Thank you Netgalley and Viz Media for this arc!!

5/5 stars!

I've love Ai Yazawa's work since the '00's and I was SO EXCITED to see that this series is being translated into English!!! AND IT WAS JUST SO LOVELY being able to step back into Yazawa's world again :3 I savoured this as much as I could, but it was so good I still read it pretty quickly! I love that this has full colour illustrations as well, it's such a nice treat.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher VIZ Media for a free digital ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.
I ended up DNFing this manga at 34% through because although the art was lovely, the story was really falling flat for me. It centered around a very basic love triangle where the guy was childhood best friends with the main character and they maybe harbor "secret" feelings for each other and the popular gyaru girl that everyone calls "Body-Ko" to objectify her. The will-they-won't-they slow burn that I think this story was trying to achieve between the guy and the girl was so repetitive and I didn't care at all for their friendship or relationship. I think their characters and relationship wasn't developed enough for me to be invested in them, and they just were bad friends to each other in general. I did like the fashion school setting because Ai Yazawa is great at drawing outfits, so that was a plus.
The misogyny and objectification of women in this book was just too icky for me, from like every single character. The way the women changed themselves physically to appeal to the guy weirded me out, and him acting like being a "nice guy" who doesn't like girls wearing makeup makes him the ideal man. Also, just weird comments about how "boys shouldn't have piercings anyway!," like okay...
Ai Yazawa also isn't beating the cultural appropriation allegations with depictions of TWO non-Black characters in this manga wearing Black hairstyles (Mariko's brother wearing locs and Mikako wearing an afro in the color pages in the back of the book). Past iffy behaviors include, but surely aren't limited to, Hachi's sister in Nana and occasionally depicting Junko's design in racist caricatured ways in the anime and manga.
Overall, the attitudes and depictions of sexuality and gender feel so cisheteronormative, and I just expected more. I was not the audience for this.

Whether you are a fan of Ai Yazawa's other works like Nana and Paradise Kiss, or reading her work for the first time, Neighborhood Story does not disappoint. What can be seen as the predecessor of Paradise Kiss, Yazawa has such a firm and clear understanding of what it means to be a teenage girl on an emotional, instrinsic leve and that is evident in her protrayal of Mariko here in Neighborhood Story. I am so thrilled that this is finally officially being translated into English, and can't wait to see the story continue in volume 2.

This felt very <i>nostalgic</i> in so many ways, and even though I know it's a new-ish series to translations at least there's something here that feels stuck in the early 2000s in a good way. Yazawa's work has always been something I've been interested in but never picked up, and I'm upset that I never have before because this was fantastic and adorable. There's definitely something that calls to the early days of romance manga, the halls of Shoujo Beat and waiting for that next great series, and this would be up there with those if the magazine was still around.

Perfect For….

Fans of friend groups stories

Quick Synopsis (2 or 3 sentences)

Mikako enters a prestigious art academy with dreams of being a fashion designer with her childhood friend Tsutomu and becomes distracted by his new popularity. Despite this, she and her friends start a club, causing events that lead to a sour day.

My Review

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. I liked the story and the characters. The art style was really nice as well. I have never read Nana before so this is my introduction to this particular artist and I really enjoyed reading it. I liked reading about the different interactions between the characters and learning about Mikako’s fashion brand. I think she it’s really cool that she wants to do that and has a good support group around her. It’s nice to read about supportive friend groups. Overall I would recommend this book to others. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Please see my full review in Booklist for a full analysis of this work. Thank you! I appreciate the opportunity to review this manga professionally.

I’m a HUGE Nana fan and was soo excited for this to be published. I have this on my manga romcom table currently and it’s selling so well.

As a teenage reader of Paradise Kiss back in the early 2000's, I was so excited to see that Neighborhood Story is finally seeing the sun on this side of the ocean! On reading the beginning of Mikako's story, I have some mixed emotions. On one side of things, you can't really go wrong with anything Ai Yazawa writes. She stopped writing so long ago now that this was such a welcome volume to read! On the other, you can tell she was newer to manga when she wrote it; not only are the pictures a bit less cohesive, the story itself felt a bit repetitive compared to ParaKiss and Nana. I also have to respect that I am a very different person from who I was at age 14 when I first picked up her manga. 36 is maybe not the age to read Neighborhood Story!
Still, I will be recommending this to many of my manga loving teens, and will likely follow up with the other volumes as well. I suspect it will transition into Parakiss nicely, though it remains to be seen if the content will be as mature (so it may end up having to be an Older Teen rec).

This charming slice-of-life manga from famed manga-ka Ai Yazawa (NANA, Paradise Kiss) is perfect for those who enjoy reading shojo, teen romance, and coming of age stories. The art style is beautiful and unique to Ai Yazawa and the story of Mikako coming to terms with her feelings about childhood friend Tsutomu keeps the reader excited to continue the story. I look forward to reading volume 2 when it gets translated.

This digital ARC was obtainable via NetGalley for an honest review!

