This year has been a plethora of “I almost did not write a review for that.” And President of the Anime Club: A Graphic Novel by Stephanie Evangelista Fukuda and Daigo Fukuda was one of them. Why? (You ask). Because it seemed like too simple of a story. There were some problems I had with the characters. And, frankly, I was not in the mood to write up a review.
But I sat on it, and realized I just needed to do a commentary (with a quick recap). Three kids are freshman at a New York high school. They are three different personalities that one wouldn’t think would mesh, but of course, they do. One is the shy girl who spent all of middle school sitting alone at lunch, one is the popular girl who has never really never knew what it meant to be “not the best” within certain areas of her life, and the last is boy who likes the girls, does stuff with them because it is what they like, but also is independent. They join the anime club at their school because they like anime or want to learn more, but really because the president is really cute and they are all attracted to her, results vary.
The theme of things is the idea of romance and crushes. What is a crush? Why do people have them? How do you know if it is love or a crush? And is it normal to have them on your friends? As stated, the girl that all three have various levels of crushes on, is the president of the Anime Club. She is pretty, smart, funny, super nice, popular, talented, and goes out of her way to help the younger members to the level of maybe being too nice and maybe leading them on. We have a bit of LGBTQ situations (the president has a girlfriend; the girls might be bisexual or at least exploring feelings of sexuality) and a bit of anime. But nothing is solidly explored and this is what made things a bit on the simpler side. We are introduced to things, but never get complete closure.
If this was lunch, this graphic novel is a nice sandwich and chips without the soup or salad. There is a little “something” missing from things, but you don’t need the soup, salad or both. It is not a real issue, just a style choice by the author and illustrator, and a preference of wanting something else by me. The artwork is nice, very manga or anime. There is nothing WOW about it, but I liked it. It makes it all cozy, familiar. That, in the end, is what this book turns out to be. Cozy and familiar. For someone new to graphic novels, manga, anime, coming of age it is new and fresh, and this group would probably be ages 10 and up, but concepts can make it 12 to 15, but older could do it as well.
