 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | DEL REY | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | AI MORINAGA | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 192 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | T | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 12/30/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 03/11/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
Hana Suzuki has it good: She’s the only girl in the Grand Hockey Club, and all the other members are super-hot guys. My Heavenly Hockey Club is the humorous story of Hana coming to terms with her new club and the antics they get into as a group. If you didn’t already know, it’s important to note that this story revolves around field hockey – not ice hockey. Although, despite the club being sports oriented, little time is spent on the sport in comparison to the laughs and the traveling to various resorts, and the possibility of new relationships forming while they are there. In a way the club is nothing but a front for a group of students who want to hang out, enjoy the good life, and spend their time doing something – they seem like the “bored and rich” type, and in fact, they are! This is all very good for Hana as she gets to enjoy it too – but every now and then they do decide to get down to it and play some field hockey the best way they know how! In volume seven, things continue on within the wonderfully lazy world of My Heavenly Hockey Club. As usual, Hana is interested in only two things eating and sleeping. But when a pastry shop opens in Hana’s neighborhood and she gets a part-time job there, people begin to wonder: Does she love sweets, or the shop’s gorgeous chef? When the chef asks Hana to go with him to France, it’s the icing on the cake for this small-town girl with a love for adventure… and sleep. Volume 7 brings the drama like no other volume before it, throwing a heap of romance and an iceberg sized helping of jealousy along with it. It’s a recipe for cake - and for disaster – but that’s all part of the fun of course. If it hasn’t been said before, it must be said now that My Heavenly Hockey Club is almost assured to be a big hit with fans of Ouran High School Host Club. If zany humour and lots of pretty-boy antics is your thing, come and get it! The art still flows with the same shoujo flow that it has gone with throughout the series, and it all works quite nicely for this kind of comedy. The art really shines when it comes to the characters themselves, all being well designed, and their facial expressions can get the point across every time. Hana’s expressions are especially funny – she spends plently of time expressing how much sleep she is losing when she lays her head on her desk, drooling, wishing she was home in bed! All the text is highly readable, and it’s nice to have the sound effects all translated right there on the page – it’s always a plus in my books. The end of the book includes an in-depth collection of translation notes and a preview of the next volume. It’s always an added bonus to have some revealing answers at the end of the book – especially explanations of some of the Japanese cultural jokes that may fly over most of our heads, as they tend to do. The preview of the next volume is of course still in Japanese, but it’s always nice to get a sneak peek into what we’ll be reading next.
IN SUMMARY:
My Heavenly Hockey Club is a good mix of romance, social situations, and laughs to boot! What once may have had anything to do with field hockey now have much more to do with just good old plain entertainment value, which is fine by me. |
