Japanese:イオナ―Sexy dynamite in elementary school
Artist: Sawai Ken 澤井 健
Status: Complete
Span: 1999
Volume #: 9
Wiki page: none
Series can be read: none
A shockingly little amount of information can be found on the web regarding this way hilarious comic series. The drawing can be quite beautiful and provocative when it's not gut-bursting, and the leading lady has a killer avant-garde sense of fashion. If you do not have two X chromosomes, do not be turned off -- her sense of fashion also leans dangerously toward the exhibitionist side. This is by no means an erotic series, but you do see quite a bit of skin sometimes.
Iona is a substitute elementary school teacher who has taken over a fifth grade class when the original teacher in charge takes a maternity leave. She comes to her first day of class extremely late and hung over. Oh, and she is also wearing a trench coat wearing only underwear beneath it. No, she's not a pervert exposer (fine, the jury is still out on that one). The pre-first day celebration caused her to drink too much, and by the time she woke up she was already late so she had no time to put on proper clothes. I know I know, sounds ridiculous. Just wait until you get to know her. And her students.
Shuu is the adorable boy she especially favours... for no particular reason. Shuu is a sensitive, occasionally shy boy with a sense of justice who is a pacifist and loves animals. At first he finds Iona's affection embarrassing, but with time he accepts her and develops an early-teen crush on her (honestly, with that body of hers it's no surprise). Shuu's mother died when he was little; now he lives with his widower dad who's pretty clueless and an older brother who takes care of the family (cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc) and seems pretty detached.
Youichi is Shuu's best friend with naturally red hair (being Japanese that's a big deal). Always the troublemaker, he has pretty atrocious grades and is not afraid to cut some corners to make his life easier. He also has an understanding of sex unexpected of an early adolescent. But when the chips are down, Youichi is still a good person. His mother seems a bit overweight, and he always pokes fun at her (accidentally?) for that.
Madoka is the stereotypical feminist class president who is pretty and headstrong and competitive and good at everything she does. She starts out hating Iona because she thinks Iona uses her sex appeal to get what she wants, and this debases all women. She comes from an upper-class family; her dad is a pediatrician with his own clinic, but her family is extremely matriarchal. Her mom basically calls all the shots and her dad lives eternally on tiptoes. It doesn't help that she lives with 2 sisters and a grandmother who are exactly like her. Madoka thinks Youichi is an idiot and the two constantly bicker, and in the comics world that can only mean one thing: romance. Their relationship gradually develops throughout the series.
Tetsuya looks very much like Puck from the new TV series Glee. He has a Mohawk and wears a baseball jacket all the time. Living with his divorced mother, he really misses his dad who has remarried and had more kids. He also does his best to cheer up his mother, who's a bit overworked and sad.
Ujiko. Oh Ujiko, poor Ujiko. She's a smart girl, likes to read (but not exactly nerdy), has good taste, but is a bit resentful toward the world because... she's so ugly. Her hair looks like two bundles of cauliflower and her face... oh her face. We meet her mom and dad, and only in comics can you do this: her facial features are the perfect mixture of her parents. Both her parents are normal looking, but they combine in the WORST way to form the catastrophe that is her face. And to make things worse, her little brother is extremely cute because he has the BEST combination (again, starting with the exact same features from the parents). Her parents seem to only see her little brother most of the time, and she feels adopted-- the fourth wheel on a tricycle. She is also extremely unlucky when it comes to animals (always the one bitten first).
Kimie, the shy clueless bespectacled girl who is nerdy-looking but pretty dumb in reality. Stumbles across explosive situations and sets them off without an idea of what's going on. Constantly being called an idiot, including by her best friend Ujiko. But the greatest thing about her is she's always pretty happy. And she probably has the most complete and functional family out of everybody.
Natsumi is the sickly pale girl who has asthma and is always sitting at the sideline during gym class. She's really pretty and dainty and soft-voiced so all the boys like to help her out. Madoka, of course, thinks she's a weakling and reinforces the negative female stereotype.
Alright, on to the main dish: Iona. She's a bit of a mystery; no one knows where she came from or how she got this job (she seems pretty underqualified, but she does prepare the students for tests really well). The old principal lets her have her way and gives her funding because he's impressed with her... physique (no, nothing too dirty ever goes on between the two). She's ever so glamourous, and she can change her outlandish outfits a few times a day. Weird thing is, her hair length and colour also changes with her outfits, but she doesn't seem to be wearing a wig (we get to know her hairdresser, Kimie's dad). She has a super conductive body and suffers a great deal from electrostatic shocks in dry or stormy weather. She drinks like a fish. She shows extreme favouritism (only toward Shuu). She's a terrible cook and often mooches off the students' parents' kindness. She's cheap on everything except when it comes to make-up and clothes. She lies, she's vain, she's bad-tempered, she's rude (sometimes). But somehow she always comes through when she is needed the most (though sometimes secretly it might be for her personal gain).
So the class has some spectacular (ly impossible) adventures together. There's a lot of brainy spoof on other comics and celebrities. The cover art for each chapter can be astonishingly creative and lively and beautiful. Some of Iona's outfits and poses.... *wolf whistles. And the chapter titles also capture the chapter content succinctly in famous sayings, usually in English, French, or Italian. Toward the end things started getting too mindlessly ridiculous, and I'm really not happy with the ending, but I admit it has a strange flavour and can have a very fitting interpretation. One of the strange things about this series: while it's exotic and impossible and outlandish, it also makes some very shrewd observations on life and has some scarily accurate portrayals of real people. All the families, each with its own problems and quirks, are extremely fun to watch. Adults are not necessarily always collected and calm; they have their extreme emotions too that they try so desperately to hide from each other and from their children. Iona's always honest with herself, and she rubs off on everyone she meets, no matter how much they hate or despise her initially. She may very well rub off on you too.
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