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Anonymous
Posted July 4, 2007
A reviewer
Honestly, I wanted to like Serenity. As a Christian girl who loves manga and anime, I was willing to give it a chance. Unfortunately, it failed. The big reason is that the content here is TOO wholesome. Even Serenity's 'bad girl' portrayal is weak compared to 'bad' teenagers in real life, and this goes on to make the members of the 'Prayer Club' look perfect by comparison. This is supposedly aimed at preteen and teenage girls, but honestly, teenage girls have bigger, more complicated issues than Serenity is ever portrayed to have. A big part of manga, ESPECIALLY manga directed at teenage girls, is emotion and feeling. Serenity as a character seems almost cheerful compared to the angsty females in authentic Japanese manga. I commend these books for their effort to focus on God, but even the lessons about Him are just your basic sunday school fare. Another minor reason, but still a big one for me, is the artwork. It's clear a big effort was made to be appealing to manga fans, but the Serenity books are done entirely in color. Bright, annoying, sloppy color. For this reason, the books are short and expensive, and they don't even look good. Characters are generally colored nicely, but backgrounds and other things such as inanimate objects suffer, and are lacking in detail to the point of being ugly. Even clothing begins to look sadly generic. In a black and white manga, artists can bypass these things and still produce a good-looking work, but color has no mercy. It's a shame that the artists didn't stick to an authentic manga style instead of trying to make it look like screencaps from an anime. It's also obvious that these people aren't quite familiar with the style they're trying to draw anyway, as noses especially tend to be drawn normally but then shaded as if the line that was drawn is the whole nose, which leads to faces that will mildly irritate if you're a manga artist as I am. Obviously, this is a minor error on the artist's part, but together with hideous 'chibi' scenes and an overall generic look, it really distracts from what little story there is. To sum it up: they shouldn't be allowed to call this 'AMERICA'S PREMIER INSPIRATIONAL MANGA', because both the artwork and the method of storytelling are so far from what we know as manga that Serenity just ends up looking pathetic compared to the vast selection of stories that are more deserving of your money and time. Hopefully, we can expect Christian manga in the future to overcome these flaws and become more appealing, but for now, you're better off spending your money on something else.
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Anonymous
Posted August 11, 2006
Outstanding Book
This book is so enjoyable. It talks about the things that some christians go through. Questioning their faith and God. I would recommend this book to anyone.
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Anonymous
Posted February 10, 2006
Not a manga
Yes, I know, the publishers don't care and probably barely know what the word means, but it's still annoying. This is not a manga. A manga is a comic book/ graphic novel produced in Japan for a Japanese audience. This graphic novel was produced in US for a US public. The artist was apparently given a copy of 'Kids Draw Manga' and never bothered to develope their own style. The writing is didactic, but what else can you expect?
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Anonymous
Posted January 15, 2006
uhmmmm.... A Review...?
Serenity Harper is a new girl who has a bit of an attitude problem. =P The kids at school are willing to help her out, whether she wants the help or not! This was a really good magna, although it was short. It was still worth reading! XD
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Anonymous
Posted December 14, 2005
Serenity Bad girl in Town 1st inspiering christian Manga!
I found this Manga as an example of teens everyday lives. Some of us are in things like prayer club and go to church like Kimberly. People who were once lost but are now found. Who were blind but now see. But can only be found and see if they accept Jesus as lord and savior of their lives. And others of us are like Serenity who are lost and not found. Who are blind and still can not see. I highly recomend that the teens of today to read this Manga.
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