Manga Shorts: Red-haired Snow White

Honestly I probably should have posted this review first, since I've only seen it listed under it's Japanese name everywhere else but I only started reading it at the end of October. A friend, who does a lot of quick manga reviews (most of which are cute but obscure shojo titles) had a rather fangirl-ish post about the series so I checked it out (I normally check out a chapter or two of everything she posts about) and fell in love with the series myself. 

Red-Haired Snow White (Akagami no Shirayukihime) by Akizuki Sorata

 Shirayuki, an aspiring pharmacist, lives a quiet life on the edge of town and endures stares whenever she goes into town because of her unusual red hair. Her hair draws the attention of a local prince who wants to take her a concubine, something which Shirayuki objects to, cuts off most of her hair, and then proceeds to flee the country through the nearby woods. There she runs into a young man named Zen who helps her escape the prince and turns out to be the second prince of the neighboring country. From there she gets caught up in some of the politics of the country all the while training to eventually become the Royal Pharmacist. Despite it's title there are very few references to the original Snow White tale, the only one I can think of is a poisoned apple from the first chapter, and with the over abundance of reworked fairy tales these days this is rather nice. This isn't the greatest shojo story ever but it's very solid, lots of likable characters, Shirayuki and Zen are always trying to develop into better characters, most of the cast gets some back story and the story itself progresses at a good pace. I've read all of part one of the story, some time in the past year it switched magazines (I think Hana to Yume split itself or something such as that) and the part one had a nice ending that worked well. I would like to see what else happens in part two but I haven't found any scanlations for it yet (the series is unlicensed although I wouldn't be surprised if Viz eventually picked it up for its Shojo Beat line), I'll be sure to keep following it once more appears.