Review: Boarding School Juliet Vol. 1

Boarding School Juliet Vol. 1 by Yousuke Kaneda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I recommend that you read the one-shot before starting this series, and read my review of the one-shot before reading this review because I’m going to reference back to the one-shot a lot (without overt spoilers). Links to all of my reviews for this series are also at the bottom of this review.

This manga was a great time. I quite enjoyed the one-shot and I equally enjoyed this.

It’s about a boarding school that’s on an island that sits in between two warring/in conflict countries. Because of its location it houses students from both countries, and the students attitudes towards each other reflect that of their home countries. Romeo and Juliet are the respective leaders of the two sides, but Romeo actually has a crush on Juliet. (What happens next isn’t a spoiler because it’s the basis of the conflict for the entire series and is established in the very first chapter. It’s also in the official synopsis.) They end up getting together and must now find a way to balance their relationship and make sure they don’t get found out lest they become ostracised by everyone in the academy.

This first volume of the manga cleared some things up that were left somewhat blurry in the one-shot, which I really appreciated. Like now we have a more legitimate reason for why the two groups of people are fighting. Before it was the Japanese vs the Brits which was somewhat awkward because of the blatant racism, but now it’s more like two somewhat vague countries who are in conflict, so it has more reason behind it.

We also get to see their relationship from the beginning now. In the one-shot it jumped right to a random day where they were already dating, so we didn’t see how they actually got into that mess in the first place. But now we see it. And it’s actually kind of… Hm. I have some thoughts about it, but I’m not 100% sure how to feel about it. It might be a bit spoilery, so consider wisely whether or not you want to click the spoiler tag.

(view spoiler)[So, Romeo confesses to Juliet, and even though she herself doesn’t have any romantic feelings towards him she ends up just going along with it and agreeing to date him. First of all, it seems highly unrealistic that she would go through with such a humongous risk since she didn’t even necessarily reciprocate his feelings. Secondly, even if we put the constant possibility of being found out and becoming shunned by the entire student body aside, I think what Juliet is doing is a very bad idea. And I’m saying this from personal experience.

I too have been in a situation where someone liked me and I didn’t really have any romantic feelings towards them, but I just went along the ride anyway. To relay my experience in short: It did not end well. So the whole time as I was reading, I was seeing this sort of reluctance in Juliet which stemmed from her not really having any prior reciprocal feelings towards Romeo, but she still was trying to go with the flow and make it work for his sake. It was quite unnerving for me to read, and it is one of the things that held me back from fully enjoying the volume. What they're doing will only end up in both parties getting hurt and feeling unsatisfied in the end. From my experience I say that it’s best not to get mixed up in this kind of thing, and to only date someone who you actually have feelings for.

So, basically, good luck Juliet. I feel like it will probably end up well in the end since this is a fictional story, but the situation is still highly unnerving. On the plus side, I’ve never read anything like this in fiction before, so at least it’s unique in that regard, since in my review of the one-shot I talked about how one of its downfalls was how it wasn’t really all that original. (hide spoiler)]

In summary of that spoiler-tag: I have some mixed feelings about the basis of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship.

The two things that made me really like the one-shot were the art and the comedy. This volume was still pretty funny, so that was good. In the beginning I tried to keep a tally of every time it made me giggle or laugh, but I ended up stopping that and just enjoying the ride.

I’m not sure if the art declined though, because during the one-shot I found myself constantly ogling the art and character designs, but here in the manga the art never really stood out as much to me. It was still good, but not as super-standout as it felt in the one-shot. Who knows, maybe I just got more used to it? On the other hand, My Hero Academia has my favourite art of all time, and I never get tired of it or stop appreciating it every time I read a volume. So yeah. I dunno.

Overall Juliet of Boarding School is a really good, funny, and enjoyable manga. I’m excited to keep reading and to see where the author takes this concept and series.

Click to read all of my Juliet of Boarding School Reviews:
One-shot
Volumes: 1*, 2, 3, 4

*Current review

View all my reviews