Monthly! Amagi Brilliant Park 1

This is one of the new series I'm picking up and it's a monthly! The story is quite unique where it looks like it revolves around a theme park "Amagi Brilliant Park" (hence the title). The theme park was a built during the *bubble economy of Japan and it has been a mess after the burst. I'll get into more details but for now, all you need to know is that it's a theme park that looks run down. No "guests" and no people around to enjoy their time. What is going to happen?

Monthly Dragon Age March 2014 Issue 3

(I did my research!)

From the colored splash page for this series, it says that they need to get a lot of people to go to that run down theme park. The time limit given is about 2 weeks so for someone in high school in his third semester, that's a lot of things on his plate (it's third semester, finals come rolling in).

Spoiler Alert! If you are gonna read this post, please read the actual manga first!


Summary: Kanie Seiya, a high schooler, is threatened by a transfer student. Her demand? For him to be with her on Sunday at an amusement park. Her weapon? A custom designed rifle. Her name? Sento Isuzu. The transfer student who has captured the hearts of many.

How (not) to ask a boy to prom.

Sunday comes, as he waits for Sento, he reveals that he is a narcissist. He loves looking at himself in the mirror and when he does, he automatically flips his hair and internally praise himself for looking good. He also describes himself highly, saying that he's top of the class, athletic and multi-talented. He's not selling himself too short. Finally, she comes.

He needs a glove, a hat, and moon walking skills.

Wearing a cute summer dress with layers on, Sento now states their destination, Amagi Brilliant Park--Ama-Bri for short. Kanie then questions why their destination is a "weird" one  when seemingly, out of nowhere, Sentou pulls out her rifle from under her skirt?! He calms her down and they get on the bus.

Amagi Brilliant Park, isn't at all welcoming and is more like a place to keep away from. The rides needs repairing, some attractions aren't even open, the mascots are rude, the games are difficult and the food takes forever. This is basically a theme park where the guys from Roanapur come to play.

Nothing funny here.

After ordering food, he finally snaps. He complains about everything that's wrong with the theme park. Sento, however, remarks one line Kanie said about the theme park, "Before you show a dream to someone, you have to believe in that dream first." She continues and mentions a certain young child actor who was the perfect boy but suddenly retired from the industry, his name is Kodama Seiya. Kanie has created the reason why he was taken to that place. He walks off to leave but Sento requests him to take a bite out of the croquettes. He was surprised at how tasty it is. Sento states that the croquettes can only be bought here and suggests that Kanie see the person who made them.

Meet Jerry's cousin, Muscles.

After going through a secret passage only employees would know, Sento tells him that she is an employee at the park. They arrive at a hanging garden and waiting there, a blind young woman. She claims to be the theme park's manager, Latifa Florenza. Latifa takes the blame for getting Kanie into the theme park in a harsh way but she explains that she only did it to ask a request. For Kanie to be the new manager of Amagi Brilliant Park.

Is that you Nunally?! *Code Geass

Likes: The story. I like stories that have unique themes to them. This is about returning a run down theme park into it's former glory. That means economics and business which is not so common in today's manga. It just sounds original to me so I picked this series up and decided to review it. I am reading a few more and I'll just have to decide which one of them I'll keep on reviewing.

Also, the art. This is basically storyboard material for an anime or even a base cel for a cel animated video. I can't describe it properly but to word it out... Let's see.. hmmm... Anime-ish?

Visual Confirmation can't be done.

Dislikes: Takes a while to get to the beef of the story. They could've edited the comedy parts out and the narcissistic bits. I guess the mangaka is doing his best to lengthen the series up.

Quirks: How can she materialize that rifle?!

Yandere.

Predictions: Maybe the manager will tell us about the 2 week time limit next because this chapter didn't have much explanation going on. We got to the Ama-Bri but what now?! They should've cut those comic relief panels.

Tell me what you think about this series! Hopefully it piques your interest as it did with me! This reminds me of a game I played in my game console once. It was to build a theme park and get business going (pretty much like the story) and you could even build your own roller coaster! You can even get on it and view it in first person, it was a fun game.

You mean Mami Tomoe?

Notes:

*Bubble economy of Japan - for those who don't know about it: Back in the 80's, the economy was growing and stock prices were going higher. The Yen became stronger and land prices in Tokyo (which started out high) began to drop. The 90's came and Japan's overall asset prices inflated astronomically.Stock prices suddenly dropped and the Yen became weak going back to where it was at the second half of the 80s. This triggered land prices to drop and everything else followed suit. A deep recession began and the bubble started. A sad part of Japan's history.