Mary's Review: The Wallflower by Tomoko Hayakawa (Graphic Novel)

Take one of the nauseatingly numerous makeover shows and make it over with the typical shojo conventions: beautiful guys, romantic entanglements, lots of flowers drawn in the background. That's really, in essence, what you have here. Four guys are offered the opportunity to live rent-free in an enormous mansion if, and only if, they can transform the landlady's niece into a proper lady. Easier said than done. Sayoko, the girl in question, is fond of graphic horror movies, the dark, and her best friend is an unnerving anatomical doll named Hiroshi-hun. And she's happy that way. The following volumes take that narrative and insert it in various situations, most of them amusing. The only setback to the series is its stagnant, start-and-stop pacing. The slapstick is funny, the dialogue witty, but it never goes anywhere. Sayoko takes a half step forward for the sake of the plot only to take three steps back when the problem is solved. This same problem holds for Sayoko's quasi-relationship (or it would be if they weren't similarly stubborn, which is what suits them for each other) with Kyohei. Wallflower can be forgiven for much of this: the series is still running, and slowed progression is a hallmark of the genre. At the bottom line the series is much in the same boat as Hana Kimi, sans sports. Not terrible (Tokyo Mew Mew) nor fantastic (Mars), but somewhere in between. Enough to appeal to the usual crowd anyway.
Final Verdict: 2.5 Q, 4P