Review: PRETEAR

Spring is finally springing forth at last, and with it comes a month of magical girl manga here at the Manga Test Drive.  Our first title isn't one of the best known titles, but it's got some really interesting things going for it.

PRETEAR (Shin Shirayuki-hime Densetsu Puritia), written by Junichi Sato and art by Kaori Naruse.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Himeno went from near poverty to riches beyond their dreams when her father married a cosmetics magnate.  The only problem is that her stepmother and stepsisters antagonize her at every turn, to the point that Himeno feels like a stranger in her own household.  Her sad reveries are interrupted by seven strange men who declare her to be the Pretear and that they are her knights.  By magically fusing with these young men, she can gain elemental powers which she can use to fight the strange monsters that are stealing the life force from the world.  Himeno now has to juggle her family issues with her duties as a magical girl, even with the Princess of Disaster lingering on the sidelines.

STORY:

Poor Pretear.  Two decades ago, it was actually quite popular.  It certainly helped that Sato was still riding high upon his work as series director on Sailor Moon at the time.  Since then it's fallen into obscurity, thoroughly overshadowed by the other magical girl property he directed afterwards: Princess Tutu.  It's a shame because this manga adaptation actually makes the effort to fix some of the issues I had with the anime version, which more than I can say for most manga of this type.

It's definitely taking Himeno's family situation more seriously, where in the anime it was played almost entirely for comedy.  Despite the fact that the series's subtitle is "The New Legend of Snow White," this part is pure Cinderella.  Himeno is constantly scorned by her stepmother for not being a "proper" lady, her older stepsister actively bullies her, her younger one is so lost in her own angst that she believes everything her family tells her about Himeno without asking, and Himeno's father is too besotted to notice anything wrong.  Every time Himeno tries to shape up or reach out to her newfound family, it ends up blowing up in her face.  It's a tragic situation, but this manga never milks it too much for melodrama.  After all, she's got to keep her status as a magical girl secret all while seven weirdos keep following her around as they talk about leafe energy and Pretears.

I do like the approach both the anime and manga version take to the magical girl action.  In Pretear, it's something that requires active work and training on the part of Himeno and her knights.  It gives her something positive to work toward, as well as something to do beyond fighting the inevitable Big Bad and having romantic tension with the rude, dark-haired tsundere of the knights.  Even then, he's given more cause than usual for his pissiness, as he seems to still be bitter over the bad fate that befell the previous Pretear.  

The downside to this effort is that the actual magical girl action tends to take a backseat.  The fights are fleeting, there's little effort to explain things like leafe, half of the harem has yet to do a thing, and it's clearly dragging out the reveal about the Princess of Disaster for as long as possible.  Those interesting ideas give this series a good foundation to build off of, but Sato and his artist aren't using that foundation to its full potential.

ART:

Naruse doesn't stray much from the anime's designs, but her paneling is atrocious.  Panels are layered over one another constantly and it makes the pages hard to read.  That's a shame because she absolutely shines when it's time to draw Himeno's transformations.  When each knight fuses with her, she gains a new outfit, and each transformation is rendered in a delicate pirouette of swirling magic.  She makes good use of background flourishes like bursts of flowers and well-chosen screentones.  If only she gave them the space they needed on the page to really show them off.

RATING:

Pretear makes more effort than most anime-to-manga adaptations at adapting its story and there's a lot of neat ideas to be found here.  That makes it all the more of a shame that the magical girl part of it feels a bit neglected and the presentation obscures some of the better qualities of the art.  Much like the show it stems from, it's not a classic but it's worth a look if you're a magical girl fan.

This manga was released by ADV Manga.  This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available.  All 4 were released and are currently out of print.