By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

I would like to note before I begin this review that for artists who want the covers of their manga volumes to feature a close-up of their cast as the volumes go on, please try to at least have the cast involved in that particular volume. Genda is on this cover, but probably should have been on the cover of 4, as he doesn’t do anything here. But then, you can’t have Maki and Kamiki on all the covers…

We’ve passed the halfway mark in this series, so some plots are going to have to start wrapping up. And it’s not going to be Maki’s, as that is no doubt being saved for the very end. Really, this is another volume where Maki gets put through the wringer. There’s a rumor of a ghost in the building, and Maki becomes convinced that it’s Erika returned from the afterlife. In reality, it turns out to be some shut-in guy with long hair… or is it? Turns out it would appear it *is* Erika, who comes to Maki in a dream to wish him goodbye. All this does is remind him how little he’s gotten over her death, unfortunately. Then he goes on a date with his new girlfriend (also Erika) which goes badly once more due to his inability to open up. There’s a happy ending to the chapter, sort of, but he still hasn’t told Erika about *other* Erika, and I get the feeling we’re headed for a wreck here. I’m not certain this is going to be a happy ending.

Like Maki, Kamiki also has trouble expressing himself, but he’s far more stoic about it, so doesn’t quite get the flak that Maki does. You’ll recall that Miyaji asked him at the end of Volume 4 if he would go out with her for real. Well, turns out he asked to think about it… and has suddenly become very hard to get a hold of. Since Kamiki is not exactly an open book, Miyaji has to constantly guess what he’s thinking, and being naturally a worried, paranoid person she assumes the worst. This culminates in her arrival at the school festival, where despite her best efforts not only does Kamiki keep running off, but the one time he’s around she’s being comforted by Hanai, who’s been helping her out, and he catches the two of them in an embrace! However, this is definitely the more light-hearted of the two relationships in this volume, and things all work out well in the end. (There’s also a great end gag, which helps to undercut the schmaltz nicely.)

There is one pure funny chapter, involving token gay classmate Hanai deciding to become a photographer, and getting bribed by Miyaji and her classmates into taking candid photos of all the boys, but for the most part a lot of this volume falls more into the melodrama category. I’d noted earlier how I wasn’t quite certain how to peg this series, and that still holds true; it keeps dropping wacky into its serious, and serious into its wacky. For the most part, it manages to balance it quite well, though you can see some problems – apparently Nogami and the nurse don’t have enough plot to fill more chapters, as she’s absent and he gets about four lines. But I think people are reading this title to see the cute, try-harder girl get the hot guy, or to watch the cute guy attempt to move on with his very similar girl. Certainly I hope to see that developed more in Volume 6. Definitely recommended overall.

By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

I have to feel bad for Maki here at the start of this volume. Much as we’d all like our relationships to be honest and above board, when his new “girlfriend” Erika discovers a picture on his cell phone of his old girlfriend, he just can’t bring himself to say “That’s actually a picture of my old dead first love who I’ve been unable to get over and who shares the same name and personality as you, but it’s a TOTAL coincidence that I’m trying to date you now.” I probably would feel awkward too.

And so the quasi-relationship between the two of them vacillates back and forth here. They’re clearly a great couple, and there’s a wonderful moment when she’s teaching him how to surf when they both briefly drop all the baggage they have and are adorable and sweet… but it’s balanced by Maki’s utter inability to open himself up, which is not something that can just be dropped. The end of the chapter here does feature Maki and Erika kissing fiercely, and would seem to indicate resolution of some sort… but for some reason it just feels temporary, and indeed when we next see Erika the text labels her as temporary girlfriend again. This is going to take time.

Chapter 2 deals with Arata, a minor character who seems to br the dark, strong, lone-wolf type… but is really just bad at expressing himself. This has led to his girlfriend breaking up with him, as she simply never got any sense he had any feelings for her at all. Sadly, she is trying to get over him by dating a known two-timing jerk. Maki and company to the rescue! Since their school is nowhere near anything, of course, they fix this by arranging a ‘mixer’ with the school of Arata’s girlfriend, and manipulate things so that he finally is able to admit… reluctantly and quietly… that his ex-girlfriend is super cute. Interestingly, the ending remains ambiguous here as well, and we’re not sure if the two get back together.

The last two chapters take us back to Miyaji and her crush on Rui. She’s starting to get a bit obsessed, apparently having gotten over Rui’s stunning rudeness to her a volume or so back… but Rui still isn’t taking the hint, and she lacks confidence in herself, thinking that hot guys like Rui are ‘A’ guys that a ‘C’ girl like her could never hope to catch. She ends up turning to Hanai for advice (nice timing given he’s on the cover), but ironically all she learns to be good at is wearing a mask to hide her real self, something that all the boys who star in this manga are masters of. Rui is, of course, not fooled.

