“What a beautiful girl!” The men in Kazami Dormitory remarked.
Kazami Dormitory. It seems to be a really peaceful place, with silence filling in the dormitory until the arrival of a new student, Takaaki Asakura, also known as Taiyou as Taiyou is naturally an enthusiastic character and has an energetic personality. As Taiyou woke up at the grass field outside the dormitory, Taiyou is surrounded by the men-only dormitory.
“Where is Kazami Dormitory? I am one of the new residents.” Taiyou said.
“HE’S A MALE, NOT A FEMALE?” All of them chorused as they spasmed out in total shock.
Story synopsis
Zig Zag is a manga drawn by Yuki Nakaji and it is released in Chinese by ChuangYi publishing late last year. The series revolves around a very cute looking guy called Takaaki Asakura, also known as Taiyou. It talks about the experiences of the students staying in this dormitory called Kazami and houses many students of various personalities. Crushes, romance and love revolves around this place, as relationships started to form and hurt with continuous interaction. At the backdrop is the flower arrangement interest of the many members, giving a very different aspect of flower arrangement that is often considered to be more of a feminine interest with beautiful guys.
Characters
Asakura (called as Taiyou by most characters) is the main character of this manga and I must admit that I had the same initial response as the other guys in the dormitory because he looks pretty girlish by all means. He is an extremely energetic and cheerful guy that has a rather sensitive side toward everyone who needs his help. He lives with a very cold and mysterious person called Sono, who often has this “I am annoyed” right stuck in his face.
Sono is annoyed at anything and everything, particularly with Taiyou’s incessant cheerful personality which he considered to be extremely noisy. Also staying in the dormitory is Tatsuki, a very good friend of Taiyou when they were in grade one of school and is very loud. I do mean that he is loud, and with many things including his love for Mei. He is sadly fended off by the athletic Saho whenever he becomes a bit zealous with his approaches. Mei, on the other hand has a crush on Sono, who is generally oblivious to her subtle hints of love.
Why you should read this manga
1. Unique artwork. This is the first time that I have found an artwork so confusing (as I got confused who’s male and who’s female) and yet so delicate at the same time. The first read for me is not a good one and it’s only after the second read that I fully appreciated the artwork and found it beautiful. I have heard from many that it’s a style that the mangaka adopted, which is similar to Love Innocent.
2. The interaction between Mei, Tatsuki and Saho. I found it very hilarious for the few times that these three meet. Tatsuki is always trying so hard to confess his love to Mei and blatantly says it, only to be slapped by a very annoyed Saho. I also find the interaction for Sono with anyone hilarious, since his “I am annoyed” face just asks for a laugh, particularly with all the crazy and noisy hostel mates he has to content with. I found myself totally laughing at the antics of Tatsuki. He either lacks the ability to think, or someone who enjoys chasing someone that does not like him.
3. Very simple love is a very refreshing change from all the complicated love triangles. If anything, the most amazing thing is that romance for the male character is hardly explored, with the only girl getting his attention being Jasmine, his cousin. That, to me, provides an interesting backdrop since the main character is always mistook as a girl, being the butt of jokes quite a few times in the series. The main character makes for interesting plot twists next time. A trap, anyone?
Afterthoughts
Zig Zag is an entertaining piece of work with a very delicate artwork that will please all shoujo fans. The story is cute, with the androgynous-looking Taiyou being the gender confused guy in this series. I also realize that the hint of romance between Taiyou and the various girls will become the focus at the end, even though I will not want any unwanted yaoi vibes going into this series. In all, I found the soft artwork to be of my liking after a second re-read of the manga. I will definitely recommend this for the purist shoujo fan, who will be extremely excited for this manga.
Chuangyi Publishing has released this volume and is available at your rather friendly comic store.
16 Comments
The series’ main character is a boy who looks like a girl, and there aren’t any yaoi vibes?
…Wow O__o;;
Hmm, well, there are a bit of yaoi vibes, but not really too strong as yet. I mean, the main character and some other side characters confused me so much that I got lost from within. The funny part must be when Taiyou always got mistaken to be Sono’s girlfriend by others.
