My Heavenly Hockey Club

Morianga, Ai. My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol 1. New York, NY: Del Rey, 2007.

ISBN 978-03499042 $9.99 196 pages 

Rated: Older teen

Genres: Manga/graphic novel, comedy, school life, romance, sports, shoujo

Summary:

Hana Suzuki wants nothing more than to sleep.  It’s her passion, hobby, and the reason why she studied so hard to get into a prestigious Merinkan… because it is only 3 minutes away from her bed.  It was on such a walk that she was involved in an accident causing damage to the car driving the elite and handsome hockey club president, Izumi Oda.  She is quickly conned into joining the hockey club as payment for damages and lured into become the team's goalie by her second love: eating. This is where Hana's life begins to get more exciting much to her chagrin.  

Pros:  The art work is clean and interesting.  This book also has a lot of humor and the mangaka is not afraid of making its heroine look less glamorous to get a laugh either.  She is certainly not your typical heroine as one can see here on page 81.

Themes of friendship and school spirit reign as well as the wealthy but clueless club president takes his club to various adventures.

Cons: The story is very similar to Ouran High Host Club.  They even have the gorgeous twins and it’s hard not to compare the two.  Readers are free to speculate who ends up with who but for the first couple of volumes there is more comedy hijinks than romanitic development between our heroine Hana and her handsome teammates.  In all there is much more going for this series than against it.

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