Othello

Review Date: 2007 August 24 15:32

Reviewed by: Azure

Released by: Tanoshimi

Publishing Country: UK

Author: Satomi Ikezawa

Age Rating: 16+

Page Count: 208

ISBN-13: 978009950656

ISBN-10: 99506564

Summary

Yaya is an extremely repressed young teenager whose only outlet is sneaking off to Harujuku to meet other fans of the now defunct Visual Kei band Juliet. Her only real friend seems to be her schoolmate guitarist Moriyama. Her ex-friends Seri and Moe are doing the best to make her life a living hell. On top of this Yaya is starting to miss hours at a time from her life, unknown to her she harbours another personality the super confident Nana is determined to serve up justice to anyone who she thinks deserves it.

Review

The second volume of Othello starts with the new school year, when class assignments are often rearranged. All Yaya wants is to be in the same class as Moriyama and away from Seri and Moe. Sadly for her, her wish is only half granted while she is put in the same class as Moriyama she is sadly also stuck with Seri and Moe.

Yaya’s double ( or should that be triple) life is really starting to get complicated. Seri and Moe expose Yaya’s Harujuku exploits to the rest of the class in revenge for Nana punching a hole in their boat. The girls of course are completely unable to distinguish between Nana and Yaya, so blame Yaya for the whole situation. Moriyama on the other hand takes enough notice in Yaya to notice something is wrong with her, so does his best to cheer her up by asking her to help his band out backstage. The trouble is Nana is starting to take control more often, and begins to act on her own interests and not just in revenge for Yaya. Nana’s more active role really spices up the drama, whilst previously she has acted for Yaya’s sake this time she actively does things that might hurt Yaya. Thankfully, Moriyama isn’t as clueless as most of the romantic interests in these series which indicates things are going to get very interesting come volume three.

Now that the character introductions are out of the way it’s nice to see a proper story developing as Yaya starts to suffer the consequences of Nana’s presence in her life. Othello at times can veer into the formulaic as it’s obvious that if anyone outwardly wrongs Yaya Nana will appear and then " Justice is done".

Rating: 7/10