One of an occasional series reviewing titles from Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint. This installment looks at two ongoing series, Crimson Hero (volume 7) and Love*Com (volume 4), as well as a brand new series, High School Debut.

Crimson Hero, Vol. 7

By Mitsuba Takanashi
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen

At the beginning of volume seven, Nobara finds herself at a figurative crossroads: if she remains with her teammates, she may never realize her potential as a hitter, but if she accepts an invitation to participate in the All Japan Training Camp, she risks humiliation at the hands of more skilled players. Nobara decides to attend—a decision she immediately regrets, as rivals from the Spring Tournament seize the opportunity to harass her. Meanwhile, the boys’ team faces a hazing problem of its own. When the second-year students quit in protest of Keisuke and Yushin’s promotion to the starting line-up, the only sophomore to remain on the team becomes the object of an aggressive bullying campaign that quickly escalates from name-calling to violence.

Despite the locker room intrigue, the pace of volume seven is rather pokey, with too many scenes of Nobara shedding tears and begging her friends for guidance, testing their patience—and ours—in the process. By the final chapter, however, Nobara has found her resolve, and heads off into the sunset (literally!) to find herself a volleyball guru—at the beach, no less. A new setting, a new set of characters, and a new set of rules for game play may be just what Crimson Hero needs to snap out of its mid-season slump.

Volume seven of Crimson Hero is available now.

High School Debut, Vol. 1

By Kazume Kawahara
Viz, 192 pp.
Rating: Teen

Haruna Nagashima, the heroine of High School Debut, might best be described as a recovering jock. In junior high, she was the star pitcher on her school’s softball team, leading them to a major championship with her strong throwing arm. Now a high school freshman, Haruna decides that finding a boyfriend is her top priority. She hangs up her glove and dedicates herself to her new extracurricular activity by poring over women’s magazines for dating tips, haunting pick-up spots, and wearing attention-grabbing outfits.

Alas, her initial efforts yield nary a phone number, so Haruna searches for a dating coach to teach her how to dress and behave around boys. She approaches Yoh, a handsome upperclassman who seems McDreamy—until she has a conversation with him and discovers that he’s downright rude. (In one exchange with Haruna, Yoh critiques her style by comparing it with a bad-tasting beverage: “Mixing coke, tea, and orange juice would taste nasty, right?! That’s exactly what you’re doing!”) Though Yoh initially refuses Haruna’s request for help, he eventually relents, agreeing to show her the ropes if she promises not to fall in love with him.

Reading the jacket copy for High School Debut predisposed me to disliking this manga. Its powerful-boy-makes-over-hopeless-girl plot seemed retro and more than a little sexist, not to mention rather stale—She’s All That, anyone? I was pleasantly surprised to discover, however, that the underlying message of the book is deeper and wiser than “Makeovers make everything better!” In his inimical, blunt fashion, Yoh dispenses the kind of advice that I’d give my teenage daughter (if I had one, that is): he tells Haruna that she needs figure out what kind of person she’d like to date and, more importantly, what kind of person she is, before she’s ready for a boyfriend.

The artwork, like the motherly advice, is another strength of High School Debut. The layout flows nicely, with Kazume Kawahara artfully varying the detail and density of her panels instead of cramming every inch of the page with super-deformed reaction shots and muttered asides. Each of the characters has a distinctive look that suits his or her personality, from Yoh’s squinty-eyed sullenness to Haruna’s wide-eyed radiance. Excellent visual storytelling skills helps Kawahara avoid a trap that’s ensnared many a shojo manga-ka: telling us how her characters feel instead of showing it. There’s a particularly effective sequence near end of volume that’s completely wordless, revealing Haruna’s thought process through a series of simple, evocative images that allow the reader to actually see things through Haruna’s eyes.

I still have reservations about High School Debut. Any series with a Pygmalion-esque premise is bound to raise some uncomfortable questions about gender equality, no matter how smart or sporty the Galatea stand-in may be. Yoh wins points for his sound observations and make-under tips—he steers Haruna towards comfortable street clothes and urges her to ditch the ultra-femme accessories—nonetheless, he’s a condescending jerk. If Kawahara has the imagination to pair Haruna with a more appropriate suitor than Yoh, this series will earn a place on my regular pull list; if not, I may not stick around for yet another romance about a good girl falling for a rude but soulful schmuck.

Volume one of High School Debut is available now.

Love*Com, Vol. 4

By Aya Nakahara
Viz, 184 pp.
Rating: Teen

A very silly subplot in volume three—involving a beautiful transvestite who almost fools Otani into thinking he’s a girl—nearly derailed this delightful series, threatening to transform it into a more conventional shojo comedy of the wacky-misunderstandings variety. With volume four, however, Aya Nakahara gets the story back on track by shifting the emphasis to Risa and Otani’s friendship. Risa has finally admitted to herself that she has a crush on Otani and, with a nudge from her friends, tries to confess her feelings to him. But things go awry, leading to a scene that’s both amusing and cringe inducing in its honesty.

It’s these kind of understated moments that distinguish Love*Com from dozens of similar opposites-attract romances. Nakahara has the discipline—and patience—to show us how and why her characters are drawn to each other, charting the ups and downs of their courtship; she seldom takes the kind of frustrating shortcuts that can make shojo seem so utterly divorced from reality. Love*Com does run risk of becoming repetitive, as Risa and Otoni seem to play the dozens once per chapter, trading the same insults (“shrimp” and “jumbo gal”) every time—a problem that might be remedied if Nakahara developed some of the secondary characters such as Risa’s buddies Nobu and Nakao, who were more of a presence in the first volume. That said, Love*Com remains one of the most consistently entertaining titles in the Shojo Beat line, winning points for stylish, evocative artwork and sympathetic, vivid characters.

Volume four of Love*Com is available now. Viz will also be releasing the Lovely*Complex movie on February 19th. Click here for more information.