One of the few things that are decent in this manga would be the art, though personally, it seems too overwhelming. As for the characters, a couple of the personalities are present in other shoujo manga, so I didn't mind that too much. However, the storyline is just plain ridiculous...even for a manga storyline.
It was fine at first, because it added humor (since the dad didn't even know what gender his daughter was) but then, everything else was blown so out of proportion, that I declared Fly High the most horrible shoujo manga I had ever read.
Want to know a couple of my reasons?
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The storyline.............does not make any sense. When writing a school-life manga, it should be school-like. A small group of students shouldn't have total control over the entire school no matter how popular, rich or beautiful they are. Ok, it's a manga, and manga are unrealistic. That's a load of ____. Manga story lines are imaginative and creative. This manga has little (if any) creativity. Perhaps it started out with some good ideas, but I don't think the mangaka thought this one through. It seems more like her ideas are glued together by clichés, underdeveloped conflicts, and unnecessary characters.
Very poorly developed.
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The characters have little to no personality. Let's take for example, Meru. She is a complete Mary Sue. She's clumsy, caring, sweet, strong, nice, absent-minded but that only serves to make her cute...or was supposed to. The character of Meru Tachibana makes me sick to the core. Why? Because her character is not "human" per se. She has too many good points, and her "bad" points are actually good points. Basically, she's an idealized person, and therefore, she does not have any personality. When I read manga, I want to relate to the characters, even just a little bit, but with Fly High, most of the characters make me sigh in exasperation.
A lot of the characters are created with no purpose in mind. Most of Ichiya's group, for example, are only there so that Ichiya seems more powerful. I mean, they wouldn't be so threatening if there was only two of them. So the mangaka decides to add in a couple more characters just to add to the very badly developed plot. They are, at first, portrayed as a group of individuals that do nothing but bully the school and are basically tyrants. But then, the author decides to tell their story, how they're not bad people and how they're "just trying to help" their friend that was traumatized...Well, that is absolutely no excuse to why they should treat others so terribly. Not only that, but if Ichiya's group needs a dim-witted, righteous girl to tell them right from wrong then not only are they completely oblivious to how the world works, but they are also inhumane. If the author really made her characters dumb enough to think that controlling the entire school with their bullying nature will help their traumatized friend come back, only to realize that they were wrong all along with the help with one of the dumbest characters I've seen in a while (Meru), then I believe that this manga should not be published at all.
The only character that I can tolerate would be Ruka because he is one of those typical bishounen guys that are found in practically every shoujo manga.
One of the few things I enjoyed about this terrible manga would be the short story about Meru's parents. It was funny, kinda sweet in it's own way, and of course clichéd (though that just adds to the humour unlike the main story of Fly High). This short story was what I expected Fly High to be, but I was extremely disappointed.
The mangaka finally concludes the manga......with a poorly developed ending to a poorly developed story. It was as if the author decided that, since she couldn't think of a good ending, might as well end it with practically no resolution at all.
I think the only reason why people enjoy this manga would be to pair up Meru with the guy they prefer, and then fantasize about it. How disappointing.
Personally, I would not recommend this manga to anyone...ever.
2/10 --> mostly for the art and the potential to become mediocre
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