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Black Bird
(click pictures to enlargen them) I'm very lucky in the fact that my local library has quite a lot of manga. I don't really like reading manga digitally, but if I can have an actual copy of the book I can read almost anything, so the fact that the library offers a lot of different manga titles has broadened my manga repertory a great deal. Sometimes, however, there are series that seriously make me think "why the hell am I reading this?". Black Bird is one of those series I wouldn't touch with a barge pole if it wasn't available so easily from the library. It is quite unfair to review an ongoing series that has over ten volumes just from the first volume, but just one volume was quite a horrifying experience alone that certainly doesn't make me feel like wanting to read the rest, and judging from the covers of the later volumes it doesn't look like there is going to be a change for better in the nature of the main couple's relationship and characterisation. Black Bird was suspicious from the start. The cover alone has a crying submissive girl dominated by the arrogant male lead. And the back of the book describes how the biggest problems for the female lead are staying alive when demons want to kill her, and whether she likes it when ~the arrogant male lead heals her wounds by licking them~. Kyaaaah! I'm a girl so I just can't resist such a sexy situation when the domineering male forcefully licks the girl's body while the girl weakly cries him to stop!!!!1 Or maybe I can resist after all. 
The story tells about a high school girl Misao, who has the ability to see spirits and stuff. This bothers her quite a bit and she'd much rather be an ordinary girl. She also reminisces about a childhood friend, an older boy who could see spirits as well and who always used to comfort her when she cried out of fear of the spirits. She has forgotten the name and face of the boy, but of course he was her first love and she's still waiting for ~his comforting hands~, because she just can't deal with the spirits herself. Surprise surprise, a mysterious young man moves next door, and whoa! He's the guy from her childhood! But! He's not as nice as she remembered him, he's a total perv and impudently just declares that he'll make Misao his bride and have sex with her! Then Misao proceeds to get into one freak spirit trouble after another, gets injured, and the male lead licks her wounds despite her protests! I don't know if it's some cultural thing that its romantic how the spineless girl gets thrown around by the guy who is nasty to her but ttlly wuws her, but I wasn't exactly touched by the story. What am I supposed to think when the guy (who has wings) takes the heroine up to the sky and threatens to drop her to "teach her body that she can't live without him"? "oooooh, that is so romantic!!!"? 
The female lead is one of the most annoying things I've seen in a while. In the first volume she had to be saved four times, and she never really does anything active herself. Of course like every other shoujo lead she's not that good with her studies so that the reader could relate to her (and so that the male lead who is the math teacher can ask her to come see him!), and while she's incapable of doing anything useful in dangerous situations she will totally give the male lead a huge comedic punch when he tries to grope her breasts! So she totally isn't completely useless! In just one volume I could count at least half a dozen times where sexual harassment was played for comedy. Are female readers supposed to find it FUNNY and ENTERTAINING when the guy gropes the females' breasts for the nth time? I have read many reviews and articles that mention how the female lead in shoujo is often whiny, spineless, pathetic, useless girl who can't do anything herself, while the male lead is a total jerk (often a pervert) but the female still ends up with him because he secretly loves her so much~~~ But I hadn't really read a series that had such stupid characters. But now with Black bird I've had the questionable honour to see for myself how bad shoujo can be. Now that I think of it, this might top even Princess Ai and that yaoi manga that doesn't need to be named on my "worst manga I've ever read list". As far as the dress-uppability goes, it probably isn't surprising at this point that I'm not exactly interested in spending any time drawing anything related to this series. Though the outfits weren't particularly memorable so it's not much of a loss... Some of the heroine's kimonos are pretty nice. 
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