The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross
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is a Japanese '' shōjo'' manga series written and illustrated by Arina Tanemura. The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross premiered in the September 2004 issue of '' Ribon'', running until the June 2008 issue. The 47 chapters were collected and published in 11 ''
tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...
'' volumes by
Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...
. The series is licensed for English language release in North America by
Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
which published the first volume on March 6, 2007. The eleventh and final volume was released in English in April 2010. In this fictional work, a 15-year-old student was sold by her father to another family.


Plot

Haine Otomiya, a 15-year-old
high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
student at the elite private Imperial Academy (帝国学園 ''Teikoku Gakuen''), was apparently sold to the Otomiya family by her father, Kazuhito Kamiya, for 50 million yen. Disoriented with her place in life, she became a
gang member A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectivel ...
until she met Shizumasa Tōgū, who told her to live life how she wanted to. Recognizing Shizumasa as the author of a treasured picture book given to her from father, Haine reformed herself and entered the Imperial Academy to try and win his love. However, Shizumasa is the Emperor of the school, the sole Gold rank student as the admired President of the Student Council. Through various circumstances, the Bronze-ranked Haine is tricked into becoming Shizumasa's bodyguard and assigned the special rank of Platinum - which designates her as the Koutei's companion. To Haine's surprise and disappointment, Shizumasa claims not to know her and acts coldly toward her. Still determined to win his love, she soon learns that the Koutei is not Shizumasa, but his twin brother Takanari. In the brothers' childhood, Shizumasa won the right to be recognized as the heir to the prestigious Tōgū family, which left Takanari to become his brother's "shadow" and was reported to have died. Because Shizumasa is sickly, Takanari is forced to assume Shizumasa's identity and reluctantly falls in love with Haine. Their relationship is strained by Haine's uncertainty as to whether she loves Shizumasa, whose kind words saved her during her darkest crisis of identity, or Takanari, who is revealed to be the author of her beloved story book. In the end, she decides to marry Takanari.


Characters


Student Council

; : :Haine is a fifteen-year-old student at the Imperial Academy who is enlisted to become the bodyguard of the student council president and given the platinum ranking. Haine was born to the Kamiya family but was adopted into the Otomiya family when she was 10 years old for . Out of disillusionment with her new step-family, Haine became a delinquent in 9th grade under the nickname "Seashore Cinderella." However, Shizumasa inspires her to change her ways. Tanemura stated that she picked the character for "ash" in her name as a reference to Cinderella. ; : :Takanari is a student at the Imperial Academy and the emperor of the student council. Takanari is cold and distant, but after meeting Haine, he becomes kinder and later falls in love with her. ; :Shizumasa is a student at the Imperial Academy and the emperor of the student council. He has had leukemia from a young age, and his older twin brother, Takanari, is forced to make public appearances under his identity. ; : :Ushio is Haine's best friend. Despite finding boys repulsive, she is popular with them and is given the nickname . Having known Haine since their delinquent days, she is very protective of her and joins the student council as their secretary to be with her. Ushio is in love with Haine, but she soon realizes that the only reason why she was so attached to her was because she didn't think anyone else would accept her. When Senri does so, however, she discovers that she has fallen in love with him. ; : :The
treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury ...
and brains of the Student Council. Maora is actually a
male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...
, his real name being Yoshitaka Ichinomiya, and is childhood friends with Maguri. He is secretly the of the Imperial Academy. ; : :The
vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
of the Student Council and Takanari's best friend.


