Arisa, Vol. 1

Arisa on the surface may look like your typical light, clichéd-filled, shoujo manga with its slightly spastic heroine with her over blown expressions but after the first chapter it is clearly obvious that this is not the case.

Tsubasa and her twin sister Arisa were separated when they were quite young after their parents divorced and although the girls never see each other they have written each other frequently telling the other all about her own life, or at least this is what Tsubasa thought until her sister tries to kill herself. In her letters Arisa always sounded like she had the perfect life, class president, popular, cute boyfriend, and great grades, but Arisa has secrets she never wrote in her letters and all of the kids at her school have secrets of their own that Tsubasa is determined to find out.

After slightly changing her appearance and donning Arisa's school uniform Tsubasa attends her sister's school with minimal knowledge about Arisa's real life to find out whom or what could have driven her sister to attempt suicide. At first nothing seems out of the ordinary, Arisa's life appears to be as perfect as she stated in her letters until a free period hits and Tsubasa and Arisa's classmates are left unattended. What takes place during this free period is “King Time” where everyone in an almost zombie like fashion log on to a website and make a wish, and whomsoever wish is picked by “The King” comes true. Tsubasa brushes off the event as childish and unrelated to her sister's situation until she realizes the wishes Arisa's classmates make aren't childish at all and their blind worship of a person they have never met leads them to do unspeakable acts towards whoever questions this faceless entity.

This series feels like it's going to be a little bit of Nancy Drew meets The Lying Game but painted in a familiar shoujo canvas which sounds pretty perfect if you're in the mood for something fun, mysterious, and slightly twisted. It's not perfect though and I'll tell you why volume one does not get a full five out five from me. I appreciate Tsubasa doing whatever it takes to protect her sister but I find it almost unbelievable that her father would let her take her sister's place and allow her to skip her own school to find out what is going on. She does have her own life, so I'd would like to see some consequences for the actions she are taking and hopefully volume two will reveal a few of them.