Stepping on Roses, Vol. 1 (1)

The book was just as it was advertised in its condition!

I really liked this series. I think it had potential to be deeper and longer if the author had been allowed to keep going. Either way it is now one of my favorites!

At first the only thing i could think about this book was,"it's so sad", And it was. Sumi is a is a kind heart girl who will do ANYTHING to help her adopted brothers & sisters.so she marries a rich man who find her in the worst time to keep her pride. she becomes the wife of this awful men in exchange for money that she sends home to her family. this is why i was turned off by this book.it took me about 2 mouths to finally even look at vol 2. as the story went on the more i was to think of the the people in this story spook of. buy vol. 2 and you'll see what i mean.

I can’t complain I loved ir

I have to admit, I picked this one up purely for the artwork. The cover of this manga is lovingly illustrated & colored, which draws the eye to it immediately. Unfortunately the artwork is almost the best part of the series.Stepping on Roses follows the character of Sumi, a young woman born into extreme poverty during the 1860s-1912s (Meiji Era). Her older brother isn't helping matters when he is constantly bringing home more & more orphaned children for Sumi to care for. To make matters worse, one of her adopted siblings is incredibly ill, but the doctor refuses to give her any more medicine until she can pay off the debt! Luckily for Sumi a handsome young man gives her the money she desperately needed, saving her younger sibling & giving Sumi her first crush. Unfortunately later on that same day the landlord demands that the rent get paid. Not wanting her siblings to end up on the streets, Sumi does the only thing left to her- to go sell herself for money. When she is almost immediately picked up by a strange man, Sumi is panicked... until he tells her that he doesn't want her for sex but instead to marry her. The only catch is that she must never, ever fall in love with him!This was overall a very lovely manga to read & I liked that the artwork seems to be purposely dated. (This style was more common about 20 years ago.) The characters are all developed well enough & the story is interesting, the only problem is that overall there's really nothing in here that makes it stand out. You can pretty much predict how the story will progress, which wouldn't be so bad except that the characters (especially Sumi's crush) just seem sort of a little bland in comparison to some of the other stuff out there.My recommendation? Go read this at the store first before buying it. I wouldn't be so harsh about this manga except that I've read  Tail of the Moon  & I know that Ueda can do better than this. I'm hoping that the next volume will step it up a little.3.5/5 (rounded up to a 4 for amazon)

At first glance, Stepping on Roses appears to be a straightforward rags-to-riches story. Sumi Kitamura is a poor girl who lives with her irresponsible brother Eisuke and the orphans that he can't stop bringing in. Despite his way with rich women, Eisuke can't hold onto money, and a debt collector threatens to take the children if Sumi doesn't pay back what he's owed. Desperate, Sumi decides to sell herself for the money, where she meets Soichiro Ashida, who offers her all the money she needs - if she marries him. Sumi agrees, despite his warning that he will not love her and she is not to love him. She is thrown into a world which is completely foreign to her but which she must adjust, in part with the help of the endlessly amusing butler, Komai, and the dream of the man who she actually loves, a man who helped her when no one else would. A man who just happens to be Soichiro's childhood friend...The storyline is fairly straightforward, the art lovely but not exceptionally so, but the thing to look forward to in this manga are the characters. Sumi is every bit the sweet, naïve, traditional girl who will do anything for her family, and seeing her try to adapt to her new situations can be both funny and wrenching. Eisuke is the loveable roguish type, though you do want to smack him upside the head more than once. Soichiro is not as easily classified - he's rich, hypercritical, and demanding, but you get the feeling that there's more to him than he'd like revealed. The butler is an excellent comic character, and the man of Sumi's dreams every bit worthy of them.Ranging between humorous and angsty, this manga is worth a read, especially so if you like rags-to-riches, fish-out-of-water, or determined but naïve heroines.

Sumi's brother keeps bringing home young children. They're orphans. Sumi loves her new family, but they can barely afford to feed themselves.Then she learns that her brother has taken credit against her name. The landlord wants to kick them all out.Sumi doesn't know what to do.An answer comes in the form of a marriage proposal.It would be a marriage in name only - Sumi isn't supposed to fall in love with her potential husband. He certainly won't love her. Marriage would mean financial ease for herself and her family, but it also means leaning how to become a lady.While Sumi's heart belongs to someone else, she's not sure this is the best opportunity. However, she needs to solve her money issues fast!My Thoughts: I don't read many graphic novels, I'm trying to start reading more. Earlier this year, I purchased a large order of them. This series I bought because it caught my eye. It's been pretty popular so far. I liked it. There are some heavier issues mentioned in this series. I loved the art. The review from SLJ compares Sumi to Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady - I love that assessment.

I've never read anything by Rinko Ueda before,I have wanted to read 'Tail of the Moon' for quite some time now, and after reading this I have become so desperate for something of similar style that I have ordered the first volume of TotM straight away.It's a very nice story, nothing ground-breakingly new, but if you have a soft spot for unresolved romance then this manga will more than quench your thirst. Sumi is a peasant girl, she has no family but one irresponsible brother who seems to have no regard of the affects of his actions on his baby sister. Eisuke (Sumi's brother) constantly brings home abandoned babies for Sumi to look after, they are already in thousands of pounds debt and the more babies Eisuke brings home the more debt they incur. One day one of the men they are in debt to threatens to sell the children if he doesn't get his money by the next day. Sumi, who loves these children as though they are a part of her own family, decides there's nothing left to do but sell herself. It's at this point that she comes in to contact with Soichiro, a rich man,who offers sumi the 2000 yen she is in need of and more, only is she agrees to marry him and abandon her love for money.The love story isn't as simple as you might think it would be,as Sumi pines over her 'prince' Ijuin; who helped her earlier, when she was in desperate need of money, to buy medicine for one of the children. Ijuin turns out to be Soichiro's childhood friend and Sumi having agreed to abandon her love, struggles to suppress her emotions toward him. Then there's the obvious suppressed romance between the two main leads. Soichiro is a very ruthless character, he doesn't care for anyone, his sole concern being the accomplishment of his mission. At times his treatment of Sumi is absoloutley aggravating, yet you still witness an undeniable spark between the two. In fact Sumi admits, she feels something when he says her name.The characterization is brilliant, art very sharp,and the story above all is beautiful. So much so that I am restless to get my hands on the next volume. I would definatley recommend this one!

super tolle serie schade das es den nicht auch auf deutsch gibt habe den malper internet auf englisch gelesen und muss sagen ich war total begeistertspanend von anfang an hin bis zum schluß, rührende drama und viel liebe.hoffendlich wird es den bald auf deutsch geben were wirklich sehr schön.

So glad that these book are up for sale because I found the series a few years back and fell in love with them

ein super toller Manga! Schade, dass es diese Serie nicht auf deutsch gibt. Aber auch auf Englisch ist die Geschichte schön zum lesen.

After tail of the moon is this manga also a wonderfull manga of Rinko Ueda, i realy love all her manga's but stepping on roses and tail of the moon are the 2 best that she ever made. I recommend it to all women and young girls :)