Other families

; :The former Emperor of the student council and secret boyfriend of Maika. ; :Itsuki's wife, and claims she fell in love with him at first sight. Before her marriage to Itsuki, Ryouka had already been married and had a son, Kusame, though her first husband is now deceased. She is a cheerful woman who likes to tease both her son and Haine, whom she cares for like her own daughter. ; :Haine's stepbrother and Itsuki's stepson, Kusame is the heir to the Otomiya family. Secretly in love with Haine. Kusame is an honor student and vice president of Imperial Academy Junior section's Student Council. ; :Kazuhito is married to Maika, Haine's mother. Kazuhito was originally the Vice Chairman of the Student Council when he was at the Imperial Academy while Itsuki was the Emperor. ; :Maika is married to Kazuhito and mother to Haine, Komaki, and Tachibana. Originally the secret girlfriend of Itsuki Otomiya. ; :Komaki is Haine's biological little sister from the Kamiya family. She posed as Takanari ("Shizumasa") Tōgū's fiancée to protect Haine from being sent back to their father. Though proper and lady-like, she tends to have her moments of outburst. ; :Tachibana is Haine's biological little brother. ; :Shouka is the biological mother of Shizumasa and Takanari. ; :Kasuga is, surprisingly, Takanari and Shizumasa's cousin. She is a member of Haine's old gang (Dark Mermaid), and she admitted that she was the most disappointed when Haine left. ; :Shizumasa and Takanari's mother, the older identical twin sister of their biological mother, Shouka. Kyouka is apparently away on business on a frequent basis, so neither Takanari or Shizumasa see her often. ; :Takanari's servant and one of his best friends. Takanari once said that Touya is "the only person who understands me." He has a calm nature, and cares much about Takanari's happiness. He is very polite, gets nervous easily, and is friends with Riiko. ; :Caretaker of the real Shizumasa. ; : :The school
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
, who loves cute high school girls. He is a butler of the Tōgū family and is especially interested in Ushio, which in later chapters he says is because she looks exactly like Shouka.


School staff

; : :The warden and principal at Imperial Academy, and a friend of Haine and the Postman.


Media


Manga

Written and illustrated by Arina Tanemura, ''The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross'' premiered in the September 2004 issue of '' Ribon'' where it ran for 47 chapters until its conclusion in the June 2008 issue. The individual chapters were collected and published in 11 ''
tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...
'' volumes by
Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...
. Tanemura had named the series after the song "Shinshi Dōmei" by
Hiroko Yakushimaru is a common feminine Japanese given name. Name meanings Hiroko can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *裕子, "kind child" *弘子, "Beautiful child" *寛子, " small child" *浩子, "large child" *博子, "wise child" * ...
but added the word "cross" at the end. The series is licensed for English language release in North America by
Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ M ...
which published the first volume on March 6, 2007; eleven volumes have been released as of April 2010. It is licensed in France by Kana. Starting in June 2015, The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross was reprinted in seven bunkoban volumes with new covers.


''Dōjinshi''

Under the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
"Meguro Teikoku", Tanemura has also self-published unofficial ''
dōjinshi , also romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of '' doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of existing works and created ...
'' of the series and sold limited copies exclusively at Comiket in December 2014.


Artbook

In June 2008, Shueisha published an artbook for the series entitled . In 2009, Viz Media acquired the license for its English language release, and subsequently published the book in November 2009.


Drama CD

In 2004,
Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...
released
drama CD Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
adaptation of the first chapter along with '' Cactus's Secret'', as a mail-order gift in the December 2004 issue of '' Ribon''.


Reception

Several volumes of ''The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross'' made the Tohan and
Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...
manga charts in Japan: volume nine placed 7th in the week January 15–21, the regular edition of volume 10 was tenth in the week of May 13–19, and both the regular and special editions of volume 11 were on the list for November 11–17, in 4th place and 27th place respectively (selling 78,895 copies combined). The regular edition of volume 11 stayed on the charts for the next week (November 18–25), but went from 4th to 20th place. According to ''
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'', Viz Media's English release was the seventh best selling comic in April 2007 and the third volume was the eighth bestseller in October 2007. The series ranked 8th in BookScan's list of top 20 American properties in the third quarter of 2008 and was one of the top 50 manga sellers in the time period from the start of May through the middle of July. The fourth volume of the series sold 1075 copies in December 2007, making it the 96th best-selling graphic novel for that month. Four other volumes each made the top 20 list of graphic novels during the month of release: volume 5 ranked sixth in March 2008, volume 6 ranked number 9 in June 2008, volume 7 ranked 8 in September 2008, and volume 8 was ranked 18th in December 2008. Volume 10 debuted at number 9 on the New York Times Manga Best Seller List for the week of October 18–24, a week before its official release date of November 3. The final volume of the series debuted at number 4 on the New York Times Manga Best Seller list for the week of April 4–10. ''The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross'' was ranked 16th in a list of the top 25 Manga Properties of 2008 by ICv2. The series was ranked as the 6th top shōjo property, as well as the 18th over-all manga property, in America for the first quarter of 2009.


References


External links


Official Viz ''The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross'' website

Official ''Shojo Beat'' ''The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross'' website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gentlemen's Alliance Cross 2004 manga Comedy-drama anime and manga Shōjo manga Shueisha manga Viz Media manga