Manga Review: Princess Jellyfish 03 by Akiko Higashimura
Quick recap: The all-women apartment building Amamizu-kan, home to jellyfish-obsessed artist Tsukimi and her nerdy friends, is threatened by gentrification. They have a champion in the person of Kuranosuke, a prominent politician’s black sheep son who likes to dress in women’s clothing (and looks really good doing so.) But the property development company representative, the wicked Stylish known as Inari, has targeted Kuranosuke’s strait-laced brother Shu to help her acquire this last holdout.
As this volume opens, Kuranosuke is confronted by some of his college friends who are unthinkingly catty towards the Amars he’s with, spoiling the evening. The next morning, as a partial apology, one of the girls gives him tickets for a play she’s helping present. This play, “The 25 Ophelias” has some interesting concepts, but the costume design is dreadful, and Kuranosuke volunteers Tsukimi to come up with better dresses.
Meanwhile, Inari drunk dials Shu and accidentally convinces him she’s attempting suicide. Shu is very displeased when he learns the truth and smacks her. This makes Inari step back a bit and contemplate Shu’s finer qualities…a no-no for a hard-hearted business woman!
The play is a hit thanks to the costumes and Kuranosuke leveraging his political connection to the Prime Minister (his uncle.) This creates enough publicity that it’s time to launch a fashion brand, Jellyfish!
The Amars are still woefully unprepared for mass production, so they have to call in an expert in pattern-making, Nomu. One big problem though, Nomu’s a specialist in making dress patterns for dolls and has never worked on human-sized clothing before. (She also calls normal-sized humans “maggots.”) Mayaya turns out to have the body type and eyes for a model, but previous experience with people looking at her has made the Three Kingdoms fan painfully shy.
While our heroes are working out the bugs in the fashion plan, Inari goes to Korea to steal a march by negotiating directly with Chieko’s mother, the actual owner of Amamizu-kan and a K-pop nerd.
Now everything rests on making a big splash with the brand debut show, which will take place at the same time as Kuranosuke’s father’s big party!
In other important news, Shu finally figures out that “otaku” Tsukimi and “dolled up” Tsukimi are the same girl, and still finds her attractive, which makes Kuranosuke aware that his own feelings towards Tsukimi might be more than friendship.
This volume starts having plot and characters that weren’t in the anime, so it’s new territory for me. Inari becomes a bit more sympathetic of a villain; her career is on the line here as she starts falling for Shu at the same time she’s supposed to be manipulating him, and she’s on a time limit.
Some of the Amars’ antics get a bit tedious; I realize that their fannish obsessions are their way of dealing with the world, but if they could only focus a bit better, things would be a lot smoother.
The art continues to be good, and there are some not-in-main-plot mini-chapters, including one about the manga becoming an anime.
Still recommended for shoujo fans.
This was a great review! Like you said, this is where the books start to differ from the show, so I’m glad I came here to check out your page before going ahead and reading. Coincidentally, I work in costuming for schools shows, so I can’t wait to read this!
In retrospect, it’s amazing how early the decision to turn this manga into an anime was. Someone in the industry must have loved the first couple of volumes!