Peach Girl by Miwa Ueda

 Well, I'm not finished this as of yet, and I'm not too sure I will. Don't get me wrong, it's not horrible. In fact I've read much worse. When I started reading it I thought it would be interesting because the premise at the beginning is that people misjudge her based on her skin tone which is darker than the other girls because she's on the swim team. This makes people assume she a party girl, or easy, I guess would be a g- rated translation. I think they're called ganguro girls in japan. Either way, she isn't one of these girls but people see her tan and assume that she is. So as I say, I walked into this expecting this kind of thing, and while there was some of this conflict in the beginning, it soon fell away to needless drama. Now drama isn't all bad, in fact it can be quite good, but the issue of her tan wasn't really resolved. She was kind of ashamed of her tan, but only because Toji supposedly didn't like tanned girls. If a person were to consider this issue resolved in the first couple of volumes, when it stops being the primary focus, than it would be because she thought the guy didn't mind. Basically it seems like a lot of her resolutions are based on his acceptance of her rather than some inner reassessment and acceptance of herself. And this kind of thing generally tends to get under my skin. 

Another thing I have issues with is the lack of communication up to the point of... I don't even know. I mean when her friend is sabotaging her, that stretch of the plot line, well I got sick of it about half way through. I'm all for jealousy n such, I mean it's a shoujo, we're kind of expecting relationship problems yes? But it seemed like it was dragged on for too long. 

Drama is good, but it's a delicate emotional tool. Just enough and you've got gold, too much and it sucks. The lack of communication seemed a bit unbelievable at times, which frustrated me a bit, and the characters in general seemed to act in a way that almost deserved the angsty agony they brought upon themselves. I mean I haven't even finished it and I already dislike most of the characters, not so great.
 
But, even though I have these criticisms, I do admit that I could see myself finishing the series sometime in the future because it does have that shoujo draw where you want to know what happens in the end and you want them to be happy (... though you hate them). So I say read it, but there is definitely better out there.