WARNING: It’s one of “those” series. Whatever “those” means!
Go Comi! was once a proud and maybe trusted company that existed in North America. My history with them is next to nothing however, as by the time I started to become aware of manga and wanting to know what manga is out there, Go Comi was already done, and all I can remember from the top of my head is that they had some sort of website incident I believe. Feel free to look it up, because I’m not going to talk about that. I’m instead going to pick up one of the titles they happened to license and release called Ultimate Venus (Kyuukyoku Venus).
After reading the first volume I have no idea why this title is called Ultimate Venus.
This isn’t to say Takako Shigematsu’s manga is bad though. Surprisingly enough it was pretty good. It probably might be cliche to more experienced shoujo manga readers though, but I wanted to come out of this first volume wondering whether I should read more, or whether I should just toss it aside return it to my library with no complications. The latter happened because it has a nice lead in Yuzu Yamashita. You see, her father had already past away, and left her family with a ton of debt. Her mom ended up having to work a number of jobs, and eventually she passed away as well. However, instead of moving to any of her relatives nearby or staying over at a friend’s house, she makes her home in the playground.
No, I’m not kidding, she literally tries to live in the playground.
I wasn’t kidding about this!
But she ends up getting found by Hassaku, who is a butler to Yuzu’s grandma. When Yuzu is taken to her Grandma’s home, it’s an estate disguised as a castle, with plenty of butlers at the call and an elegant lifestyle that Yuzu’s never been a part of. Unfortunately for Yuzu, she has to be part of said lifestyle, as her grandma’s in need of someone to be the heir for her family, and unable to escape (as in, she tried to leave since grandma was being crappy to Yuzu’s mom, but she was denied that and locked up), she ends up having to undergo training and live this fancy life.
What really stands out for me with Ultimate Venus is the amount of intrigue — family, rich, and business wise — that allows me to sink my teeth into and not get bogged down on irrelevant details. For example, Yuzu, who’s basically used to a normal, mundane lifestyle, now has to take over the Shirayuki line. Needless to say, for her to suddenly ascend to this level doesn’t make people in the family very happy, and in one instance, her second cousin makes her intentions clear on how she feels by stepping on her dress (and yes, it rips a bit).
It doesn’t even end there. It gets to the point where unknown groups make an attempt to actually kidnap her, or even try to hurt her. Of course, whether this falls on the believability scale is most likely up to your taste, but maybe if the protagonist was meek or one of those standard shoujo characters that normally fawns on the guys, the actions would come off as just dumb. But Yuzu is a no-nonsense, very independent character, and one who takes nothing from anybody. She basically proves this by shoving it to the cousin who ripped her dress, showing off her leg, and declaring her intentions in a manner that someone would be slapped for not clapping in respect. And the best part is she consistently shows this, which makes some of the actions acceptable.
The other thing that interested me was the actions of her grandma. She did not approve of her daughter marrying Yuzu’s father. And with him dying and leaving people in debt, and of course what happened to her in the end, it probably makes her come off as she was right, and acts like this is the case to Yuzu. But even she does show some affection to her daughter at one point, (though it was only hinted at and Yuzu was hiding for dubious reasons) and while she didn’t get off to the best of starts with Yuzu, she gradually warmed up to her, even taking her out on business trips. In fact, there was a part where she was working so much, it did make me take a step back and remember that there are rich people somewhere out there that actually do work hard, just like anyone else.
Anyways, the manga is fairly enjoyable, with a strong lead, a solid story, and even a bit of mystery and suspecting occurs in here too, which makes the line that one of Yuzu’s classmates says that you can’t trust anyone stick out in this work. The art unfortunately, leaves a bit to be desired. Shoujo always seem to have a style that involves not properly drawing an actual slap or any fighting, and in some cases, we get into Yuzu’s head a lot. Not that inherently is a bad thing, but it’s done often enough where I go, “Just let me think on why this kid is so mean to you!” Hey, Go Comi seemed to have had some titles! But I guess something like Ultimate Venus wouldn’t sell…
