“Guys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”, right? But all you have to do is take of her glasses and then she’s one hot chick. Ugh. As a glasses wearer, I hate those kinds of stories. I think my glasses are quite fetching, thank-you-very-much. So I was thrilled when cute boy Kiriya tells mousy Karin “You’re cute–even without your glasses.”
While this sweet first volume of a ten book series doesn’t break a lot of shojo boundaries, the characters are interesting and the romance is believable, to the reader that is. Karin cannot believe that a cute guy like Kiriya would be interested in her. Her timidity and low self-esteem is frustrating at times, but makes sense for someone who doesn’t have parents who care. Kiriya probably has unresolved issues (this is shojo, after all), but none of them surface in this volume and you can see that he truly does like Karin. Yuka, the bully who has “befriended” Karin, is nasty in all the right ways. I can’t wait to read more to see how Karin makes new friends, handles the bully, and gets her man. A nice choice for shojo readers wanting something sweet with just enough angst.
Kare First Love, vol. 1
By Kaho Miyasaka
ISBN: 9781591163947
VIZ, 2004