I guess there is a little, but not that much to hurt me mentally as yet.
Hahaha~
Ah, one of my personal favorites. It’s quite entertaining, although as you said, there’s a little feeling of Yaoi here and there…
I’m glad CY has this both in English and Chinese, so that it can be enjoyed by people like me, who has been failing Chinese since who knows when. ^^
@Takuya: Hah, you should see me when I did the first read of the manga to review it. I was like…ehh, which character is male or female. I actually had to ask my friends who are readers of this manga about the characters.
I then realize that it is in fact the style of the mangaka and it’s probably good that CY has both languages to open it up for everyone. Cool stuff and this is really great shoujo material for anyone who enjoys a bit of romance and does not mind just a tad bit on ambiguous sexuality.
Ah, from the same author of Venus wa kataomoi
So will you only be doing CY’s Chinese series?
Or will you be doing English too? *Hopes*
@Tatuya: It does not really make a difference whether I do english or Chinese manga. That said, I am hoping to do English series, as long as I think I can do a good job about it. You can do recommendations here or in the CY thread and I can talk to CY about it whether it’s fine for me to review a certain series. I am open to it. Of course, me being a little mean here, but don’t ask me to blog Pokemon please. I still need my dosage of sanity.
Heh Heh Heh.
@Fuuka: Ya, it’s Jooo who told me about the mangaka. She’s the pro in manga!
@Impz : All of the manga you’ve picked so far have really good taste, plus your reviews always make me want to read them. The only [yet biggest XD]obstacle is that they’re in Chinese. It’s the undeniable truth and there’s nothing I could do about it. They’re all rare and/or underrated manga that I don’t think many scanlation groups will pay attention so my chance of reading them is nearly zero. Except for Honey & Clover that I’d gone all the way to read it in Japanese [because I'm infatuated with it]. But if it keeps on going like this, maybe I should learn Chinese, seriously.[XD,I know it's impossible now. I'm struggling with 3 foreign languages already]
@Fuuka: I am intending to blog on English series when I do find a series that is good and suitable. Of course, CY definitely gives a decent value for the books considering the cost, so I am hardly complaining about it.
Honey and Clover is hardly the type of manga you want to read Japanese though.
This looks really cute. Considering how much I like Hana Kimi I’d probably really like this.
Although yea, considering its chinese I’ll probably have a hard time getting a hold of it.
Having said that I did find scans for Goong and that is being released translated in the States now, so maybe there is hope that some of these might pop up.
^-^
@Impz: ^^ reading Honey&Clover in Japanese was a painful memory to me. There’s no furigana on kanji and the words are difficult. I just went ahead to read the raw because Shoujomagic were taking their time in translating it. [I know they're still work on this project but release is very slowly. Can't complain though, this is one hell of a difficult manga]. And that was the only title I could do that, as for other manga no matter how good they’re I just don’t find myself motivated enough to read raw.
this is so totally unfair T_T there’s no way I’m ever going to get this in Mexico ;_; and having the U.S at a bridge’s cross is no help either, if it’s in chinese…
*must force BFF to get done with her Chinese lessons, get the manga and translate it for me nownownow*
Tokyopop recently announced that they were going to publish Zig Zag here in the USA. I’ve been hunting around looking for reviews, comments, “what Zig Zag is about” type of info for the past day or so. I was really happy to find your entry because now I know something more about the series. It sounds like something I should try once it’s released here. Thanks for the review!
wai~! Zig x Zag~~ ^-^
I’ve been following every chapter that comes out of this from Lala, and I love it ^^ I love Taiyou and Saho’s pairing, especially. They’re such a cute couple :p
perhaps you might want to check out Yuki Nakaji’s other works, they’re good stuff as well :3
it’s coming to the US soon? weeeee I’m so gonna look for it
zig zag~ my fav comic
but it stopped until volume 5 since last year. I can’t waitttt anymoreeeeeeeeeee! yeah Taiyo and Saho make such a good couple 