Princess Jellyfish Volume 1

Princess Jellyfish Volume 1 by Akiko Higashimura

Tsukimi Kurashita has a strange fascination with jellyfish. She’s loved them from a young age and has carried that love with her to her new life in the big city of Tokyo. There, she resides in Amamizukan, a safe-haven for girl geeks who regularly gush over a range of things from trains to Japanese dolls. However, a chance meeting at a pet shop has Tsukimi crossing paths with one of the things that the residents of Amamizukan have been desperately trying to avoid—a beautiful and fashionable woman! But there’s much more to this woman than her trendy clothes! This odd encounter is only the beginning of a new and unexpected path for Tsukimi and her friends.

Rating:

I love jellyfish(es). They are beautiful, and I remember finding this manga online and falling utterly in love with it (I even have a jellyfish tattoo).

And it is obvious our author does too because the pages of jellyfish are awesome, and Tsukimi is super cute. She thinks she’s not, and she struggles socially, but then Kuranosuke appears and somehow starts ploughing into her world and shaking yingup. Even worse because she isn’t a she but a he that dresses up as a woman, and one thing Tsukimi and the group of women she lives with, the AMARS, can’t do with is men!

But Tsukimi feels slightly in debt as Kuranosuke helped her save Clara (a jellyfish) from slowly dying. And at first thinks Kuranosuke is a girl, but alas, finds out he isn’t and has to hide it from the rest of the AMARS.

Each of the AMARS has their own “otaku” obsession, dolls, the Three Kingdoms, old men, jellyfish, trains.. And most of them are over 30 (except Tsukimi who is 18) and dependent on their parents.

Yes, it sounds odd, but it is a funny comic story with gorgeous clothes, amazing jellyfish and cute Tsukimi.

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You can read the first volume of Princess Jellyfish, or maybe try the anime (as there is one, which I haven’t seen because I wanted to re-read up to where I stopped reading and collect the manga first).