Meteor Prince, Volume 1

May 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Seemingly cursed, Hako is known as the "Queen of Bad Luck" by her classmates. When Io, a gorgeous naked boy, falls out of the sky and claims to be her intergalactic soulmate sent to mate with her, is it a reversal of her typical misfortunes or more of the same? This shojo manga aims for a rom-com combo of genuine romantic tension and comic antics involving misunderstandings about humanity's distinctions between love and sex. This should provide for essential comedic encounters as the protagonists fumble to communicate and gradually discover how they feel, but the events don't click or inspire much in the way of heart fluttering. The author also hopes to navigate the weirdness of Io regularly pressuring Hako to have sex with him without any real-world overtones of how close that would be to harassment. This is mostly avoided, although a scene where Io threatens Hako's ex is particularly misjudged, and leaves readers unsure just how light and frothy this romance actually is. While the visuals hit all the shojo marks, many sequences are abbreviated and unclear, which helps make the characters seem thin and distant. VERDICT A middling and unlikely to charm graphic novel, with regrettable sexual politics.-Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH

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