I love The Princess and the Frog and I love Nao Kodaka's art style, so the fact that this manga exist fills me up with so much joy. (Especially since Disney Princesses of color don't appear to be popular in Japan, according to my observation when I search for Japanese Disney merch. Except maybe Jasmine but she's still not that common. I guess the same can be said about the U.S., but now I'm getting waaay off topic.)

Anyway, this manga reads exactly like the movie, and Kodaka does a fantastic job drawing in the Disney style yet maintaining the manga style. My complaint is why the POC don't have screentone on their skin? As frogs, Naveen and Tiana have a light tone. Tiana's gloves from her blue and green princess outfits have screentones, both of which should be a lighter shade than her skin tone. That's whitewashing and the characters just don't look right without a skin tone.

While reading this, I realize that adapting a film into a manga is a challenge. Had I not been familiar with the film, I think I would be confused with certain parts, such as when Ray appears and says he'll help untangle Naveen and Tiana. But in the next panel, Ray is thanked without showing us how he untangles the couple. The same thing happens when Naveen is trapped in a box and needs Ray to help unlock him. We don't know how Ray does it because in the next panel, Naveen escapes with a dizzy Ray in the corner. Had Kodaka had more pages, maybe she could've included more backstory(?) to those scenes, or change the whole story slightly so it flows better as a manga if she had the liberty instead of remaining faithful to the source material.

My favorite part of the story is the cover sketches at the end. I love any excuse to see more of Kodaka's beautiful art. They weren't included in the French version of the manga (which I own because I never thought to see this licensed in English), and I wonder if this is a custom cover for the English version since the original Japanese cover art is the same one as the French version. If that's the case, cool!

I have been purchasing and reading Tokyopop manga for a long time. I remember the days back when the retouching offended me because of how lazy and amateur it was. Thankfully that is not the case here. The colors on the cover are bright enough to attract young readers, yet the design is tasteful and mature enough so that adult fans can proudly read it (I still remember that hot-pink mess that is Dream Saga.) I don't agree with a couple of the lettering placements blocking the illustrations when there's a clear spot nearby. Since Tokyopop still insists of slapping their robofish logo so obnoxiously large on the spine, at least the colors now match the colors of the cover instead of clashing red. If anything, their choice of typeface in the character intro makes my graphic designer-heart wilt. That curly type is not meant for body text. It's so hard to read I didn't even bother with it. ( )