I'm glad to finally say I understand why everyone loves "Neighborhood Story"! It has just the right amount of love, angst, and friendships. I really enjoyed this volume. :)

This ended up not really being a story I was interested in, but there have been a lot of people waiting for an English release of this series, so I had to give it a try. This author has a bit of a cult following due to the popularity of her other titles, so it's surprising that it took this long for this one to come out in the West, but it seems like it was well worth the wait. The translation is great, and the art looks fantastic, despite being dated due to coming out in the early 2000s. The art style is over the top, yet simple, making it read well on the page, which is great because the mangaka seems to use a lot of visuals in her storytelling to make the dialogue pop. While not for me, I know there's a lot of people out there that will love this story, and i'm glad to see it getting the attention it deserves.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ai Yazawa for allowing me to read this highly anticipated manga. I am a huge Nana and Paradise Kiss fan so I was beyond excited to see Neighborhood Story finally getting a physical English translation after nearly 30 years.

This story follows a young fashion designer, Mikako as she struggles to understand her feelings towards her childhood friend. I absolutely adore Yazawa’s character design and artsyle so much so, that when I was a young teen a lot of my fashion choices were inspired by her. So to finally see the story behind Mikako and Happy Berry was a dream come true. I absolutely love Mikako and her friend Risa, they definitely had a similar vibe to Nana and Hachi. If you haven’t read any of Yazawa’s works yet or any shoujo manga in general this is a solid place to start.

Mikako and Tsutomu have been friends since childhood. As they enter high school, their relationship changes as they meet new people and discover that their friendship is more important than either of them realized.

The art is very on point for Yazawa's work - fantastic clothing and a distinct style. The story hasn't found its footing in this first volume.

Neighborhood Story Vol. 1 by Ai Yazawa is a spiritual prequal to "Paradise Kiss", one of Yazawa's most beloved series. Mikako attends a prestigious arts academy and is enrolled in the fashion department, and attends with her childhood best friend Tsutomu, whom she has a crush on. Tsutomu becomes popular with the opposite sex as he resembles a famous celebrity and Mikako has a difficult time processing her feelings of jealousy. Mikako doesn't realize, however, that Tsutomu also has a crush on Mikako, but still chooses to date other women. We also experience some of the lives of the colorful side characters as well.

This volume was a miss for me as this feels extremely dated. It came out in 2005 and the fashion, art style, storyline, jokes, and characterizations all match the mid 2000's, and not in the most attractive way. The characters have super thin eyebrows, lanky silhouettes, Britany Spears style fashion choices (as well as a few characters dressing alternatively), and Mikako also dyes her hair bleach blonde. I realize that Paradise Kiss was released by Viz a few years ago, but this series isn't as paramount as Paradise Kiss was (and I believe when Viz released it it was a rerelease) and I think this is the first time this series has been published to an English-speaking audience, but it definitely lacks in the themes of acceptance and self-discovery that is found in Paradise Kiss. The premise of this series feels so basic as it is all about a group of teenagers not communicating properly and developing crushes on each other, often times unrequited.

As this was difficult for me to finish, I will not be continuing with reading this series, but look forward to future Viz releases!

Neighborhood Story focuses on a high school student who is confused about her feelings toward her longtime childhood friend.

Neighborhood Story Volume One
Written by: Ai Yazawa
Publisher: Shueisha Inc.
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: December 5, 2023

The main character of Neighborhood Story is Mikako Koda, a student at a prestigious art school called Yawaza Arts Academy whose dream is to become a fashion designer. Among her classmates is her longtime childhood friend, Tsutomu. Tsutomu is a tall and gangly young man that Mikako sees as a monkey. However, Tsutomu has an uncanny resemblance to a famous rock star, which causes his popularity to skyrocket at school. When Tsutomu catches the attention of the most popular girl at the academy, Mikako finds herself upset with this development. As the volume progresses, Mikako wonders if what she’s feeling is jealousy. Throughout the volume, Mikako continues to have this struggle in regards to her feelings about Tsutomu. Teasing by her friends and peers, along with various misunderstandings, only help to intensify Mikako’s emotional struggle.

Over the course of Volume One’s roughly 300 page count, several characters are introduced that help to flesh out the central story. Mikako has two close friends: Risa Kanzaki and Mai Oota (who we see referred to more as P). Risa looks like she could be a punk rocker, but she’s actually interested in becoming a children’s clothing designer. P likes to wear Lolita-style clothing and a carries a stuffed animal around with her. While we get some great character development for Risa in Volume One, we don’t get much for P. Hopefully P will get more development as the series progresses.

Tsutomu also has two close friends: Yuusuke Tashiro and Jiro Nishino. Yuusuke comes across as gruff, but he also has a good heart. Jiro has purple hair, always wears sunglasses, and is a computer programmer who creates computer games. In Volume One, Yuusuke gets much more character development than Jiro. In fact, we don’t see Jiro much outside of school, because he constantly seems to be working and isn’t around. I hope Jiro gets more character development later.

