FLOWER OF LIFE
Volumes 2 and 3
Fumi Yoshinaga
Digital Manga
Manga

While the first volume sets up Haru, a student recently recovered from leukemia, and his roly-poly new best friend Shota as our protagonists, the second volume immediately starts branching out, and each volume improves the series. This time around, FLOWER OF LIFE --- about a circle of friends in a Japanese high school --- turns its focus to the widening group of Haru's friends and acquaintances, from the painfully shy manga creator Sumiko to the resident class jerk Majima. While the first volume was far from bad, the second and third volumes are excellent. The characters really become engaging, and Fumi Yoshinaga rolls out her exceptional talent as both a comedic writer and a wizard at unexpectedly touching scenes.

In these volumes we get a lot of stories that have become cliches in schoolroom dramas from Japan --- from the obligatory school cultural festival, where each classroom must put on an event to try to attract the attention of their fellow students, to trying to organize a study session with less-than-perfect results. Volume Two revels in the escalating nastiness that Majima both perpetrates and inspires.  Everyone knows a guy like Majima, who is such a cold, condescending creep that talking to him makes even the nicest classmate have trouble acting kindly toward him. His wrong-headed insistence on taking over Sumiko's manga creation, driven by the excuse to use someone's real talent to get him into comics conventions early and his railroading of everyone around him, is both obnoxious and oh-so-familiar.

Even cast as the lead in their class play, revealing just how attractive he could be if he put his mind to it, Yoshinaga never lightens up on his mean streak. She also allows that he is a person, and that the cliche of an arrogant, cold-hearted romantic lead still has its appeal (especially as Majima gets involved with his conflicted female teacher, a plot that signals this series is intended more for older teens while never being too explicit). His foil throughout these volumes is the apparently meek Sumiko, a girl driven to create a romantic, melodramatic manga series that captures her classmates’ imaginations and hearts but who lacks the self-confidence to dare dream that her manga is worth anyone's time. As her friends all enthusiastically encourage her in her hobby, she begins to glow with the realization that she may not need to be so scared. Her moment of glory comes when she finally gives Majima back just what he deserves (in an exchange of insults that are at once extremely satisfying and a bit jaw-dropping).

The great thing about this series is that it is filled with so many of these satisfying, character-driven moments, and Yoshinaga has a wonderful eye for all of the humiliating and bravado incidents that are often the very reasons why affection, camraderie and friendship bloom into lasting relationships. Once you've gone through being a complete dork in front of your friends, you know they love you despite your flaws, and in the end this series is all about finding that group that loves you anyway. The third volume's tale of trying to pull off the best Christmas party ever highlights that despite everyone's worries --- that the cake won't be tasty enough, that the music is lame, that no one will forgive you for messing up the party favors --- finding the people who understand you and sticking with them is the key.

Unlike a lot of such tales, FLOWER OF LIFE doesn't feel saccharine or forced --- and the books are remarkably funny. This manga will definitely make you laugh out loud, and it quickly becomes something you can quote in front of your friends. Yoshinaga just knows how to tell a great story about real people, and it's a reminder how rarely we actually get that simple a tale in manga.

    --- Reviewed by Robin Brenner

© Copyright 1997-2008, Teenreads.com. All rights reserved.

Back to top.