Honey Hunt, Volume 3

Yura is still a bundle of nerves as she gets ready for the second script reading of the next "Noodle Girl" episode. Things get worse as she loses a contact lens, or so she thinks, but the loss might be the key to her regaining her confidence. Her lovelife gets more complicated as Q-Ta leaves for England for a month long recording session. Even if he had remained in Japan, Keiichi, Yura's manager, has forbidden him to have contact with Yura. This does allow an opening for the increasingly smitten Haruka to try to squirm into Yura's heart. He believes that if Yura sees him performing with his band, Knights, she will fall in love with him. But this is Haruka we're talking about, a dude that doesn't want to show that he's falling for her. Knowing that Yura wants to know more about Q-Ta, he dangles the carrot of telling her everything there is to know about his twin brother...IF she can get tickets to the Knights 3-evening engagement at the Tokyodome. Problem is, all three shows are sold out. A couple of reviews back I asked myself whether I would be able to continue reading this series. The reason I asked myself this was because I had a lot of hostility to Aihara's art. It just isn't that good. Yura is especially unappealing, looking like a giant lost fishhead most of the time. But in a little afterword at the end of this volume, Aihara insinuates that she purposefully designed Yura as "plain". Now things are making a bit more sense. Aihara is going to goad Yura to succeed even if she isn't a "classic" model level beauty. She's gonna have to get by with her spirit, determination, and inner spark. She not only has to win over the characters in the book, but also the reader! I for one really admire her as she has developed more and more of a backbone, starting with telling her parents to go to Hell on TV back in the first volume. She not only refuses to stand in the shadow of her famous parents (especially her mom), she wants to exceed them! That would be like Julian Lennon saying he's going to write better songs and sell more records than John Lennon. It takes a lot of courage to say something like that, much less do it. I really like this story. I'm still trying to figure out if Q-Ta likes Yura or is more in love with her dad. And is Haruka really falling for her or is he just trying to take something away from his bro? Excellent shojo.

I really enjoyed Miki Aihara's "Hot Gimmick" manga series and now I'm enjoying "Honey Hunt". With two volumes now available in the US courtesy of Viz Media under its Shojo Beat imprint, volume 3 is now here and the storyline starts to heat up as we can see a major love triangle starting to develop. In "Honey Hunt", the manga series focuses on Yura Onozuka, a daughter of the very popular and beautiful actress Yukari Shiraki and popular musician Takayuki Onozuka, the first Japanese to win an Academy Award. Yura is quite normal and despite being the daughter of a popular actress and musician, she does not hone their entertainment skills and there is a lot of pressure and expectation from her teachers and students at school because of her talented parents. While her father is staying in New York and her mother is always working, Yura confides to her friend/tutor Shin. Her best friend and a guy she thinks she's attracted to. One time, while both were watching an interview on television with Yura's mother Yukari, she sees how talented of an actress she is because she is able to lie about being a great mother despite having a busy schedule as an actress. We seen Yura's life made upside down with her mother's announcement that she is divorcing her father. To make things even worst, her mother is sleeping with the guy that she likes. So, An infuriated Yura promises herself that she will get back at her mother, by being a better actress than her. And under the direction of her father's manager Keiichi Mizorogi, Yura scores her first major part and that is for a major ramen commercial. In volume 2, Yura begins her try at acting and scores an audition for a popular ramen company which she gets the part. The problem is Yura has her first reading for a drama based on her ramen character and she reads with major actress Rinko Koizumi (who doesn't like Yura, because of her mother). While this is happening, we start to see Q-ta (the popular singer of Assha) starting to develop feelings for Yura while his rival/brother Haruka (poplar singer of the idol group KNIGHTS) who is in the same commercial with Yura, doesn't like all the attention she gives to Q-ta. But with her main priority being acting, will Yura be able to bounce back after a dreadful reading with Rinko and what about her feelings towards Q-ta? And how will her manager Keiichi react to her blossoming fling with Q-ta? Here is a spoiler-less summary of each chapter of "Honey Hunt" Vol. 3: * CHAPTER 11 - Yura needs to bounce back after her disastrous first reading with Rinko Koizumi, meanwhile Keichii has something important to tell Q-ta. * CHAPTER 12 - Q-ta is surprised by Keichii's message, meanwhile he has to leave the country on business and the more time apart, Yura starts to notice something about her feelings towards Q-ta. * CHAPTER 13 - With Yura not knowing too much about the personal side of Q-ta, Q-ta's brother Haruka decides to help her out if she can find a way