I just hope that they don't change the tone of the series too badly. I'm really unhappy with where the anime series has gone-- I understand that the young children's market is probably a pretty good one, but the anime has begun devoting ~5-10 minutes of every episode to goofy little live-action and CG-ish shorts that skew VERY young, and I'd really rather have that time back for the anime itself. Sigh.
Here's hoping. *crosses fingers and toes!*
(PS: Sorry I couldn't find a larger copy of the image-- if any of you do, give me a heads up!)
Their page don't say much about it!
@sora_thekey:
from my review of the manga:
The story is about a young girl, who feels phony in how she dresses and the act she puts on for others, but who manages to find new aspects of herself with the help of übercute chibi Guardian Characters (the Shugo Chara of the manga title). But sometimes change is hard, and we can’t always be sure what we want. This is even more true in Amu’s case, as the effects of not one but three meddling guardians often lead to more complications, rather than happily ever after. Sure, suddenly it seems she can do anything but when she comes back to normal she can be embarrassed by what she did or said when a guardian was helping her to be “more herself”.
By itself, that premise would work pretty well, and we could follow Amu as she grows as a person and discovers things about her character and “characters” through the modest challenges of various school activities. It would have been a nice (if saccharine) slice-of-life comic.
What we have grafted on to that baseline is first, a shoujo drama about the student council (perhaps confusingly referred to as the School Guardians). Amu is selected to be a member of the School Guardians, and there she meets a new friend Nadeshiko Fujisaki, the VP. The President is the cute Tadese Hotori, whom Amu has a huge crush on. The gimmick for the council is that they are named after playing cards: Tadase holds the King’s or “K” Chair, Nadeshiko is the Queen’s or “Q” Chair, and similarly there are positions for Jack and Ace (unlike say, poker, the ranking here appears to be K-Q-J-A). The School Guardians are held in high esteem by other students, which is odd because it doesn’t seem like they do much but have tea parties.
If we were to follow this plot line we’d have a mostly harmless bit about adapting to new roles, & learning how to deal with first loves and crushes while staying best friends forever with the new gal pal, and given the ages of the characters it would all be very cute and chaste, with maybe a first kiss (on the cheek, of course) and some heavy handholding.
Overlayed on top of that however, is the shades-of-Card-Captor-Sakura mystic quest element. The Guardian Characters are born of eggs. Each person’s heart has an egg, though as people get older the egg and it’s character sort of fade away, unused. Some eggs are good, but some (X eggs, in the comic) are bad and could change the character of their owner into something darker.
The School Guardians, like Amu, all have Guardian Characters (though they just have one each) and part of their mission is to hunt down bad eggs and seal them, or destroy them if things really get out of hand. Amu is very special to have three Guardian Characters, so of course the School Guardians want her to join them to help seal the bad eggs, while also searching for the mysterious Embryo (an egg that can grant any wish) before a rival, presumably evil cabal finds it first.
Amu has already had run ins with this other group as one of their agents, the wily catboy Ikuto, had tried to steal Amu’s eggs before they hatched. Though of course Ikuto is also pretty (though dark, where Tadase is blond) and the way he is behaving toward Amu is absolutelyscandalous.
It would be hard to imagine how all this could be more complicated.
##and in practice, the anime is much better than I make this sound, at least though three seasons.
Sorry. I have no more idea what the new manga is about than you do.
No no you had it right.... I wanted to know what it was about in case I wanted to rea the new series.... thanks!