Customer Reviews

Fairy Idol Kanon Volume 1

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At a first glance, this title seems to be some mostly harmless fluff, but actually reading through this manga of my daughter's, I was pretty impressed with messages it imparted. Nine year old Kanon and her classmates Kodama and Marika love to sing. Marika in particular is obsessed with the idea of being a star, and so is quite competitive when it comes to tryouts for the school musical. She gets sulky when she does not get the solo, but nonetheless, agrees to sing in harmony with her two friends when they unexpectedly meet the fairy, Alto. Alto is very weak, for the fairies' life force is dependent on the beautiful feelings conveyed by singing from the humans of earth. The more accomplished and emotionally felt the singing, the more power. The girls sing her back to health, and in exchange Alto decides that she knows what her mission is. She must use her fairy powers to help the girls storm the entertainment world. With their voices booming out across the world, people will join in song, and the fairy kingdom will be saved!

There is a hitch however. First of all, Kanon may love to sing, and spends most of her time doing so, but the household chores and her studying are left undone. When her mother refuses to allow her to try out at a junior idols singing contest, Kanon realises that her mother is right. One cannot only do the things that please themselves, but must to also tend to their other personal responsibilities. Explaining this to her friends, they knuckle down with her, and help her study. Pleased at her daughter's show of maturity and reflecting on the happiness her daughter's beautiful voice gives, her mother tells her that being an idol is a very demanding job, but now that she has shown she can face her responsibilities, she will give Kanon the chance she has asked for.

This in turn leads to another revelation to the girls. They wow the judges, but the fact is, despite this, the girls miss qualifying by coming in third. The sad fact is the contest was predetermined, with the expectation that the people off the street applying would be terrible. Another words, the contest is a publicity stunt to highlight two acts that the sponsors wanted to promote. These girls have the wow factor though, and so it is decided to make them a special case, and they are passed to the national finals. Once there, they discover that not everyone wishes to be an idol in order to share their happiness, but out of a selfish desire for adulation. One young idol at the national competition has learned this selfish self promotion from her own mother, who is a famous actress. Even worse, she seems to have a dark natured fairy that uses their own power to sabotage any rivals. Is this the cause of the dark spots appearing in the fairy kingdom? Is this why so little joy is spreading across the world, preventing voices from lifting in happy song? As Alto tries the combat the magical sabotage during the contest, her wand is shattered, and the girls manage to struggle through their performance, but it is a loss.

Dashing back to the fairy kingdom to get her wand repaired and investigate this possible bad fairy conspiracy, Alto leaves, and the girls are left to cheer themselves up. Pure of heart, they meet a young man who worked at the place of their first competition. He has a guitar, and together, the youngsters sing to brighten up their mood. Standing in Harajuku on a busy Saturday afternoon, crowds gather, and what is this? A talent scout? Will the girls make it after all, despite having no magical assistant to twinkle up their wardrobe and defend against sabotage?

This cute little story takes the current love of song contests and pop idols to tell a story about true friendship, good personal character, and personal responsibility. It does it quite well, managing to impart the morals without preaching or making them obvious. Girls 7-13 will no doubt love the storyline, as well as the art. The girls are cute, the clothes typical for children of a certain age, and the costumes straight out of a princess idol fantasy. The language is simple as well, though not simplistic, making this a great way to get children to practise their reading skills without feeling overwhelmed, as the art helps tell the story, and text limited to short sentences in each panel. The chapters are not overly long either, so it makes a perfect read at bedtime with natural stopping places.

My six year-old daughter loves this series. The story is about three talented girls whose singing provides magical power to a fairy realm. Adults will recognize the themes, but they're done reasonably well and with enough original touches to keep the wince rate down as you read through this with your kid. The story and art are pretty well done, and my daughter adapted quickly to the Japanese-style panel and text arrangement (i.e. reading panels and pages right-to-left, instead of left-to-right. Don't worry - the text within each speech bubble is standard English and left-to-right.).

I could do without some of the belly-baring costumes the girls perform in, but unfortunately A) that's probably realistic in terms of what young girls singing on stage would be asked to wear, and B) overall this series is nowhere near as bad as most super-hero comics in terms of the female costuming.

Overall, this has been a pretty good motivator to get my daughter to read more.

The main character is Kanon, a fourth grader who enjoys singing, and her two best friends, Marika and Kodama, also like to sing. One day, the three friends find a fairy named Alto, who needs the three girls to sing together, so she can regain her strength. After she is better, Alto explains that the fairies get their energy from the beautiful singing of Earth. However, people have become more interested in trends and what's popular, instead of appreciating music; thus, fewer beautiful singing voices have been reaching the land of the fairies. Alto convinces the girls that they need to help, so the girls decide that they need to audition and become idols to spread their beautiful music. During this volume, Kanon must convince her mother that she needs to go to an audition, the girls compete in a couple of contests, and even meet a rival idol who has her own fairy.

