After-school activities were never this extreme when I was a kid. In Pretty Maniacs, Shinano must struggle with all her might to keep the Manga club alive or else have its plug pulled by the school president, Manju. She must find members and she must produce a manga comic book, but currently her membership consists solely of herself. As she struggles to at least double the membership, she continually bumps heads with Yura, a Manga fan who likes all the titles that Shinano loathes.
This fun and quirky tale of feuding politics plays well to a female audience, though males could also find interest in the series. Of course, the irony is not lost on anyone when writing a comic book about a comic book fan club and their attempts to publish a title of their own. Shinano’s explosive personality often makes her the source of her own trouble and adds to the humor of her predicaments.
The typical manga art requires little comment as it meets general standards. The significantly striking features of each of the main characters prevents confusion sometimes present in other manga titles when characters are so visually similar it distracts the reader from the story. Light-hearted and enjoyable, Pretty Maniacs manages to bring a realism to the world of comic books and make the mundane interesting.