{"id":622,"date":"2009-11-26T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T01:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/2009\/11\/shoujo-gateway-book-x-day\/"},"modified":"2009-11-26T20:05:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T01:05:00","slug":"shoujo-gateway-book-x-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=622","title":{"rendered":"Shoujo Gateway Book: X-Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Whenever someone asks me a good shoujo book to start with, I always recommend X-Day<\/em> <\/a>by Setona Mizushiro<\/a>. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n

1. The layouts are relatively comprehensible\/normal for people new to the shoujo collage-y reading. It\u2019s always clear where you\u2019re supposed to read next. It\u2019s always clear where you are in a scene; but it doesn\u2019t sacrifice any of the enjoyable, airy reading of most shojo comics. Everything flows horizontally\u2014across the pages like a scroll\u2014as opposed to the top to bottom, top to bottom feeling of most comics. This is how a lot of shoujo are, but if you\u2019re new to it and start reading Clamp<\/a>\u2019s X\/1999<\/a><\/em> it looks pretty fucking confusing. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on? Why are there birds flying around indoors? Ha ha.” X-Day<\/em> is clearer. X-Day<\/em> also doesn\u2019t have all of the flower pattern stuff that seems to turn people off. Personally, I like all the \u201cflower patterns = love\u201d stuff; it\u2019s high school; it\u2019s pop. Blankets<\/a><\/em> is secretly a shoujo comic, I\u2019m just not sure it knows it. If you aren\u2019t into melodrama and \u201cflower patterns = love,\u201d you probably aren\u2019t going to want to read most shoujo anyway. Your loss.<\/p>\n

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2. It\u2019s short. It can be intimidating if you want to start reading shoujo and it\u2019s a twenty-volume, thousands-of-pages investment; even when it takes ten minutes to read a volume and public libraries are ridiculously well-stocked in shoujo (kids read them; libraries want kids to read.) Anyway, X-Day<\/em> is only two volumes long. It\u2019s a low-level commitment. Both volumes are probably sitting in a \u201cfive-dollar box\u201d at the comic shop.<\/p>\n

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3. It\u2019s good. Rika, a senior former track star, stumbles upon an online chat room where she meets two other students and a teacher who are all frustrated with the school and their lives. Rika\u2019s ex-boyfriend is now dating her best friend. An injury made it so she can\u2019t play track anymore. They all plot to blow the school up\u2014that\u2019s the titular \u201cX-day.\u201d I think it\u2019s an accurate depiction of high school life. All of the characters are plagued by feelings of isolation: \u201cI\u2019m smiling and \u2026 acting like everything is normal.\u201d None of the characters understand why the other characters would also feel the way they feel about the school. Conversations move quickly for a page and a half and then a moment is frozen and broken down. After talking to her ex-boyfriend, the panels are divided into quiet moments where Rika just lowers her head. Rika walks down the school hallways in large panels, repeating, \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter\u2026 it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d After one character says, \u201cAt least I \u2026 like you,\u201d it\u2019s repeated over and over. It\u2019s all an internal landscape. \u201cWhat kind of girl \u2026 am I?\u201d It can be intensely moving or a laugh riot depending on what you bring to the book. Either way, it\u2019s entertaining. Give it a chance.<\/p>\n

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Whenever someone asks me a good shoujo book to start with, I always recommend X-Day by Setona Mizushiro. Here\u2019s why: 1. The layouts are relatively comprehensible\/normal for people new to the shoujo collage-y reading. It\u2019s always clear where you\u2019re supposed to read next. It\u2019s always clear where you are in a scene; but it doesn\u2019t sacrifice any of the enjoyable, airy reading of most shojo comics. Everything flows horizontally\u2014across the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,838,1203],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-happy-thanksgiving","tag-manga","tag-shoujo"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}