Sleep Is For the Weak

PG-16 for sexuality and other shoujo stuff; official series website

A shoujo manga about an “ugly” (read: perfectly gorgeous but unpolished) girl who happens to live in an awesome house. Enter four spectacularly beautiful boys who wish to live in that house, but on one condition: turn that “ugly” girl into a proper lady. Sound bad? It is, for the most part. I like the message that beauty is nothing but attitude and presentation, both because it’s true and because it reflects the Japanese motto of “anything can be achieved through hard work,” but the rest of the manga is a mess. The mangaka tries to cram in too many fan-conscious shoujo hooks and then somehow justify that with unique flourishes of her own, but most of her flourishes are too strange or awkward to be really good. The Wallflower feels like the result of some halfway decent artist reading far too much shoujo far too quickly. There’s also an anime for this show known as Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (”Perfect Girl Evolution”), and I think ADV bought it for a North American release. I’ve never seen it, but the character designs–already pretty creepy in the manga–reach new levels of terrifying in the show. For God’s sake, when your pretty boys look like they’re from a world either off in space or under the sea, you have a problem.

Educated impression: Don’t bother unless you’re addicted to shoujo. (Lianne)

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