The Beautiful Skies of Houou High Volume 1 (2024)

Theresa ♫

250 reviews58 followers

March 31, 2012

...I just wanna say that I love manga, especially the kind that I choose to review for Goodreads.
I remember the lowest rating for one of the manga I was reading was a three-star.

But...but this one...gets a ONE-STAR!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Ohohohohohoho the agony!

Okay, so I was at my library, right? I was just browsing through the millions of books that they had and then I saw this one sitting on one of the carts of books that were just returned.
I saw this sitting there and...well, I was sucked in my the art LIKE A MAGNET.

I mean don't you see the art?! It's so pretty! And the characters in the front have different colored hair that definitely would not be natural in the real world.
I was like "WAAAAAAH, that looks KA-WA-EEEEEEEEEEEE!" and I grabbed it off the shelf and put it onto the pile of books I was carrying.

When I got home, I was like, "YUSSSS! I DISCOVERED A NEW MANGA THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! I WANNA START READING!"
And so I opened the book.

I guess my rating on this book is based solely on opinion.
Art: Pretty!
Plot: AWKWARD!
Happiness: Not a lot.
Why not?: BECAUSE THE PLOT WAS SO FREAKISHLY AWKWARD!

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT THIS STORY WAS GOING TO BE ABOUT A GIRL CHARACTER THAT LIKES GIIIIIRLS!
It said NOTHING about that on the summary on the back of the book. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
I mean this plot was not as bad as Kampfer (Which was also a gender-bender manga, but it was also a girl-on-girl manga...). But still...I was so disturbed by how Kei kept complaining about how she was not surrounded by girls.

And then the guys that do appear around Kei have GIRLY SIDES TO THEM! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!

This review is based solely on my opinion. I have homophobia, you see...

So long story short: The cover is pretty. But this story is awkward and it frightened the daylights out of my soul, and if I see volume 2, I am going to slowly back away.

Heck, I'm not gonna SLOWLY back away. I'm going to get the (bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) out of that library!

    manga the-gender-bending-shelf the-harem-manga-shelf

Jenna

3,666 reviews46 followers

July 23, 2014

Er. Pretty pictures concealing a rather horrible homophobic message.

I don't need to read anything that touts a "cure."
...but pretty pictures, though.

Read the first volume.

    graphic-novels lgbtqia young-adult

Jessica

432 reviews1 follower

September 27, 2020

Terrible Quality, Questionable Story

I rarely make a review because of the quality of a Kindle book, but this one is a rare exception. Instead of the normal manga quality, this Kindle book has pictures of the manga, pictures which zooming in just makes it more blurry. This means that some of the small text is virtually unreadable. I could be missing out important plot points.

Probably not though, as the story isn't strong and may end up being a gay conversion therapy story, which is gross. A lesbian is enrolled at an all boys school to help her get over her PHYSICAL AVERSION to guys. She literally pukes because of dudes, y'all. Now, that needs some treatment, as men make up half of society and you can't go around puking on them, but enrolling crossdressing at an all boy school is not a real treatment. There's some hints that something horrible happened in her past to make this happen, and ugh no I don't want this. It's probably going to turn out that the only way she can get over the Bad Thing is falling in love with a guy and surprise she's not a lesbian, it was just trauma! I'm not sticking around to find that out.

Definitely do not recommend. The actual quality of the book is trash, and the story looks like it's going to end up as mega trash.

Clara

11 reviews

January 9, 2024

The Beautiful Skies of Houou High is a series about a lesbian who is transferred to an all boys school by her mother to cure her homosexuality.... and the manga is 100% on the mom's side. After being surrounded by guys, the protagonist's lesbianism is cured, and she's straight now. But even if you ignore the heinous premise, the manga is just plain bad, the most generic characters and mediocre artwork where the only remotely interesting aspect is the homophobic premise and how both got published and translated in the first place. (In fairness, the official translation was cancelled partway through publication due to backlash, but fan translations for the whole series exists online)

Rachael

167 reviews3 followers

November 20, 2022

I mean, a majority of the story is interesting... But I really can't get over that the plot has to do with Kei's mother being against the fact that she's into girls. Forcing her to attend an all-boys school to try to get her to like boys is horrible. And the fact that a lot of people are going along with it! I'm not sure I can read the rest of this series.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.

Maria Drago

Author3 books20 followers

May 6, 2017

This manga actually didn't turn out to be everything I was expecting, and I found myself pretty confused quite often. The characters are sort of off to me, too. I was hoping for so much more! I'll read the next volume, but I might not finish it...

    graphic-novel-or-manga

Kaitlynne

1,604 reviews53 followers

February 16, 2022

I am... not exactly sure what I just read? It was all over the place, to be honest, and I couldn't keep track of everything that was going on. I may read the next volume or two, to see if things change.

sassyspines

513 reviews7 followers

June 29, 2020

This story was completely different from what the synopsis said it was at my library.

    2020-reads all-reviews

Erika Stuart

381 reviews17 followers

March 17, 2023

I wasn't very into it, I started falling asleep while reading...

Matthew

320 reviews6 followers

August 27, 2011

I have no idea why I checked this one out from the library. It's about as far away from my reading tastes as you can get. I think I was probably intrigued by the idea of a teenaged girl dressing up and "passing" as a boy in an all-boys school. While that's a big part of the story, this is really more of a humor book and doesn't really dig into any of the issues the situation might bring up. Add to it that the humor is a series of very repetive jokes, I just didn't get a lot out of this. I'll admit, though, it might have read better if I read this chapter by chapter instead of all at once.

The art is quite strong. Aki Arata has really good drafting skills and knows when to go totally cartoony to enhance a moment. I doubt I'll stick with this series but I'd be willing to try out others by Arata down the road.

    manga young-adult

Elsa

1,092 reviews9 followers

May 22, 2011

I'll pick up volume two when it comes out, but I hope something happens and it doesn't devolve into a whole series of girl that looks like a boy, who also hates boys, hiding her identity at an all-boys school get bullied (quite badly BTW) by the one guy who knows her secret stories, which was pretty much this whole volume.

    manga-gn

Aleixie

407 reviews37 followers

January 27, 2012

It made me laugh but the story plot is not the greatest.

    manga

Joy Popoola

6 reviews1 follower

Read

May 20, 2013

Unusual but still a good bock

Penny

301 reviews7 followers

April 15, 2014

One of my favorites

    manga

Christina

1,134 reviews48 followers

February 23, 2016

This was fabulous. I haven't laughed so hard in so long. I recommend for everyone. This is great.

    alphabet-challenge favorites manga

◼Zaky◼

289 reviews55 followers

April 11, 2017

2.8*

    beautiful-art completed-manga-series delinquent-yakuza-bully
The Beautiful Skies of Houou High Volume 1 (2024)
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