Princess Jellyfish vol. 2

Akiko Higashimura’s epic of female otaku, fashion, and jellyfish takes two conventional, but not unsatisfying, turns in its second volume.  The first is that the standard shojo manga love triangle starts to become a bit more codified here.  Dowdy jellyfish-lover Tsukimi really does have the hots for crossdresser Kurano’s handsome, responsible, and utterly inept in social skills older brother Shu, but she needs to get over her self-esteem issues first.  Meanwhile, the stylish and fun-loving Kurano is slowly finding himself entranced by Tsukmi’s random bouts of passion and inspiration when it comes to awakening her fashion sense.  Shu is also attracted to Tsukimi’s “awakened mode,” though the transformation is so dramatic that he doesn’t know it’s actually her.  The man also has to deal with the gold-digging real estate developer who has latched onto him in the hopes of making use of his family’s connections as she spearheads the plan to bulldoze the apartment complex that houses Tsukimi and the rest of her “Amars” gang.  Though the wackiness and outright slapstick threaten to overwhelm the characters, Higashimura keeps the drama on a slow burn so that things keep unfolding at a rate and in a way that managed to hold my interest in spite of the familiarity of this setup.

The other thing is that the mangaka appears to be taking small steps towards making her collective of female otaku somewhat self-sufficient.  I mentioned in my previous review that I didn’t think this series would work if it were focused on male otaku because it’d be impossible to feel sympathy in seeing guys living a life so pampered and indulgent.  That said, Higashimura apparently realizes that the members of Amars can’t live off of their parents indefinitely and starts steering the narrative towards giving them some manner of self-sufficiency.  Tsukimi is mainly the agent of this with her jellyfish-sewing and newfound dressmaking skills, but her fellow otaku pitch in as needed while Kurano works to handle the business end of things.  Seeing these characters work towards some kind of agency for themselves is the more involving of the two turns in this volume.  There may not be a whole lot that is new on display in this series, but it’s done well enough (and delivered in two-volume chunks) to make it worth reading for now.