MeruPuri: Märchen☆Prince
MeruPuri

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Well, this is my very first review... so bear with me! So let's start!...

Story: The story in my opinion was different from the regular shoujo/fantasy/romance setups. It was captivating from beginning to end... in fact... I didn't want it to EVER end. Everything was executed perfectly without any rushing nor dragging. When you can finish up a manga or anime and have that content feeling of satisfactory closure, but yet want more... you know the author did their job.

Art: What can I say... Matsuri Hino's art is freakin' incredible. Completely beautiful, soft, magical, and SEXY! She's the true definition of a Shoujo Mangaka. If I ... could ever have her commissioned to paint me something, I would die happy... 'nuff said!

Characters: I LOOOOVED the character development of Airi and Aram. Especially Aram. Neither of them were bland nor boring and you see the growth of the relationship at a strong and steady pace. Their relationship was the most endearing part of the story.

Enjoyment: I couldn't put it down. I just had to see what was gonna come next. That said... no need to go into how much I enjoyed it.

So, obviously overall... I gave it a 10. This manga is a real winner. In my humble opinion... the epitome of true shoujo romance. I pray for the day that this will be adapted to an anime... cause I would definitely watch it!

I'm going to try and keep this sweet and simple.

Reading this story, I had no expectations. The story was alright. Knowing this was shoujo, I tried to think optimistically throughout the story and not get annoyed to a point I wanted to stop. The story was very predictable, and then again I say to myself-it's a shoujo. A 4 or 7 year old of course doesn't act as mature as Aram acted most of the time. I got confused about their ages especially. I'm going to guess that they're three years apart, even though the ages keep changing throughout the story. The only part I ... significantly enjoyed were the parts were Aram's reactions to his favorite anime, the Rangers.
The art was beautifully drawn, although I compliment all art.
The characters, once again, were unrealistic and in the back of my mind I couldn't image a seven year old being that committed to one woman. Let alone, think about women at that age. Airi annoyed be a bit, but she did have a bit of a backbone-so props for her.

In my opinion, overall, I would only read this if I was really bored. The story was absolutely cute in the beginning, but it just didn't workout for me in the end.

I read a preview of this years ago when it was sent to me by Viz. Finally got around to reading the whole thing. It still wasn't very good.

I'm unsure if it's poor translation or what, but it seems like pages of story were removed in several places. Characters skip over important emotional and plot moments for no reason. For instance, after Airi nearly falls to her death off a cliff and gets rescued by Aram, after Raz is disappeared, Airi is immediately apparently over whatever happened between her and Raz, and we only learn after THAT scene is skipped straight to wherever they're staying, ... that Aram is not feeling well as a result of the altercation. This happens multiple times and it leaves a relatively fast-paced story feel even more like a horse race.

The overall story seems to be that if you are sexy, and keep following someone around, and getting into their personal space, and get them to sort of become your maid, and order them around, and act territorial, and attempt to interfere in that person's friendships, then that person will fall in love with you. One moment Airi is very aware that Aram is a seven-year-old. The next, she is spontaneously head over heels in love with him because he can transform into someone who looks her age and is hot. Yeah, they're both still minors since she's 15, but it's just... odd.

Even beyond them, the character dynamics are all over the place. The opening of the story makes it seem like the story is about a jealous brother attempting to remove the other brother from the line of succession. Maybe an "I should be King, not you" situation. That goes nowhere. It turns into a kind of joke that's only really solved at the end in a rather disturbing, off-handed fashion. A lot of shoujo will do that with this kind of stuff, but I haven't read one before where it was this poorly handled.

Lei seems to have a weird attraction to Aram as a child, sort of as a stuffed animal, sort of as... I honestly have no idea. Then he turns possessive. Then he will literally BRAINWASH Aram to... to protect him? Then Lei reveals this undercover sort of affair with the Queen for no apparent reason other than that literally EVERYONE in this story falls in love with their person of affection on first sight and plot points are dropped randomly, with little to no emphasis. What happened to Raz? Oh, this guy who was important in Astale's history just left and he probably has descendants and Nakaoji may or may not know. What's the Queen up to? Well... she's possibly evil? What's the King up to? Not much, apparently he can retire. Why is the King letting all his subjects cross this forbidden boundary crossing? Cause. Why does Aram need to learn about our world? Cause. What was Jeile's punishment, and what does the chain do? Who cares, cause we don't get to find out.

The jokes are typically "this thing is cute, look how cute, isn't cat-fighting cute?". The frequent brainwashing, assault, implied sexual assault... Isn't it great when all women see each other as enemies, rather than people who might be stuck in an unfortunate situation? Airi makes no female friends until about the end of the story. Her first female friend is shown being judgmental because Airi's standards are too high. Later, when Airi reveals her crush, that friends says they're rivals. This is the generic catfighting bs I always hate in these stories. And then of course she has one guy friend who isn't making fun of her for having high standards or spreading rumors about her love or sex life, and he's a potential suitor, like basically everyone around her but Lei, which means that all the guys around her either want to get in her skirt or otherwise manipulate her. It's actually pretty terrible, particularly given her isolation at home.

And then of course there's the way the nobles in this fantasyland we know next to nothing about treat everyone who isn't another prince or the King or Queen like dirt. I get it, class system and all that... And Big Brother citizens... What an amazing fantasyland I'm so curious about it! It doesn't have to be a perfect utopia, but Airi's world seems to only exist to have Airi in it. Certainly the school system has no value whatsoever (plot-wise, other than giving characters an excuse to be around Airi for five seconds before we move to people walking around somewhere else), she has no visible support system, since we never see her family, and the only named student who isn't from Astele is a sort of crush she has for a minute or five. And the rest of the time, Astele is interfering with her school life in one way or another. So you've got one world we don't care about because everything is either about Aram or Airi surviving the hijinks created by the magic foreigners, and another world that sucks a lot and isn't that interesting. So there's nowhere in this story universe that we want to stay. And a cast of by and large sameface male characters with different hairstyles who are by and large pretty screwed up and have no comprehension of boundaries.

I'm also unsure if it's the translation or the actual dialogue, but the dialogue is at turns either ridiculously drawn out and dry, or petulant and stupid.

This was earlyish in Hino Matsuri's career, and I've never read/watched "Vampire Knight", so I like to think her art improved since this. All the men (except the King) between the ages of 15-20s look the same: generic skinny with some abs maybe. Everyone has giant eyes on tiny skinny faces that drown out all other expression without actually showing any expression, like the big eye concept is SUPPOSED to, the women are all 'sexy' sticks. Backgrounds are usually good when they are used, or voids when not. Detailed outfits look like a glitter machine and a ribbon machine went crazy, with no rhyme or reason for actual outfits that even look good in the slightest.

Overall, it's not a great fish out of water/sexy born yesterday story (not that the latter ever really are). If you want a good fish out of water story about friendships and character development and magic and interdimensional travel, particularly with an emphasis on female friendships and some love triangles, read "Ultra Maniac". You want a funny reverse harem story, watch "Ouran High School Host Club". You want a great fish out of water/sexy born yesterday with the same dynamic (woman from our world, guy is the fish), watch "George of the Jungle". Skip this.