ShutterBox manga volume 1

by Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons and Rikki Simons

[inlibrisveritas]

Shutterbox fell in a category that I avoid when it comes to manga, gratuitously over the top. I’ve seen this series on shelves for the longest time and it wasn’t until I found a copy in my own store that I decided to try it, now I sort of wish I had left it alone.

When I say gratuitous I mean it. Megan Amano ,wants to be photographer but she’s a bit spacey when it comes to pretty much everything. She over exaggerates and freaks out at the smallest thing. The story itself has a pretty interesting concept. She finds herself at Meridian University, where spirits go to be educated before they are reborn into the world of the living. Megan is taken there while she is still alive, because apparently they have this weird exchange student program…oookay, I’ll go with it. Unfortunately I didn’t see much of an answer to any of the questions I had in this one. The characters are sort of stereotypical and sort of bland, and after 160 pages of this I’m not sure I want to know anymore about them.

Shutterbox was sort of a disappointment on numerous levels. While the art is pretty good, I just didn’t care much about anything else. The story is boring but exaggerated and the characters are just not worth connecting to. I won’t be picking up volume 2.