Manga Review: Yurara vol.1

Manga Review: Yurara vol.1

Story and art by: Chika Shiomi

By: Aliraluna

                                     Review:

Since being a child, high-school girl named Yurara Tsukinowa, has been able to see, hear and feel ghosts and spirits. What she doesn’t know is what’s inside of her in relation with her strong ability and powers of sensing spirits. Upon arriving to another year at school, she encounters three issues: one: a popular girl is complaining on being in the same classroom with her, two: the two most popular and handsome boys at school are sitting at her row and she’s in the middle of them, and three: there’s a very angry spirit sitting on her desk. As the days passes, the spirit gets more and more violent against her, who supposedly has taken her seat; meanwhile Yurara gets to know more about this popular guys who aren’t that normal: they both can see and fight spirits. Yako Hoshino tells the story of the boy who stole money and committed suicide in the same classroom they are studying which may be related with the spirit of the girl haunting her, but to her dismay, after she starts to run as she got scared of the tale, she gets attacked-but to Yako’s surprise he sees the head of a woman with long black hair appearing to protect Yurara. But the issue doesn’t end there, the spirit decides to attack a second time in which Yurara sees the story of the spirit, and when she’s about to fall to the floor a new strange person appears instead of the cute, shy, blond haired Yurara, instead, is found a long black hair beauty with long legs and arms- very tall and powerful woman who helps the spirit to go to heaven. After Yako explains what must be that strange beauty that emerges sometimes from Yurara, she will encounter different situations that involves, high-school girls jealous of her, boys and spirits. Her strange transformation will save her from drying in the water while trying to pass to heaven a small child found in the swimming pool. And, with this two completely personalities the boys start to unravel their feelings and emotions when it comes to being one or another. What and how will they react every time this strange phenomenon happens again? 

Opinions:

I may have a long list of mangas that I love but I have to say that Chika Shiomi is by far one of my top 5 most loved and adored mangaka. Since I read this manga (long time ago) I have always loved it- you don’t know how many times my heart goes ‘doki-doki’ and heart-broken at the same time. I ALWAYS cry at the end of the story. This story besides the beautiful art, it caught my attention that Yurara, a very young girl who has to deal with ghosts, spirits and more frightening things, with school, boys and girls, is a girl who wasn’t scared of the spirits, rather one that wanted to help them; one that wanted to have the power needed to give them aid. Also, while the stories are a bit sad in this volume, I still laughed SO much when I saw their faces and how well I can imagine the way they would use a tone and their expressions are. Believe me, you can even notice the slight differences of expressions made by the ever stiff Yako! And while I was rereading this I got tears in my eyes when I saw the last page; “Today Yako… seems a bit more… kind than usual”. The reason is because I remember always when I finished the whole series, I was very, very sad. That is, until I saw that a new series that would have my favorite character: Yako, would appear- I was truly happy to have more bits of his amazing world and life even though is …well, sad. And a very particular scene in the other series called Rasetsu, she says the same about him. Anyway, enjoy this story! I’ll be uploading the reviews of this amazing five volumes <3.