Gakuen Prince

Gakuen Ouji is something you'd expect from a Shoujo and while it starts off strong, it goes downhill rather quickly and ends in a rushed manner. It's a shame too, because the story did start off with tons of potential. Story (spoilers here, sorry): The premise....is messed up. An all female high school starts including guys and while you may think there will be some weird hijinks here and there, it ends up much worse. The majority of the women at this elite school a rapists and sexual offenders. The men have to choose between going with the flow and letting the women have theirway with them or become the boyfriend of another female student and promise your chastity to them. It honestly makes no sense. Truly, it makes no sense. How can a school exist like this? And the teachers don't seem to care when the students are chasing down a male student so they can rape him. I honestly hate the premise of the story since sexual assault is always a disgusting practice. Anyways, outside of this we meet our two MCs who decide to pretend to be a couple so they can be spared from this. Only the female MC gets bullied throughout the series because of the guys she's monopolized from the rapists. The second half of the story had the two MCs separated as the FL starts going out with the second ML, but before they she spend time with the third ML. She honestly has more relationship time with them then the actual ML, but whatever. Misunderstandings sperate them and no one is capable of communicating their ferlings in a healthy manner, so they run from each other. She had better chemistry with the second ML, but she is destined for the first one because that's how it goes. While I understood why the ML liked her, I don't know why the FL liked him. The story doesn't really do a good job showing you that or making you feel like they could be a viable couple. But the series had to end so they end up together even though they spent more time apart. There is a subplot that has the FL's former bully come back to bully her, but it felt convoluted and dumb. In Shoujo mangas, you'll have the FL get secondary male characters vying for her attention, which happens here, and you'll have the ML get the same thing...only in this manga the guys are decent while the women just want to rape the ML. I almost wish we got a proper secondary FL who made the actual FL jealous so she could realize her feelings, but instead thr ML just gets rapists. I did mention that the story did start off strong, and it did, because it was about two people coming closer as they pretend to date. The more drama and misunderstanding the story brought forth, the less it made sense. There's also a plot point of a male student finding our FL with drugs in her making her want to have sex. This leads the male student being questioned by another male student about consent, which is great, but this is also a manga where rape is common place and female students do this to male students all the time with no consequences. It's such a weird side story considering the world the mangaka created here. Characters: As you can tell I forgot everyone's names despite the fact that I just finished reading this. The FL seems like she's strong, but she's just kind of there and goes with the flow. The ML does shoe some growth, but the rushed ending puts a damper on it. He is the better written character though, which is why the second half falters because he's not shown as much as he was in the first half. Art: It's fine. Overall: I've been trying to read more Shoujo stories, because I want to expand my manga horizons. While I'm not the biggest fan of romance, I have come across some Shoujo mangas that have made me fall in love. Unfortunately, Gakuen Ouji isn't one of those stories. There's so much potential here, which is why I feel slighted by what we got. We go from the ML and FL as pretend couple maybe become more in the first half, only to throw it away for the FL and second ML becoming a couple in the second half. They were built up better and had better chemistry, but because the FL and ML have to be together that gets tossed aside at the final chapter. It would make sense if there was more development between the two, but it's not strong enough for me to care about them. Or care why the FL is crying about the ML. I wanted more but got nothing in the end. I am in the minority though, so if you think you might like the story you should give it a chance. It is short, so you have nothing to lose. I just hope you enjoy it more than I did.