Monkey High!, Volume 1 [Paperback]

Shouko Akira (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2008

It's hard enough fitting in at a new school while dealing with family problems... Will Haruna remain jaded and distance herself from everyone around her? Or will Masaru win her over with his monkey magic?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Can style propel well-worn subject matter into something much more substantive? Reading the first chapter of this manga brings up that question. The story of a pretty young girl named Haruna transferring to a new school starts off in a manner familiar to anyone with any experience reading fiction based on a high school setting. She doesn't fit in with any of the established high school cliques and compares high school to a mountain populated with monkeys: both value hierarchy. What better way to illustrate the students' hierarchy than the ever-popular idea of a high school musical? Haruna starts challenging the social system when she chooses nerdy Masaru for a role over the school's resident lady-killer. Akira's always attractive illustrations of teenage romance set the book apart. Scenes between Haruna and Masaru have a delicate look. There are figures in silhouette and beams of light shining through when Haruna finds herself falling for the boy she compares to a baby monkey. Despite the title, Akira never resorts to the chibi style. Her characters are all forceful and strong-looking. and her technical skills keep the familiar material fresh. (Mar.)
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From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–Haruna sees the students in her new school, with their cliques and power struggles, as acting like monkeys on a mountain. She wants to keep to herself, but because she's beautiful, the boys start vying for her attention and the girls are getting jealous. Atsuyuki is usually the center of attention, so he assumes that Haruna will fall for him. However, his friend Macharu is mesmerized by her, and over time she grows to care for him, too. When she tells him her theory, he asks how she fits into it. It is his honesty that first begins to crack Haruna's armor, and it creates the first step of their surprising relationship. The other students are preoccupied with this drama, which seems to indicate that either they watch too many soap operas or that they don't see too many transfer students. The artwork is lively and bright, and the romantic scenes are filled with the prerequisite bright shining eyes and glowing snowflakes, moonbeams, etc. Readers who get caught up in the couple's first fight, first hand-holding, and first kiss will wait breathlessly for the other volumes in this series.–Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421515180
• ISBN-13: 978-1421515182
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #992,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Characters, Dull Plot (3 1/2 Stars), May 9, 2008

By 

Hakajin "Ecclectic Student" (GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Monkey High!, Volume 1 (Paperback)

"Monkey High" is about a girl named Haruna who has to transfer to a new school after her father is involved in a political scandal. Haruna never had any friends to speak of, and she's always thought of high school as a "monkey mountain" with all its juvenile cliques. But at her new school, she meets Macharu, a sincere boy who happens to look just like a baby monkey.

This manga has strong characters. Haruna is more serious than most manga heroines. She doesn't spend time wishing she had more friends or mooning over some guy. She's really indifferent to high school life. "Aloof" would be the perfect word to describe her. I find this refreshing after seeing so many dramatic shojo heroines. Macharu is absolutely adorable. He's baby-faced, innocent, and very straitforward about his feelings. He's one of the sweetest shojo manga heroes I've read in a while. Macharu and Haruna have an interesting chemistry. Macharu doesn't force himself on Haruna, but he's very sweet to her, and makes his feelings known. Haruna doesn't know quite how to react to his sincerity. She seems to like Macharu, but doesn't want to tear down the walls just yet.

The major drawback to "Monkey High" is its plot. It's pretty much a line of cliches. The first chapter is about the school play. Really, how many times do we need to see this one? (But at least Haruna doesn't end up playing the prince to Macharu's princess.) There's also the school trip. *Yawn*. I've read some of volume two, and it doesn't seem to get much better. It's a shame, because the characters and their interactions were interesting. I would have liked to have seen them in more interesting settings.

Still, it's not a total loss. "Monkey High" was entertaining enough to get me through the volume. It doesn't have any mature content, which makes it a good choice for younger manga fans. I would most strongly recommend it to younger girls who are just starting to get into shojo manga. I think it would have been more interesting to me if I wasn't so familiar with shojo cliches.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lovable, August 10, 2008

By 

J. P. Spotts - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey High!, Volume 1 (Paperback)

I don't read shojo manga. I've been picking up samples of Viz's Shojo Beat manga at Comic-Con since they started putting out the sampler and nothing ever caught my eye until this year. For me Monkey High isn't like any other shojo manga I've ever seen. All the other shojo manga had ridiculous premises that the reader was just supposed to believe could happen in real life. If we're going to go with something far-fetched, you might as well throw magic or an alternate dimension in. Or I just couldn't relate to the characters, and who wants to read a manga where you can't relate to the characters? What I love about Monkey High is that it has that sense of realism to it, and the characters are lovable. With great artwork and good pacing, it all just falls into place.

5.0 out of 5 stars Turning familiar love-manga tropes on their heads, August 22, 2011

By 

L. Martin "(Get Mikey to Try It!)" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monkey High!, Volume 1 (Paperback)

I read this and loved it almost unconditionally. Some of the story sags a bit as it goes over some familiar love-manga territory. But that for me was totally outweighed by two other factors: the teen heroine is not a merely a super-girly, starry-eyed teen cute-boy fan; and the hero is not handsome. For me, a long-time male reader of manga who has ventured tentatively into reading shoujo manga recently, both these facts are amazing. The first of these departures from standard shoujo practice made the heroine seem tremendously appealing, almost precious, to me. As I read "Monkey High", it was almost like I had gone back in time to do high school all over again, only to stumble upon the finest possible girlfriend candidate immediately.

This story has this vicarious peak experience and a lot more as well to offer male readers. First, for those of us who were losers in the appearance lottery back then, the manga lets us vicariously relive the old high school experience of being a non-handsome guy looking for love at the stage of life when people of both sexes are most fixated on appearance. Only this time, unlike the experience of many such guys then, our stand-in, Macharu, is not struck dumb by the weight of all that indifference from girls. Instead, in this manga this representative non-handsome guy is decidedly odd-looking, but despite that is decidedly determined. This makes for a fascinating degree of suspense as Macharu plugs away month after month at courting Haruna in the midst of an unbelievabe degree of suspense as to whether he will get her in the end, given his complete unacceptability, within the normal shoujo universe, as a boyfriend candidate.

On the art front, this unusual manga is blessedly relieved of the etiolated girly-boy male leading characters, and the overall art style that feels as if one is floating in a world that never quite becomes real. The manga is a love story for men as well as women.