By You Higuri & Shinji Wada
Published by Go!Comi
Rating: Older Teen (16+)

Penniless, parentless and homeless to boot, Mahiro Shinomiya’s hard-knock life is completely upended when a long-lost mercenary brother arrives with a partner in tow. Secretly the missing daughter of Regalian royalty, Mahiro’s new position brings with it a host of new dangers—assassins, malicious stepmothers, and international incidents that leave her brother scrambling to protect her even as Mahiro herself rallies new allies to their fight. The discovery of mysterious powers somehow linked to her royal past doesn’t help matters either; for Mahiro, street life may have been a killer, but being a princess might really be deadly.

The prevailing sentiment that comes to mind about Crown is “odd.” It’s shojo, but not really; clichéd, but self-aware; remarkably competent, but maddeningly frustrating. Perhaps the most off-kilter part of the series is its focus—where shojo would point from Mahiro outward, Crown meanders between Mahiro, pretty-boy brother Ren and third-party neutral, with the end result being a somewhat distanced, less girl-centric feel. This comes possibly as a result of the unusual Higuri/Wada author pairing, as while Higuri provides the visuals, more old-style shojo vet Shinji Wada handles the story and script. Wada is experienced in writing manga involving girls (but not necessarily contemporary-style shojo), and it shows; there’s a kind of gender neutral hybridization at work in Crown, one in which the main female lead wanders a thin line between girl-protagonist and moe fanservice paste-in.

Equally mixed is the overall plot arc and tone, as while Crown demonstrates flashes of wink-nudge self-awareness, it still adheres to its respective set of overused tropes so closely that even a twinge of snark can’t enliven this dead horse. Herein lies the frustration: Wada, if you know it’s clichéd and you know it’s simply a rehash or familiar shojo bits and pieces then why do you persist in chugging along the same route to the tee? A back-of book rhetorical question seems to hint at the answer, as Wada ponders in the author’s notes, “How do I write a story that I can fit hot guys into?” Even pure manga eye candy shouldn’t leave the reader with lurking uncertainties (with perhaps foremost among them being “what are we to make of the semi-unnerving incestuous relationship between Mahiro and brother?”), something that Crown seems to have conveniently forgotten.

That said, it’s hard to fault the artistic competence on display across Crown’s pages. Higuri is in her zone here, with aforementioned large helpings of pretty boys and a relentlessly, soul-crushingly sunny female lead to render as she pleases. Action scenes are crisp and understandable (a definite plus in a series with seemingly more carnage and explosions than usual) while the fluffier bits don’t suffer from the standard shojo overabundance of flowers and fluttery screentones. It’s hard to argue with an illustrator clearly tapped for her role in the project exactly because of her skill with a pen; fans of Higuri’s previous male-centric works will likely find both the familiar and the pleasing in Crown.

To be fair, Crown could, theoretically, be worse; at least it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and manages to pull off its own wacky brand of mediocrity with panache. The prevailing sentiment, as aforementioned, is “odd”—not particularly bad, but not great either. Shojo readers looking for a less girl-focused title, or even pliable male readers aiming to do a bit of grazing in the direction of the shojo pastures may want to give this one a try. In place of spectacular highs and lows, Crown finds a kind of hazily tolerable middle ground… albeit a slightly more unusual one than most.

Volumes one and two of Crown are available now.