Reception
High School Debut was among the best-selling manga in Japan during publication. For example, volumes 9, 10, and 11 all reached number 2 on the Tohan best-seller list, and volumes 12 and 13 both debuted at number 3. Volume 13 was the 34th best-selling manga volume in the six months before 17 May 2009, selling over 360,000 copies. About.com's Deb Aoki lists High School Debut as the best shōjo manga of 2008.
Volumes one and two of the English edition were named as two of the Great Graphic Novels for Teens of 2008 by YALSA. A reviewer at About.com named the English translation a favorite new manga of 2008, calling it "well-crafted and lovable"; a reviewer at PopCultureShock similarly described it as a series that "just make you happy". School Library Journal described the series as "standard fair for younger manga readers" and "a good purchase for schools and libraries." Joanna Draper at Comics Worth Reading called it her "favorite shojo series running" for being entertaining and inventive. Otaku USA criticized the first volume for the predictableness of the story.
Kawahara's art was praised for its clean style and layout, dynamic figures, and emotional expressions, and was compared by one reviewer to Yoko Kamio's. Reviewers consistently hailed Haruna as a comic heroine and a key to the series' appeal, but Kawahara's handling of the other chararacters was also praised, particularly with Yoh and his sister Asami. They also praised Haruna's relationship with Yoh, which is presented as a pairing of friends and equals. Some critics noted that the story's initial makeover theme was more deftly handled than a short summary led them to expect, though some still expressed reservations about it.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)