What happens when you loosely base your manga on Romeo & Juliet and add standard shounen hijinks? Well, you may get something like Boarding School Juliet.
Now whether it’ll end like Romeo & Juliet…it’ll probably be a while before we know!
Originally serialized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine (it moved to Weekly Shonen this year), Boarding School Juliet is set in an elegant, classy school that happens to house students from two countries — Touwa and West — that hate each other. Long-time enemies for a while, the school itself has forbidden fights from the two at their school. But for the leader of Black Doggy House, Romio, and leader of White Cat House, Juliet, they’re basically always destined to fight. This however, is not what Romio wants, as he’s fallen in love with Juliet. But between the group’s constant competition and having to make sure she doesn’t get hurt, it’s not looking to be.
However, one fateful moment changes both Romio and Juliet! As Juliet looks to have been caught by one of the Black Doggies, Romio ends up saving her. Instead of thinking he did save her, however, Juliet just continues believing he looks down on her, and she decides enough is enough. So she challenges him to a one-on-one fight. This ends with Romio realizing he has been looking down on her — so he finally says he likes her. Both then agree to date, so all’s resolved for sure….ok not really. Both now have to find a way to hide this relationship, which proves dire for Romio as his own group and then later on the Princess of West test his mettle in hilarious ways.
Like sending him to fight some deer…
Anyways, the potential for Boarding School Juliet is there, but I don’t think it quite gets there in this volume. In some cases it feels a little lacking, particularly regarding how Romio and Juliet can interact. For example there’s a chapter where the two go on a date, and Juliet has to crossdress so she’s not caught by any group. During said date, she happens to go to a restaurant and holds chopsticks in an…odd manner. That’s a bit weird. The pace of the stories feels fine, but nothing spectacular, and the art is tolerable, but nothing great.
But I am intrigued at how Romio and Juliet will manage this issue, and I also appreciate the curveball thrown into this volume. What happens here is maybe something you toss into volume 2 or end the volume on. But I guess it’s a reminder that it’s a comedy first and foremost, and it does have some amusingly hilarious moments. Ultimately though, because of the setup, I do want to see how the relationship progresses, if at all, as the series goes on. And as that goes on, the comedy can get better too.