Kodansha Comics brought ‘Something’s Wrong With Us’ last month which is the different kind of manga in the josei genera. This time it’s time for Viz Media to shine that has released the first volume of Not Your Idol. We hope that like Something Wrong With Us, this shojo manga has also something different to offer. Let’s discuss if it’s up to the expectation.
Not Your Idol revolves around a high school girl, Nina Kamiyama, who is reserved and wears boy’s uniform. She was referred as Karen Amamiya, when she was the part of an idol group, Pure Club but quit after a fan attacked her. After that, she did not bid farewell to Pure Club but to her femininity as well and started living her life as a boy.
One day someone attacked a girl in a school nearby her high school that made her classmates anxious. Nina thought about the same incident that happened with her and she suspected that it could be same person who was behind her attack as that person was never caught.
Not Your Idol is a psychological thriller which is target to shojo demographics. It’s quite different and focuses on different things like cases of harassments that on women by the opposite genders just because how they are dressed and the fact they are women. The story could have been a lot better if had just focused on one concept but it keeps jumping from one thing to another.
The character of the protagonist is not much appealing. In the beginning of the manga she might catch your attention as she was portrayed as a strong female character but after the arrival of the love interest, Hikaru, the character starts to become weak. Hikaru is Nina’s classmate and the member of judo club. When the news about attack on the girl break out, Hikaru tends to stay by Nina’s side inorder to protect her.
At first Nina was reluctant and did not need his protection but as time passes, her determination of staying strong becomes weak. She wonders if she can become beautiful for Hikaru ad it some thing that does not suit her personality. For a strong woman who thinks that girls don’t try to look nice for men, it’s not normal to look nice and pretty infront of a boy. So it took a boy’s attention for Nina to get over with her trauma and embrace her femininity, but then it shouldn’t have took her so long to endure it.
It’s not just her character and her relation with Hikaru that seems off but there are many other things that could have been better. In just the first volume there are a lot of things that the manga deal with which include the blooming romance of Nina and Hikaru, Nina’s struggle to get over her past incident and the danger of getting attacked again. It’s a lot to take in just the first
Not Your Idol is titles as Sayonara Miniskirt (Goodbye Miniskirt) which sounds more accurate according to the manga. The story is more about a girl quit wearing dresses that makes her look like an appealing girl than bidding farewell to her femininity. Tittle ‘Not Your Idol’ would have only suited the manga if the story has focused on the strong side of her character that did not last long in the manga. The title refers to a strong character who is independent but there is anything like that in the story.
Aoi Makino is the mangaka of ‘Not Your Idol’ (which is their first manga to be translated in English even though there are many other manga Aoi Makino has worked on). The artwork of is fine. The art style is good with attention to detail and emotions are expressed clearly but the character design is a little off. The characters are like dolls with big eyes and that looks odd especially during compact scenes which diverts all attention to it.
Not Your Idol Volume 1 has entered in West market brought by VIZ media and translated English by Tetsuichiro Miyaki. The translation has no error and easy to read.
In Japan, manga is still in continuation with 2 Volumes, but it seems like that the next volume would conclude the series. In West, the next Volume will release in October but there is a chance that it gets delayed.
All in all, the first volume of Not Your Idol is a mixture of many different tropes. Some time it confusing to understand where it’s getting to or what to expect. It gets annoying at some point. It might get interesting at some point for some people but it’s not much appealing to shojo fans. The title needs some reconsideration before the release of the next volume.
