Feb 06
25
Title: Girl Got Game 1 – 10
Author: Shizuru Seino
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Remarks: Jen gave the whole series to me to list on Ebay. Since I had them, I thought that I might as well read them first. Admit it – you’d have read them first, too!
This series was so-so. It’s your typical cross-dressing, gender bending romantic comedy. Kyo’s dad, a basketball nut, applies to a high school where Kyo can play basketball. The twist; he fills out the paperwork stating that she’s a he. Kyo ends up at school, sharing a dorm room with the star of the basketball team, hot headed Chiharu. The entire 10 volumes is them bickering and trying to keep Kyo’s true gender a secret.
I didn’t mind the books so much until the very last volume. The teacher-student basketball match was totally retarded. It was a parody of sports manga, and I just found it dumb and out of place. Granted, there was plenty of off the wall comedy in the series prior to this, but none of it was this far fetched. It totally ruined the ending for me.
The other annoying thing about these books were TOKYOPOP’s awful covers! What were they thinking? They all looked pretty much the same, and they definitely didn’t make me want to rush out and buy them. The Japanese covers were so much better! I think TOKYOPOP thought the covers would be hip or something; instead they just sucked!
I find it funny how TP has gone from being my favorite manga publisher, to about 3rd on the list right now. Viz is doing a much better job getting good material, and their final product is a lot slicker than TP. The glaring errors aren’t there, and the paper is a higher quality. I guess instead of licensing anything that was published over in Japan (or Korea), Viz was actually studying market trends and going after big titles. Of course it helps that they’re a sub of a publishing conglomerate in Japan, but TOKYOPOP had such a huge head start, I didn’t think anyone would be able to catch up to them…
Grade: C –
