Manga review - Emma by Kaoru Mori

Preparing for this week's first ever teen MANGA SHARE tomorrow, I took home a stack of manga to read. In a mere 30 minute train ride, I devoured the first volume in Kaoru Mori's Emma series, and felt myself transported to a different time and place than I ever expected manga would take me. Emma is essentially the manga version of historical fiction, and while the narrative version may have bored me, Emma had quite the opposite effect. You see, Emma is a mere maid in Victorian London, which isn't a desirable fate exactly, but Emma is lucky. Emma is beautiful, and she has all sorts of suitors with way more money than her family ever had.

In the first volume, her main love interest is William Jones, a member of the landed gentry whose father would be crushed to find out his son is actually in love with a maid.

But no good love story comes without complication, or in the case of this volume, a bit of a love triangle. William's friend Hakim Atawari, is visiting from India and staying with the Jones when his gaze falls on Emma. It's anyone's guess who she will end up with, and volume one is just the beginning.

While this may be not the right manga for our Naruto fans, it could definitely interest fans of the popular historical romance series by Anna Godbersen that begins with The Luxe and other readers of shojo (girl) manga.

FYI - Emma manga has a cult following in Japan, and even spawned a maid-themed cafe in Shinjuku (a section of Tokyo).