Print Review: Guru Guru Pon Chan volumes 1-3

Review Guru Guru Pon Chan volumes 1-3Written by WarpshadowRating very good

I think I have read enough shojo manga to know what a generic story looks like. Fortunately for those that pick up this manga, you won’t find it here.

Ponta was just like any other Labrador puppy who was eager to get her nose into everything. That was until the grandfather of the family that owned her invented the Guru guru bone which allowed which allowed Ponta to transform into a human being. Initiallly she wandered about bewildered in her now form until she happened upon her neighbor Mirai. Ponta immediately fell for him even though at the time he thought Ponta was a feral child since she couldn’t speak. When speaking to other dogs Ponta heard that a love between a dog and a human could never be but are they right?

Perhaps the definition of a mediocre story is one that makes only cosmetic changes to the story’s genre expectations. Guru Guru Pon Chan on the other hands manages to pull of something very different compared to your average Shojo romance while retaining the defining elements of one. The biggest difference is in Ponta and how much of the early story focuses on Ponta and her learning about human nature paralel to her romance with Mirai. The allows for a different source of tension in the story, being Ponta and her nonhuman nature and the complications that arise from it rather than making Mirai tortured and emotionally unavailable like they do in far too many shojo stories. If you like shojo at all but find the same old stories to be a bit tired.