Happiness! If everything goes according to schedule, the Marmalade Boy manga will be out on the twenty-third of April! I can't wait! Marmalade Boy was the first anime to attain the same status as Rurouni Kenshin as one of my favourites (of course, now Hana Yori Dango and Kodomo no Omocha also share the honour), so I'm really glad that it's getting a North American release, even if I still have my doubts about Tokyopop.
Out of all of my favourites, Marmalade Boy is something of an oddity, actually. Usually I'm a stickler for solid plot development and pacing, but, well, MB just doesn't meet my usual standards. I won't go into detail and spoil any of the plot, but I will say that the story seriously dragged in the middle and wrapped up ridiculously fast at the end--not to mention I'm sure I was laughing out loud in places where I should have been sniffling and crying. =Þ That said, I will also say that the reason I love the series is for it's characters.
All of the characters in MB are well developed, so much that everything that they say or do, no matter how odd it seems, totally fits their personality. Somehow the series, the anime especially, manages to give a complete understanding of the characters' personalities without limiting them to single defining character traits. It also helps, I think that anyone who's experienced the tumult and insecurity of teenage years will find something within at least one of the characters that they can relate to. It's hard for me to explain this clearly, but I guess what it comes down to is that I love Marmalade Boy because I could totally emphasize with the characters, I could understand their feelings and the reasons why they acted the way that they did. Even though some of the situations and circumstances were utterly ridiculous, the actions and reactions of the characters were very real.
Another great thing about the anime was the music!! I was extrememly fortunate to be able to purchase an original Japanese version of the Best Single Collection, and I swear I could listen to it on repeat non-stop without tiring of it. I only wish that I had found out about the series earlier, before all of the soundtracks went out of print. ^^;; Of course, that seems to be a typical problem for me; the Tsukushi Encore Pieces CD from Hana Yori Dango is practically impossible to find for a good price and I'm getting to the point where I'm almost willing to spend $80 on a single CD.
Before I leave off for today, I'll share my "Murphy's Law"-esque experience with MB. I first rented some of the tapes from a local comic book shop. MB hooked me almost immediately and since I thought that no company would ever pick up the rights to such an old but not "classic," and quite long to boot, shoujo series, I started looking for Canadian fansub distros. Over the next few months I scimped on lunches to pay for the entire collection; even costing only five to seven dollar a piece, the twenty tapes (including the MB movie) still came to a hundred over dollars, and I was supposed to be saving up for Anime North at the time. So I had the anime series. Then I went to Anime North and picked up six of the eight manga even though I couldn't, and still can't read a word of Japanese. Of course, I was still under the impression that no one would ever pick up Marmalade Boy because it was too long and the there were supposed to be a lot of hassles involved with separately licensing the music, of which there had been a lot, as well. Naturally, about two weeks after AN, Tokyopop announced that it had the rights to the MB manga, and of course, it was confirmed this year that they're also planning on releasing at least the first 24 episodes of the anime as well. Now I will have to re-buy everything as domestics--not that I mind paying more for domestic releases, but I would have preferred to bought only the domestics, rather than both the fansubs and originals and the domestics. =Þ
