MAMOTTE! LOLLIPOP, by Michiyo Kikuta. First published in 2002, and first published in North America in 2007.
PLOT:
Nina dreams of finding a dreamy guy to protect her, but in the mean time she's happy to settle for sweets. When she confuses a magic pearl for a candy, her life is swiftly invaded by two magical boys, Zero and Ichi. They're wizards in training who need that pearl to pass their exam, so they decide to stay by Nina's side until their teachers can find a magic cure for her problem. Between the other wannabe wizards seeking to take Nina's pearl by force and her own growing feelings for the boys, Nina's sweet and simple life is about to be turned upside down!
STORY:
Mamotte! Lollipop is meant to be a silly, simple story but I found largely frustrating and uninspired. My biggest issue was how passive Nina was in her own story. She might be our ostensible heroine, but not once in this entire volume does she take any direct action. Anytime she is threatened, she has to rely entirely on Zero and Ichi to protect her. Worse still, the two invade her life entirely: they enroll at her school, move into her home, and basically give her no space! Yet no matter how much Nina might fuss or pout over this, it's all eventually glossed over and treated as romantic because the boys held her once and made her heart go doki-doki.
It doesn't help that Kikuta doesn't put much effort into the characters. At most they're defined by quirks, as she tends to do with the villainous wizard pairs. Others are not defined at all, and the worst offenders in that regard are our leading trio of Nina, Zero and Ichi. I couldn't tell you much about Nina beyond the fact that she likes dessert and protective guys, and if not for their different hair colors I'm not sure anyone could tell the difference between Zero and Ichi.
Without any strong personalities to anchor itself around, Mamotte! Lollipop soon finds itself adrift. Kikuta starts learning hard on tired shojo manga tropes after only the first couple of chapters and it only gets worse from there. You know you're dealing with a lack of inspiration when you're breaking out the cliche 'hot springs' story by Chapter 3. They even have to pad things out with a side story (which was also Kikuta's debut).
The only way that Mamotte! Lollipop works is to presume it was made for very little girls who were just getting into shojo manga. Otherwise, anyone who is old enough to have even a cursory knowledge of the genre or think about these characters for more than a minute will recognize how utterly lacking in originality and personality this series is.
ART:
I was kind of surprised to learn that this series started in 2003 because these character designs are some straight-up 1990s Arina Tanemura-style shojo style. Spindly bodies with big squishy heads dominated by giant saucer eyes and cutesy, fancy fashion are all the rage here, and your own personal tolerance for that style will determine how far you get with this series. That being said, Kikuta's clearly got some talent.
She mentions in her notes that she worked previously as an assistant for Pink Hanamori on Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, and it really shows when she starts drawing the magic battles. There's a dynamic quality for them that feels very much in line with magical girl series of the time, and the confrontations and magical blasts are well-done. She does kind of go overboard with the cutesy screentones, though, which in combination with the character designs gives the reader a sort of virtual shojo sugar overdose.
RATING:
Even if I was looking for a shojo series appropriate for younger girls, I would want a series better than what Mamotte! Lollipop has to offer. I would want them to read something a little more timeless looking, with a better-developed cast, a heroine more actively engaged in her own story, and a few more original ideas to offer.
This series was published by Del Ray Comics. This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available. All 7 were published and are currently out of print.
STORY:
Mamotte! Lollipop is meant to be a silly, simple story but I found largely frustrating and uninspired. My biggest issue was how passive Nina was in her own story. She might be our ostensible heroine, but not once in this entire volume does she take any direct action. Anytime she is threatened, she has to rely entirely on Zero and Ichi to protect her. Worse still, the two invade her life entirely: they enroll at her school, move into her home, and basically give her no space! Yet no matter how much Nina might fuss or pout over this, it's all eventually glossed over and treated as romantic because the boys held her once and made her heart go doki-doki.
It doesn't help that Kikuta doesn't put much effort into the characters. At most they're defined by quirks, as she tends to do with the villainous wizard pairs. Others are not defined at all, and the worst offenders in that regard are our leading trio of Nina, Zero and Ichi. I couldn't tell you much about Nina beyond the fact that she likes dessert and protective guys, and if not for their different hair colors I'm not sure anyone could tell the difference between Zero and Ichi.
Without any strong personalities to anchor itself around, Mamotte! Lollipop soon finds itself adrift. Kikuta starts learning hard on tired shojo manga tropes after only the first couple of chapters and it only gets worse from there. You know you're dealing with a lack of inspiration when you're breaking out the cliche 'hot springs' story by Chapter 3. They even have to pad things out with a side story (which was also Kikuta's debut).
The only way that Mamotte! Lollipop works is to presume it was made for very little girls who were just getting into shojo manga. Otherwise, anyone who is old enough to have even a cursory knowledge of the genre or think about these characters for more than a minute will recognize how utterly lacking in originality and personality this series is.
ART:
I was kind of surprised to learn that this series started in 2003 because these character designs are some straight-up 1990s Arina Tanemura-style shojo style. Spindly bodies with big squishy heads dominated by giant saucer eyes and cutesy, fancy fashion are all the rage here, and your own personal tolerance for that style will determine how far you get with this series. That being said, Kikuta's clearly got some talent.
She mentions in her notes that she worked previously as an assistant for Pink Hanamori on Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, and it really shows when she starts drawing the magic battles. There's a dynamic quality for them that feels very much in line with magical girl series of the time, and the confrontations and magical blasts are well-done. She does kind of go overboard with the cutesy screentones, though, which in combination with the character designs gives the reader a sort of virtual shojo sugar overdose.
RATING:
Even if I was looking for a shojo series appropriate for younger girls, I would want a series better than what Mamotte! Lollipop has to offer. I would want them to read something a little more timeless looking, with a better-developed cast, a heroine more actively engaged in her own story, and a few more original ideas to offer.
This series was published by Del Ray Comics. This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available. All 7 were published and are currently out of print.
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