Hana and Ageha are twins, but while Hana was raised in the city, Ageha was raised in the country by her grandmother until she was an older child. When her grandmother got sick, she moved back in with her parents, and her sister. Now, she is the shadow to her sister's sun, and while everyone exclaims over how pretty Hana is, Ageha has always been in her background, a tomboy that few people realize exists.
But when Ageha decides that a boy who she likes is interested in her and wants to go out, she begins trying to change for him... until Hana, wildly jealous of attention being paid to her sister, swoops in and steals him out from under Hana. When a picture scrawled on by another boy in an attempt to give her courage to take what she wants comes to light, Hana has three choices: deny it and fade into the background forever, stop coming to school, or admit it, and perhaps make enemies, but also find supporters amongst her classmates.
She takes the third choice, and finds girls she hardly knew were there, and who hardly knew she was there, coming to her aid. But with Hana so used to being the center of compliments and attention, and deathly jealous of her sister's newfound beauty and attention, will she stand by and let Ageha usurp the spotlight she feels is her own? Or will she fight back in her own way, never letting Ageha win or be happy?
Being that this is a manga by Miwa Ueda, of "Peach Girl", which do you think? There would be no conflict if Hana let Ageha be, but this seems to be a less poisonous version of that manga. Hana has yet to show the full Sae-like qualities from the earlier manga, but that might yet be coming. The fall of a pretty girl when someone prettier, or just as pretty, comes on the scene is promised, but hopefully that will either be coming or Hana will grow up and decide a sister as pretty as she is is nothing to obsess over. I can hope.
I find a number of similarities to Peach Girl, but I hope this series won't be as full-on bitchy about girls as it was. It's nice that girls, even the pretty girls in the class support Ageha and are helping her achieve her dream, but the pettiness of her former friend, who is portrayed as fat and unattractive, seems so jealous of Ageha and determined to bring her down (as if sucking up to the pretty girl gets you anywhere in high school when neither your face or personality is attractive!) that she comes off as a complete bitch and downer.
I am hoping for better out of this series than Peach Girl, and I am sure Miwa Ueda will find plenty of inspiration for this series in any high school. I just hope it will somewhat more woman-affirming than PG.
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