Ai Ore! by Mayu Shinjo

Title: Ai Ore!

Mangaka: Mayu Shinjo

Age Group: Older Teens

Series is: Complete with 5 volumes

Volume(s) Reviewing: 1

My Rating: 2.5/5

Mizuki's boyish features have her as the prince at her all-girls school. She rocks the stage with her all-female band called Blaue Rosen. Akira is considered the princess of his all-boys school next door because of his feminine frame. Akira wants to join Mizuki's band when their singer moved away. Mizuki was against it as first but finally gave in. What is in hold for these two??

This took me quite awhile to get into. In the beginning, I was really annoyed by the fact that the girl looks like a guy and the guy looks like a girl. I have read mangas in the past where characters looked like the opposite gender (W Juliet), but I felt that in Ai Ore! it was a bit much. The mangaka could've at least toned it down a little. I would have preferred it if the characters looked like their gender but instead, have the girl dominate and guy submissive in the relationship. That would've been different than the usual manga plot lines that I have been seeing in the past 8 years in manga.

Midway through the manga, it was not so bad. The mangaka gave different situations for the characters to show their vulnerability and I got to see Mizuki more feminine and Akira more manly. [SPOILERS] However, everything went downhill for me towards the end. An upperclassman got really interested in Mizuki because she was so beautiful. So she nearly raped the Mizuki when their school was at a resort. Mizuki was luckily rescued, but later Akira sent one of his fans to rape the girl who was about to rape Mizuki. This I found to be absolutely ridiculous because the characters were only in first year of high school but they are doing such vile things. I would have forgiven this act a bit more if the characters were older and were not in high school. Except they were not. [SPOILERS END]

Unless you are a huge Mayu Shinjo fan, this manga could be skipped.

Review copy from Viz.