When I read manga that's aimed at children, I go into it trying to use my "willing suspension of disbelief" and try to appreciate it. Unfortunately, I discovered rather quickly that I had a very hard time using my "willing suspension of disbelief." The dialogue is rather poorly written; however, I'm not sure if that's the fault of the original manga author or of the translator. However, when it comes to the plot, it felt like the manga author knew where they wanted the story to go, but didn't try very hard to find convincing ways to get from one plot point to the next; a lot of times, it parts of the plot felt rather forced. The whole premise of this manga series comes across as rather laughable. It also feels like the manga artist is sending out a conflicting message: the story is basically saying that people are more interested in trends and popularity than in good music, but these characters who are trying to save the fairies are entering idol contests (and idols are the epitome of trends and popularity). Even if the premise were executed a little better, I still have a hard time believing this story with such young protagonists. Personally, for a story such as this, I think it would have worked better if the protagonists were in late middle school or early high school; I have a hard time believing that fourth graders would be able to compete in idol competitions as easily as these characters, as well as to have people so mesmerized by their singing. Admittedly, their fairy helps them out with their costumes, but it's never shown that she enhances their singing abilities in any fashion with her magic. I also felt as if the story was being "dumbed down" for the audience, and that it was written by a pre-teen or early teenager.

The art is also rather underwhelming. For the most part, it seemed like the manga artist wasn't going to a whole lot of effort to include much in the way of details to their art. Perhaps it was felt that simplistic art was more appropriate for a manga series being created for children. When it comes to the American presentation, there's one scene where the three protagonists are wearing sweatsuits that have their name on the shirt. In most of the panels, their names appear in English; however, there is one panel where this change was missed, so the Japanese characters appear on their shirt instead. After finding such a blatant mistake in this English adaptation, it makes me wonder what other kinds of mistakes may also be in this volume that I missed.

Fairy Idol Kanon is only going to appeal to a young female audience that isn't going to know better about how the music industry works and can appreciate the story as a "pre-teen fantasy."

Fairy Idol Kanon is rated "Kids Age 7+."

I wrote this review after reading a copy of this manga that my older daughter checked out through the King County Library System.

The sparkles and sweetness of Fairy Idol Kanon may make adults roll their eyes, but it's written for young girls, and it's best viewed through that lens. It's about fairies, after all, and it puts a very important matter--the fate of all the fairies--into the hands of three girls who must accomplish a difficult, but rather fun, task--they need to become famous singers.

Kanon, Kodama, and Marika are schoolmates, and they all love to sing. Marika is serious about it; she takes professional voice lessons and has ambitions of becoming a star someday. She's also selfish, conceited, and shallow. Kanon is untutored but has great natural talent; when she sings, people say things like "I don't know how to explain it, but your voice really makes me excited. It's like you can make everyone happy just by being happy while you sing!"

The adventure starts when Kanon and her friends come across a little fairy lying on the ground. The fairy is ill, and she tells the girls that only one thing will make her better: Hearing the three of them singing in harmony. True to form, Marika demurs, but Kanon talks her into it, and together the girls sing the fairy back to health.

The fairy then explains that fairies get their energy from the sound of human singing. She gets a bit preachy here: "But lately, people do not appreciate songs as much. It's all about trends and what's popular. Fewer and fewer beautiful singing voices have been reaching the land of the fairies."

The solution, of course, is to hijack that trend and have the girls become enormously popular singers. If there's an especially weak point in this story's logic, this is it: The only way to spread the beauty of song is to go on the Japanese equivalent of American Idol. So that's what they do. Naturally, there are many obstacles to overcome: Kanon's mother disapproves of the whole enterprise, their first competition is fixed, and the girls run up against a nasty competitor with some supernatural powers of her own.

This manga is actually a very familiar sort of kids' story, dressed up with references to an American Idol-type show. The lead character, Kanon, is obviously the chosen one--the other girls are good singers, but Kanon's voice reaches people in a special way. The story actually sends an odd mixed message: On the one hand, Kanon has natural talent and is willing to work hard to attain her goal: That's good. But Marika's ambition is presented as bad. The difference lies in the fact that Marika is selfish and wants to be the star, while Kanon is self-effacing and team-oriented.

As with the other Udon books, the storytelling is kept simple, with expressive characters and just a few word balloons per page. Kanon is sweet, Marika is selfish, Kodama is nerdy. Evil is signaled by black clouds floating around a character. The grownups are loving but don't always get it; only the girls know what's really going on. And the fairy sprinkles just enough magic to keep things moving--she leaves the serious problem-solving to the girls themselves. And that's the best thing about this book--the fact that the girls are empowered to work together (admittedly sometimes in goofy ways) to achieve their common goal.

-- Brigid Alverson