldly rejected.  That same day, Chae-Gyung receives a mind-boggling  news: she is to be married to the crown prince as a result of a promise between her grandfather and the former king, who had been best friends. In order to help her family's financial situation, Chae-Gyung decides to go along with the marriage.

Personal opinion:

        I was extremely excited to start reading this manhwa, especially due to the superb art that drew my attention immediately. the artist has an incredible talent, particularly concerning drawing of individuals and portraits, apparel, but also some very nice backgrounds.

        I was expecting a funny and light story and I wasn't really disappointed at the beginning and kept thinking it will get better the more I read it. 

Indeed, the story doesn't lack cute characters and a very well developed romance plot. Actually, in comparison to the Korean live-action inspired from it, the manhwa concentrates a lot on the developing feelings between the characters. The "change of heart" the main male character has by falling in love with another girl doesn't seem forced like it seemed in the drama. On the contrary, his feeling develop slowly and grow little by little until he realizes he is indeed in love. His confession also takes place much later after he discovers his own feelings making al seem more plausible, more life-like.

       However, while comparing the positive points with the negative ones, I realized that the negative aspects are far more numerous.

       Firstly, the usual cliché: the love triangle. What is it with Koreans and love triangles? I admit, love triangles sometimes  add a "juicy" detail to the whole plot, but sometimes they just make it annoying and I think this is the case here. I really don't understand why in every manhwa there are always two people that want to get between the two main characters - a guy, usually nice and kind-hearted (in this case, his nice personality is mostly just a façade though) who is in love with the main female lead and a girl, who's usually very b****y, that madly and obsessively loves the main male character and does anything to attract his attention and to break him up with the one he loves. The main girl  never ends up with the nice guy, but chooses the cold, cool and tough guy. Always.Whilst the girl who wants the cool guy ends up meeting someone who understands her and woos her continuously until all of a sudden  she realized she has fallen in love with him.     

       Secondly, I really don't understand the humour. I am a huge fan of humour and Asian humour really is one of the best I've ever seen, but this manhwa is really not suited for humour, which is why every time I encounter a funny scene, instead of  making me laugh it just leaves me dumbfounded, because it has no place in the whole plot. Not to mention that most funny scenes are just grossing me out cause they're mostly if not entirely based on the character of a perverted eunuch. So, the humour didn't do it for me either.

        Last but not least, what really put me off was the tragedy. Honestly, I have nothing against realistic plots and this plot was quite realistic; yes, politic schemes are known to exist in every monarchy, and, truthfully, everyone knows nobles and the members of royalty have marriages of convenience, but were so many tearjerker scenes necessary?! If the author truly wanted to be realistic then she could have invented dozens of ways to get the main characters out of lamentable situations. But in truth, those occurrences were actually an excuse to torture the readers and prolong the plot, transforming it into an authentic soap-opera. In truth, this is also something typical for the Korean authors. Most tend to make tearjerker plots that remind me of the Spanish "telenovelas". And sadly, I have to admit that I can't stop reading it because I kept thinking "damn, I got so far! I can't give up now!". I feel so cheated! 

         In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'm a very strict and picky person. Although this review sounded like a total negative advertisement, I'm sure many of you would still like Goong very much. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to insult the author, nor am I trying to offend Goong fans. I'm just being honest and say my truthful opinion. It's a personal opinion, therefore it is also subjective.So, instead of wondering whether you should read it or not, at least try browsing through a few pages. It may turn out to be your type of story. 

       Enjoy your read, everyone!

       

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