Dengeki Daisy

Dengeki Daisy

by Kyousuke Motomi
Viz Media, 2007
ISBN 9781421537276
202 pages

4 (out of 5) STARS

Plot Summary

One day at school, Teru accidentally breaks a window and agrees to pay for it by helping Kurosaki with chores around school. Kurosaki is an impossible taskmaster though, and he also seems to be hiding something important from Teru… (www.amazon.com)

Evaluation

Kyousuke Motomi is a female manga writer and artist, though on the chat boards I read it is a topic that is up for debate.  She does usually draws and refers to herself as male, but is actually a woman, as per, the picture above.  She was born on August 1, year unknown.  She enjoys sleeping, tea ceremonies, and reading Haruki Murakami.

 A quote I found frequently is “If my stories can touch you, make you laugh, forget unhappy things, or even give you that 'good job' feeling, then I'll be super, super happy!" - Kyousuke Motomi.  Motomi is a quite private about herself.  I was not able to find much information about her.  I did find her personal website located at http://www.betsucomi.shogakukan.co.jp/talk/motomi/, but I got a good laugh out of it because it is all in Japanese which does not help me at all.  Although I did not find any information about artistic influences what little I did find indicates that she writes for entertainment purpose and to help people feel happy, if only for a brief period of time.

I do not believe this work is significant in the field of Josei manga.  Although I do believe it is a perfect example of a typical Josei manga book.  If a patron wanted to get a feel for what Josei manga is like this would be the perfect book to recommend.

Teru is usually a happy character.  This is portrayed in the pages by having thinly sketched illustrations with lots of white and light spaces.  When Teru is worried or something critical is happening the illustrations have thicker lines and there is more dark shading of the characters and the settings. 

Motomi uses lots of sound words throughout the book; words such as ‘Vwee,’ ‘Dash,’ ‘Shak, Shak, Shak,’ and ‘Shoom.”  These words add some humor and also clues as to what is happening within the illustrations.  Motomi is great at techniques like distance and angle.  I have included 3 pictures below of some angling techniques that I particularly liked.

Dengeki Daisy typically has 3 to 5 panels per page.  When Motomi wants to emphasize something then there tend to only be 3 larger panels.  But when normal dialogue is occurring there are usually 5 panels.  The 3 large panels drawn attention to themselves and the reader engages a bit longer with each panel.  Both the arrangement and the closure of the panels help to set the mood and tone of the book. 

I wanted to evaluate on the titles that I enjoyed the most.  The Josei Manga genre does not seem to be too challenging or thought-provoking but this is a title I enjoyed more than the other manga titles that I read.  I do not think any of the manga titles I read moved me enough to want to read the next book in the series but this book definitely got the closest to inspiring me to read more.  Although the plot of many of the Josei manga books was just ok, I thought the artwork was wonderful throughout all ten titles that I read.

Review

Dengeki Daisy, Vol. 1. (2010). Publishers Weekly, 257(29), 59.

Another review found at Graphic Novel Reporter.