Serenity--New Bad Girl in Town (Serenity) (ISBN 1593109415)

Book Description:
AMERICA'S PREMIER INSPIRATIONAL MANGA! Meet Serenity, a lonley teen from a broken family who just wants to be accepted--but who tends to lash out at others with anger and obnoxious sarcasm. At her new school, the Christian prayer group takes Serenity on as a "project," showing her friendship and love. . .but will even that be enough to crack her hard shell? Sharply illustrated in full color, BAD Girl in Town features realistic storylines and dialogue, and shares a solid biblical message with tween and teen girls. And Serenity's story only starts here--five more books are planned to release every other month starting in January.

Book Description:
Teens worldwide love "manga" comics--"now you can give them this popular style with great Christian content! Meet Serenity, a lonely teen from a broken family who just wants to be accepted--"but who tends to lash out at others with anger and obnoxious sarcasm. At her new school, the Christian prayer group takes Serenity on as a "project," showing her friendship and love...but will even that be enough to crack her hard shell? Sharply illustrated in full-color,

Hilariously Bad:
Serenity: America's Premier Inspirational Manga!!! Basically about Serenity bad girl who does bad things blah blah, BUT she can be saved! By a bunch of stalkerish Christian kids! The book starts off with Serenity at her new school and the principal is threatening her about being expelled if she does a single thing wrong. First off, I doubt the principal is going to be yelling at a delinquent kid first time they see them. If they wanted this to relate to kids, they'd make the characters, oh I don't know, sensible. Yelling at someone isn't going to make them want to be on your side. She then goes and gets an incomplete in English class for turning in an "incomplete" poetry assignment. It turns out that it was a *gasp* a dirty limerick. This is stupid. Because 1) limericks are poetry, and 2) it was not incomplete. It was a whole work. If the teacher had given her a grade but a stern warning about content, that would have been fine. Heck, if the teacher had written "Not appropriate" on it, I would be fine with that. However, he writes "incomplete", which it wasn't, the definition an ENGLISH teacher should know. After this, Serenity storms out of class and bumps into a feminist teacher. She agrees with Serenity and disappears suddenly after that. She was drawn as stereotypically butch as possible, and the Christian girls ask "was she bothering you" later in Gym. It sounds like someone doesn't like the idea of women's rights. Later, Serenity is trying to make friends with a bunch of kids the bible belter crowd call "worst kids in school" However, we see no evidence of them doing anything bad. Oh yeah, the Christian Fun Time Gang decide to be Serenity's friends, whether she wants them to or not Sounds like harassment to me. There are more stories in the comic (not manga, manga to me, has to be actually from Japanese writers) but I will not describe them as I may have spoiled enough about it. A main point of concern is the writing. Especially early in the book. The reader is slapped with the writer's moral perspective upside the head. The dialogue, is also awful. "Dawgz, we been dissed." I'm not kidding. Or refering to a girl as a "Tassal" what? Who says that? I have never heard that phrase before in my life. They need a teen consultant for the writers, BAD. Serenity gets nice character development, but most of the other characters are largely undeveloped. And her random bouts of emo-ness get on my nerves. Lots of people say they like the art, I however, disagree. The art is very bad. The backgrounds are simple and sparse, a lot of the time not even appearing at all. The characters are illproportioned and the anatomy hurts my brain. Facial expressions are often exaggerated to emulate manga, but this largely fails. The colors are bright and the uncolored backgrounds just causes the viewer to realize how ugly the comic is. Compared to other "American Manga" the art is seriously lacking. Reality Check and Bizenghast are beautiful to look at, but this is rather plain. Webcomics done in manga style are frequently better looking to this. It looks amateurish unprofessional. I'm not Christian, but I am the target age group for this, and I have to say, it just wasn't very good. It just turned me away even more from Christianity, it is that bad. It would have been better with prettier art, writing that didn't preach, and characters who weren't flat. However, on the bright side, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time at the sheer badness of it. That's why this gets two stars. One for effort, and the other for making me laugh.

Wow! this is awesome!!:
i fell in love with anime and manga, but wasnt very happy with all the cursing, violence, witchcraft, and demonism. this manga is so cool! the main character reminds me of a few of my friends at school, and this series has helped me better understand them. if your a christian anime freak, anime/manga addict, or are a christian convinced mangas "evil" and therfor going through "anime/manga withdrawl" this is the perfect book for you!! (trust me i've been through the whole doubting thing.... followed by a two year 'withdrawl' from anime... once your hooked your much better off bugging publishers to make more christian manga or buying christian maga than getting over the whole anime/manga addiction.). God bless.

Laughable:
Like Victror Valle said, this book is not manga. It's lame beyond imagination and with a typical subject. Its target audience isn't manga readers.... it's for bible humpers who live in their own "God-blessed" bubble and constantly think they need to convert other people.

awesome series:
I just bought all of the Serenity books for my tweenager and I am thoroughly impressed. The issues encountered are exactly what she'll be facing in the next few years, this series equips me as a parent with another tool for discussion. And they're really well done, I'm from the generation when comics weren't always made into movies. It's nice to see a great Christian manga in print format!

Not a good Christian read!:
If I could rate this with a number of negative stars, I would! I ordered this set as gifts for young girls and was appalled to find a number of obscenities! The books are published by Barbour (My Utmost For His Highest) and sold by Christian retailers, so I did NOT see a need for concern. Thank goodness I read them first! Steer clear unless you want to teach your kids four letter words, use of "protection," etc.