So Miyaji seemingly gives up, and tries Hanai’s approach with other guys, but kinds keeping up the act exhausting. And then… oh dear. I had thought that the faux incest plot would be one and done in Volume 1, but no, Mana’s back, and she’s still desperately in love with her brother. She ends up coming to Seiho with Miyaji, and Rui naturally tries to fend her off by saying Miyaji is his girlfriend. (This makes approximately the 40,000th fake girlfriend/boyfriend in these 4 volumes alone.) As things heat up, and Mana comes on stronger, we remember that, just like Maki, Rui has a past he’s trying to overcome. Unlike Maki, his past is throwing herself at him. He’s mature enough to know it’s bad for both of them, though, and stands firm. Mana may be back, though…

And so at the end Miyaji, now that she knows Rui’s past, suggests they try dating for real. Does he accept? Who knows? This volume of Seiho was excellent, but felt incredibly uncertain. Every relationship we see seems to be on rocky footing (even Nogami is hinted to be having another fight with his nurse girlfriend), and half of them are created by false pretenses. Of course, we see this sort of thing in shoujo manga all the time, but it’s rare to see it with every character, and it almost seems like the main plot of the series. Love is awkward, requires a lot of work, and a lot of the most passionate love ends up being bad for you. Still, we’re halfway through the series, and I suspect at least one of the couples we see here will actually get a happy ending. Probably.

By Kaneyoshi Izumi. Released in Japan as “Men’s Kou” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Bessatsu Comic (“Betsucomi”). Released in North America by Viz.

After the gut-wrenching plotline of Volume 2, I was ready for something a bit lighter, and indeed this is a bit lighter than Volume 2. At the same time, though, it draws heavily on that, with Maki being told my everyone in the world that he has to try to move on, but finding that it’s not really as simple as that. Things get even worse when he meets a surfer girl whose name is very familiar…

First, though, we have the comedy. This features Miyaji, the girl we’d met at the end of Volume 2. She’s still crushing a bit on the handsome, smart, and athletic Kamiki, and wants him to treat her different than he does everyone else. So when they decide to spice up their school play by adding an actual female (pretending to be a male in drag), hijinks naturally ensue. Honestly, this was the story that read the most like ‘typical’ shoujo, and you’d expect that in typical shoujo, Miyaji would be the heroine whose life we follow. Here it’s the guys, though, and we discover that class jerk Nogami is not the only one who has an unerring ability to ruin relationships by simply opening his mouth.

The other non-Maki chapter features Nogami, who presumably saw Kamiki being tactless in front of the girl who likes him and thought “Hey, that’s MY schtick!”. So we get another chapter featuring his passive-aggressive (emphasis on the aggressive) relationship with the school nurse. Being a teacher/student romance, naturally she is getting pressured to leave for the sake of the students, despite the fact that no romance has actually occurred. Nogami is having none of this, of course, and refuses to read her ‘final letter’ to him, most likely as it’s saying goodbye. This all culminates in her final address to her students, interrupted by Nogami in an epically awful way. Naturally, this is all part of a plan to make her admit she wants to stay. The ending itself felt a bit rushed, and the author noted it wasn’t what she originally planned. On the other hand, the last line was great.

Then there’s Maki. I realize that this is far more likely to occur in Japan than in North America, but running into a teenage girl with the exact same name as your dead junior high crush has to be a giant monumental coincidence. It doesn’t help that she has a similar grumpy demeanor. (She’s also quite busty, something I noted only as it’s rather rare in shoujo manga. Counting the school nurse, this now makes two women in the series with that attribute. No wonder the author notes that everyone doubts this is a shoujo manga…) Maki finds himself fascinated by her, but as always is putting up a front of ‘nice guy’ that girls find off-putting.

Maki, frustrated by his friends heaping abuse on him for his lack of a love life, asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend. She does this, despite having accused him of being gay multiple times (she even calls him an uke, and is rather startled when he manhandles a guy attempting to grab her with ease). She also calls herself a BL fan, and Maki is so desperate for her companionship (it seems) that he starts trying to molest Kamiki to attract her interest. Of course, this culminates in her tearing him apart for pretending to have a girlfriend without bothering to even hold her hand. And it becomes clear that she’s just as smitten with him as he is with her.

This was my favorite part of the manga, but it’s still very odd. Erika’s similarities with Maki’s former girlfriend are eerie, and I keep thinking that there’s more behind this than there actually is. Her facial expressions, especially when she noted someone would be miserable with him as a boyfriend, read very much like she has a backstory of her own that will hold things up as much as Maki’s will. And once more we see Maki, who is outwardly the perfect high school boyfriend, giving off auras of ‘I am preoccupied with something else’. Luckily, he seems to finally be trying to work past this, and asks her to give him more time to make this work. Of course, he’s going to have to mention his past at some point, especially as Erika finds her namesake’s picture on his phone right at the end.

Arguably the main thrust of this volume relies too heavily on coincidence, but that is the problem with a lot of fiction, and it’s not like I’m asking the series to be completely realistic. More to the point, this series has some of the best characters I’ve seen in shoujo in a while, being handsome guys, outwardly great, but all with quirks that makes it easy to see why there are immense problems with having any of them as a boyfriend. Maki in particular is riveting, and I root for him to make things work with Erika while realizing that there are immense problems with it happening. More to the point, anyone who ever drops a series after one volume should read this as a great example of why you should give it a bit more of a chance.