Kimi Ni Todoke Volume 4

By Karuho Shiina. Released in Japan by Shueisha, serialization ongoing in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret (“Betsuma”). Released in North America by Viz.

Everyone has that character. You know the one. It’s never the MAIN character, or at least it very rarely is. Usually one of the supporting cast. And they aren’t the only reason you read the manga, certainly. But oh, you love them to bits. You prowl through every volume that comes out, eyes skittering around the page, searching for them so that you can spot their moments. They’re your addiction.

For me, with Kimi ni Todoke, it’s Ayane Yano. I’m not sure why. She doesn’t hit any of my usual buttons, while all the other main girls do. Chizuru is the loud and clueless tomboy girl. Sawako is the earnest yet ostracized construction project. And everyone hates Kurumi, so naturally I must love her. But no, it’s Yano that makes me jump up and down.

Take this volume, which is mostly devoted to Kurumi’s ongoing war trying to get Sawako away from Kazehaya. Yano’s instincts immediately tell her what’s going on, and she does her best to help Sawako without manipulating things. She reminds Sawako to keep a clear head and not overthink things. She confronts Kurumi with a few caustic remarks and veiled threats, all delivered with a smile. And when she’s ready to break Kurumi, and Sawako tells her not to, she immediately realizes why, and knows that it’s not what Sawako would want. In a high school shoujo manga with a bunch of idiots, she (and Ryu) are there to be the smart ones.

And yet she’s also hysterical. Her ‘Libby’ persona gives her fuller lips than the others, most clearly seen in Super-Deformed mode, and it makes her expressions very funny. I love every time she gets irritated with Chizuru for missing the point. And of course, there’s the growing realization that, as much as this is to help Sawako, it’s also due to finding someone who’s not only prettier than Yano, but it’s a more natural beauty as well. Her victory pose screaming about how she’ll find out what facial lotion Kurumi uses is a triumph.

Mostly, though, I like Yano as she’s the one character here who *isn’t* the stereotype. Among the wallflowers, tomboys, and quiet guys, she’s someone who in any other manga would be, if not the villain, at least one of those selfish girls harassing the heroine. In Kimi ni Todoke, though, she’s one of the heroine’s best friends. Gotta love that.

Oh yes, speaking of that villain, I do indeed love Kurumi. Not for the usual “Sean always loves characters fans hate”, though I guess there’s a certain amount of that. But Kurumi is a very well fleshed-out villain. You never really doubt that she’s going to fail – this stars Sawako, after all – but she’s actually very clever in the ways that she tries to break Sawako. The rumors never got back to her as she was using the ‘cute nice girl’ persona she’s spent years crafting. When that didn’t work, she tried sweet-talking the socially crippled Sawako into thinking she might like Ryu (nice of Ryu to immediately kick that in the head – and with a secret confession he likes Chizuru, too!). Nothing, however, seems to work. And what’s worse, she finds her real personality coming out around Sawako without even thinking.

I never doubted for a moment that Kurumi would be ‘redeemed’, as she is at the end of this volume, mostly for the exact same reason Sawako did. She used her correct name, always. Someone ashamed of her own first name would notice another’s being misused, and just as Kurumi is unthinkingly nice around Sawako, she also can’t seem to be cruel to her in the way everyone *else* is – she can’t be unthinkingly cruel. She has to work at it.

The best scene in the book is the final one, with Sawako confronting a broken Kurumi after stopping her friends from ruining Kurumi’s life. She tries to point out that Kurumi actually confessed her feelings to someone, even if it was only Sawako, and that it must have felt good. This works, but when Sawako tries to point out that Kurumi is also incredibly cute, Kurumi loses it.

“I know I’m cute. That means nothing! If Kazehaya doesn’t like me, it doesn’t mean anything!”

This series is a potboiler, but it’s a potboiler whose default mode is fun, which I always prefer to the default-earnest potboilers. Even as this volume ends with two girls sobbing at their unresolved feelings, you know the next volume will bring good cheer. Or at least more SD-faces.