Mariko Nakasu is the popular girl from school that Tsutomu dates early on in the volume. When she’s first introduced into the series, she’s portrayed as a typical “gyaru” who has many boyfriends and toys around with guys. But as the volume progresses, we discover there’s more dimension to Mariko than what other people see on the surface.

As I stated earlier, there are a number of misunderstandings that take place throughout Volume One, with Mikako being the main one to misunderstand situations. Tsutomu can be a little dense as well, but Mikako seems to be the one who misunderstands situations more. Relationship webs also develop throughout this volume, especially in the wake of Tsutomu and Mariko’s dating and then later breaking up. Yuusuke becomes a major part of this web and is initially portrayed as wanting to be a “ladies’ man” and being rather selfish. However, as the volume progresses and Yuusuke starts getting to know Mariko more, he wants to be protective of her and seems to genuinely be interested in Mariko. Between the depictions of Mariko and Yuusuke, there also seems to be a theme in this manga of not judging people on a surface level.

During this volume, Tsutomu tells Mikako that there’s someone he’s been interested in for a long time, but she doesn’t realize that he’s talking about her. I was actually surprised when I saw a character tell her point-blank that she’s the person that Tsutomu referring to. Since it didn’t come from him directly, Mikako tells herself that perhaps the person who told her is mistaken. But I was a little surprised to see this pointed out to her by the end of Volume One. But then again, it does make sense, since this knowledge only adds more confusion for Mikako when she’s already struggling with figuring out her feelings for Tsutomu.

Near the end of the volume, Mariko’s younger brother becomes a student at Yawaza Arts Academy, and joins the new club that Tsutomu helps to found. The new club wants to make items to sell at a local flea market, and one of the last things we see in the volume is the group going to check out the market.

Right at the beginning of the volume, a point is made about Tsutomu’s resemblance to the famous rock star, and we see this fact utilized a lot early on in Volume One. However, by the end of the volume, this isn’t really referenced again. Perhaps Yazawa found that the further she got into the story, it was a lot harder to incorporate this resemblance naturally into the storyline. Perhaps this could come back in a future volume, but as of right now, it feels like that quirk for the series has been quietly dropped.

When it comes to the art, Yazawa gave these characters very different designs, so it makes it quite hard to mistake who’s who. The series also has a very distinct art style, which helps to make Neighborhood Story stand out from series by other shojo manga artists. But even saying that, there are still elements in the art that make it clear that this is a shojo manga. From the art style, you can pick up on the fact that Neighborhood Story isn’t a current manga series. You can kind of tell from the look and feel of the series that it came out nearly 30 years ago.

For a shojo manga, Neighborhood Story seems to be a pretty decent title. If you’re a fan of Ai Yawaza’s work and haven’t read this series yet, it might be worth checking out. If you enjoy shojo manga and don’t mind that the look and feel of the series seems dated, then you’ll probably also find an appreciation for Neighborhood Story Volume One.

At long, long last, this is available in English. (Or will be on December 5th.) Why is that such a triumph? Apart from the fact that it's one of Ai Yazawa's best titles in my opinion, it's also the story that comes directly before <i>Paradise Kiss</i>, so if you like that one, you need to read this one to get a fuller picture of where those characters come from. But mostly this is just one of those titles that gets it - what it's like to be someone who chooses to be deliberately weird to cope with what life throws at you, how scary change can be, and how to come to terms with your own emotions, even when that's the scariest thing of all.

I've read Paradise Kiss and the first few volumes of Nana, but I never read Neighborhood Story until now. It's lovely to see Yazawa's earlier artwork. The slice of life story of childhood friends and their friends from the art high school made for a wonderful break from my vastly different life. The characters start off as a certain type, and Yazawa shines at subverting expectations as they are fleshed out. I can't wait to read volume 2.

This style is SO nostalgic. It was super cute and I enjoyed the childhood best friends realizing they love each other trope.

I'm so happy to finally get an official translation of Neighborhood Story! I've been obsessed with Ai Yazawa since high school (ten years ago... or more...), and I'm excited to follow Mikako's story. It was published before Parakiss and Nana, so a lot of that polish isn't present here, but you still get Yazawa's signature art style, humor, and angst. It's a fun story and a good first volume.

4/5

Talk about your classic, dependable, emotional love story. Neighborhood Story has all the nostalgic tropes and feels that you miss.

Originally published in 1995, you obviously can’t help but notice the over-the-top stylization of characters. I honestly love this older art style, especially where the girls look like Bratz™ dolls. The plot is still solid to this day. There’s a lot of drama off the bat but that’s what makes it so entertaining to read. The writing style is also classic but I don’t feel like it’s old (if that makes sense). The humour still holds up today and there are some good values that you wouldn’t expect from an older publication.

This volume also has a lot. It’s quite lengthy compared to some mangas today. Definitely worth the price and then some.

This is my first time reading this series. I didn’t even know it had a 50 episode anime until writing this review. I love that the side characters are given a lot of focus right away. You can tell that everyone that has been introduced will be important even if they didn’t seem like it at first. This volume is a great set up for some real drama to happen later.