By Mai Nishikata
CMX, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

Takami just can’t keep boyfriends. Even though she’s tall and good-looking, being raised with her older brothers has made her into more of a tomboy than most guys are comfortable with. After a bad breakup, she often runs into the arms of Akira, a boy she’s been taking piano lessons with since she was young. Akira can always make her feel better with a song. But at the beginning of this volume Akira also makes it clear that he likes Takami in more than just a “younger sister” way. But how does Takami feel about Akira? Little by little, Akira shows Takami that perhaps they are more than best friends, or sisters, as Takami likes to see it.

Each chapter of this volume, save for the first, used a pretty common manga plot device. The characters get to participate in a school festival in the third chapter, where there’s a “prince and princess” contest that the main characters enter. Bonus cliché points for crossdressing. The fourth chapter features an amusement park date between Takami and Akira, complete with ferris wheel ride. The second chapter introduces a character who seems like she’s going to be a rival for Takami since she makes her feelings about Akira clear, except she doesn’t appear again for the rest of the volume. I actually kind of liked the story a little better for that, because rival characters that pop in no matter what is going on can get a little annoying.

Despite all this, I actually really liked the volume. Takami and Akira are likeable characters, and while they aren’t the deepest or most well-written couple in the world, I actually kind of liked the fact the story switched things around and had the boy pursuing the girl. Or rather, had a boy pursuing the girl who wasn’t a total creep. There is a slight aura of mystery left around Akira, but given the fact he’s pretty up-front about his feelings from page one, you can always assume he’d do anything for Takami and that he’s usually acting in her best interests. Takami strikes me as slightly selfish, since it’s always her getting comforted by Akira and its hinted that Akira has a slightly troubled home life, but she also sticks up for him and other people, and she does go through a lot to do things for her friends. I think the only thing that felt a little off between the two was that Akira was still in junior high, but since he looks and acts like the other boys in Takami’s high school, it’s not something that really affects the story.

There’s a music element to the series, but refreshingly, it’s not really an overpowering theme or a professional interest for either character. The two take piano lessons together, and often when Takami is upset Akira will play something to cheer her up. Akira is a more serious player than Takami, and some of the story elements deal with him playing at clubs or being a prodigy. But mostly it’s just used as a hobby element to link the two characters, and I liked that about it a lot.

The art is nice, if pretty standard, shojo manga art. The character designs are handled well so that all the characters look different enough and there’s no confusion about minor characters. Akira’s character design in particular is quite nice, but he’s supposed to be good-looking. I like the younger versions of Akira and Takami, too, and the clothes the characters wear are also quite good.

The couple is at least cute enough to carry it through another volume, and hopefully by then the story will have gathered enough steam to keep itself going without the use of common plot devices. Even then, the first volume is a cute read and definitely worth checking out for shojo fans.

Volume one of Venus Capriccio will be available on April 15, 2009.