Manga Review: Shugo Chara Vol.1

                                                    Shugo Chara Vol.1Review

Shugo Chara is a series about an elementary school girl named Amu Hinamori who has the reputation of being cool and spicy which makes other people think their not cool enough to hang out with her but in actuality Amu doesn't know what to say in social situation and comes off as aloof rather than nervous and what she really wants is to just be normal, have friends and by her true self. One night at dinner there's a show with a psychic women who mentions guardian characters so that night Amu wishes for the courage to be her true self and the next morning she wakes up to find three eggs in her bed.

That day at school the guardians of the school are talked about for the first time and it's revealed that Tadase the king chair who everyone thinks of as a prince is the guy that almost all the girls have a crush on as does Amu but she acts rather coldly to him when he approaches her that day. At a school assembly that day Amu is regretting treating Tadase coldly and wishes she had the courage to be honest and then she suddenly doesn't have control over herself and she announces that she likes him and he tells her he likes someone else.

Amu feeling extremely embarrassed by her behavior and Tadase's rejection rushes out of the school and ends up falling into a hole at a construction site. Amu discovers that her fall was broken by an older boy named Ikuto who had been taking a nap in the hole which Amu finds really weird and she finds it even more weird that he knows about her eggs and that he tries to take them by searching her body which she doesn't like at all. When the hole is almost covered by rocks Amu's first guardian character Ran is born and she uses a character change on Amu that allows her to fly which freaks Amu out. After Ikuto tries to get Amu's other eggs, Amu falls but is caught by Tadase and after a brief fight with Ikuto vanishes and Tadase says that Amu should come to a guardian meeting to learn about her guardian character.

Ran ends up teasing Amu about her crush on Tadase and Amu learns that Ran is the reason why she confessed her feelings to Tadase which makes her mad at Ran. Ran explains that a guardian character is a person's would be self. The next day in school Amu's afraid that the rest of the students would dislike her for not living up to cool character but she is actually pleasantly surprised to learn that her confessing feelings to Tadase actually made her more approachable and she makes friends with some girls in her class. Amu's second guardian character Miki is born who is good at art(Ran's good a sports) and she tells Amu that she has to believe in her guardian characters.

Amu learns a bit more about guardian characters at her meeting with the guardians and she learns that all the members of the guardians have their own guardian characters. Amu rejects joining the guardians because she wants to be normal but Nadeshiko tries to trick Amu into joining the guardians by helping her with her crush on Tadase although she still helps Amu out even when Amu still refuses to join. Nadeshiko works with Amu make a tart for Tadase's birthday but when Nadeshiko is out of the room Ikuto comes and tries to steal Amu's last a egg she stops him but the two of them end up in a rather intimate position and she asks him why he wants her eggs and what the embryo is before he can answer Nadeshiko comes back does a character change that makes her go a bit crazy with a knife like item and Ikuto dodges her attacks. Amu last guardian character Suu a ditzy cooking and cleaning expert in born and she makes matters worse by filling the room with batter.

During the fight the tart Amu made was broken which saddens her but she ends up making cookies for Tadase instead. When giving the cookies to Tadase Amu accidently agrees to join the guardians. Amu learns that Tadase's goal is world domination which freaks her out and she asks why the other guardians support this goal which they say they do it because it's fun.

Amu sees Utau a girl she saw with Ikuto is an idol singer and after a bath while on her balcony she wonders if she's Ikuto's girlfriend Ikuto who appeared out of nowhere tells her she's not. Amu is confused by Ikuto's appearance and asks why he's there then he gives a bag of snacks to make up for the broken tart and she realizes that he's trying to say sorry. Ikuto warns her about Easter setting things into motion and that they'll be enemies as long as she's helping Tadase.

Amu learns that it's her duty to stop x eggs which are eggs of a young persons heart that has gone bad and at the end of the volume she sees her first one. I overall really like this volume a lot happens, I really enjoy the characters and the art is nice. Please tell me your thoughts on this series.