Puri Puri Vol. 1 – Manga Review

After doing some detective work, I found out that the title of the manga “Puri Puri” is short for “Premature Priest.” Oh man, this ought to be good.

Book Blurb:
All he ever hoped for was to be one step closer to becoming a priest, but Masato Kamioda gets more than he bargained for when he suddenly finds himself as the only male student in a pilot program at an all-girls divinity school. As he soon discovers, divine guidance will be his only salvation if he is to withstand various efforts to get him expelled and numerous cruel pranks that test the limits of his ability to keep his passions and desires under control.

Can a boy’s determination to graduate to the priesthood truly contend with the decadent temptations only a school brimming with young beauties, sexual frustration, and the lure of white lace can offer? Find out in this first installment of Puri Puri.

Analysis:
So Puri Puri is basically a Love Hina clone set in a divinity school. Right now all the girls are rebelling against Masato, trying to get him expelled. I’m pretty sure he’ll find a way to turn them all into his harem in time, though.

The main girl is Ayano, who’s actually sort of nice to Makoto when she’s not attacking him for being perverted. There’s also this sword wielding Motoko clone named Sherrice who (predictably) falls for him after he does something manly.

There’s a huge amount of fanservice (I think you can’t go three pages without seeing panties), which made slightly funnier due to the fact that Makoto is a strict Catholic, and writes down all of his sins in a book to be confessed later in high detail (“wh… white lace…”). I have a feeling he’ll run out of pages very soon.

There are some genuinely funny parts, like when Makoto needs to dress Ayano without waking her up (isn’t that like the opposite of what most guys in manga do?). He goes through what looks like a visual novel choice list, finally picking the path that will not get him arrested (probably).

Character Designs and Art:
The character designs aren’t the greatest. Like I mentioned before, the actual personalities of the characters and the plot have pretty much been swiped from Love Hina. Rumi and Ayano look so alike that at times I mistook one for the other! Also, the moe meganekko exorcist is not nearly moe enough.

The art isn’t bad though. It’s just the the character designs themselves are kinda lame. It’s a shame, because I think the artist is pretty good.

Conclusion:
Overall, Puri Puri just feels very generic and average. It’s funny at times, but it’s not good enough to call “good.” Luckily my expectations were zero, so I still ended up enjoying this (albeit marginally). Puri Puri isn’t a “must buy” manga. It’s more like a “buy this if you’ve already bought every single other manga in existence already.”

Many thanks to DrMaster Publications for sending me a review copy of Puri Puri Volume 1!