I Hate You More Than Anyone! Volume 7

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By Banri Hidaka. Released in Japan as “Sekai De Ichiban Daikirai!” by Hakusensha, serialized in the magazine Hana to Yume. Released in North America by CMX.

First of all, I note that the cover art for each successive volume of this series is improving by leaps and bounds. This cover, featuring Maki and Honjo, just looks cool and sexy. Hidaka-san will get more experimental in the future as well, as the covers for Volumes 9 and 11 show.

This volume is mostly devoted to expanding on the Saki Sugimoto subplot, while simultaneously starting a new subplot with Kazuha and Senko agreeing to be models for a college fashion show. (For those who read V.B. Rose, note that the fashion designer, Eiko, is introduced in the EXACT same way that the bead worker, Ichihashi, is in V.B. Rose. It even has the same ‘cliffhanger’.)

We get to see Saki in his natural ‘complete jerkass’ persona here, and it’s clear that he’s very good at manipulation. Admittedly, it’s not all that hard to manipulate someone like Kazuha, who wears all of her emotions on her sleeve and wouldn’t know the meaning of the word pretense. Saki doesn’t even have to be pretending to be able to get what he wants, as his interactions with Senko show. He gives the impression of being truly dangerous, and is trying to get Akiyoshi to mistrust Maki.

It almost works. The fight in the car between Kazuha and Maki is one of the more serious moments in the series to date, with Maki reluctant to open up about his past and telling Kazuha that because she grew up in a happy family she thinks that all families are happy. We see one of the rare instances in this series of violence that isn’t over the top and comic, as when Kazuha tries to get out of the car he autolocks the door, and she smashes her head against the car window glass. It’s a rather depressing scene, and does not fill you with love for Saki.

Luckily, balancing this is the interaction between Senko and Honjo. They get more scenes together here than they have to date, as Senko takes it upon herself to quiz Honjo about exactly who Saki is… once she can get him to wake up, and after he takes her out for lunch. Honjo can’t resist mocking Senko’s inability to get to the point for all it’s worth, and these scenes are the funniest in the book. Intriguingly, they end on a serious note, as when Senko finally does ask about Saki, we see Honjo’s face get upset… possibly the first time we’ve EVER seen him react to something with an expression other than grumpy or smirky. It helps to underline Saki’s threat.

There’s not as much Akiyoshi Family here, though we get some cartoon violence against Ichihisa (always welcome), and Chizuru stressing out about his new friend Nijo attempting to bond with him. We also get to briefly see a shot of Mizumisha as he once was (threatening to strangle Saki after hearing that he’s returned), and a brief cameo by Arata and Miharu (who gets a hysterical line when she greets Honjo: “Yay, villain face!”). Also note that I didn’t have the reproduction problems with CMX’s volume that I had with 6.

The volume ends on a cliffhanger with Saki going to Maki’s apartment to confront him… or more likely, just to torture him. What will happen next? Find out in Volume 8!

Butterflies, Flowers Volume 2

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By Yuki Yoshihara. Released in Japan as “Chou Yo Hana Yo” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Petit Comic. Released in North America by Viz.

I actually found this volume of Butterflies, Flowers to be a little better than the first. It has some slapstick abuse of the heroine by the hero in it, but there’s less of that creeping horror you got at the start of Volume 1, mostly as you know who Masayuki actually is now and are aware of his conflicting feelings for Choko. (The slapstick is also *really* slapstick – I laughed hard seeing Choko’s eyeballs flying out of her skull.) More importantly, with their feelings resolved you lose the ‘get on with it!’ sense that comes from reading so many other shoujo manga.

Masayuki is probably the character who gets the most attention here, and we come to like him better. He makes it quite clear how much he remains a servant at heart, willing to destroy lives and even his own career just for Choko’s sake. Luckily, she immediately notes how wrong this is and forces him to realize that he doesn’t have to go that far to win her heart. He can be the standard ‘Cool and teasing’ boyfriend guy, but we do see him lose it several times, showing how much of it is merely a facade and how tightly wound he is. (The best example of this was his smashing his head through the door after seeing Choko naked.)

Choko is not quite as strong as the first volume, but that might just be because, with one exception, her moments are softer ones. Confronting the rich bitch niece of the president, for example, ends up going horribly wrong – but her low-key plea to be “the place he can return to” is fantastic, as is her flustered response once she finds that he’s trying to throw the ‘best rookie’ competition so that she can win it. The exception is in the final chapter, when an utterly exhausted Masayuki tries to brush her off and go back out to their convention, telling her to shut up and not order him around. Mistress/Servant mode goes on full blast there, and she wonders who the hell he thinks he’s talking to.

There’s a lot of humor throughout the volume, ranging from little one-panel parodies at the end of each chapter to the aforementioned cartoon violence (which I have a feeling may go too far for some). Choko turns superdeformed in moments of weakness, in many ways the opposite of Sunako from The Wallflower, who’s only seen ‘normally’ in her kickass periods. Oh, and the best joke of the entire volume I won’t spoil, except to say it involves Gundam.

Everything I’ve said about this review so far could apply to a normal shoujo romance manga. Especially one from Shogakukan, whose shoujo comics tend to be racier than its rivals. But this ISN’T a shoujo title, it’s josei. It’s wrapped in plastic, and marked as being for mature readers. And nowhere is that more apparent than the final chapter. Choko decides that the best way to get Masayuki to stay in bed and stop exhausting himself is to tie him to the bedpost and seduce him. Given that almost all the seduction to date has been on his end, seeing her take the initiative is welcome. He responds, they get hot and heavy, and then she pulls down his pants… and then the second best gag in the volume happens, and no, they don’t finally get it on. I rewrote this so as not to ruin the moment. :) (The author even apologizes at the end of the volume for her couple being “really slow” and not having had sex yet.) It’s realistic, funny, and yes, sexy. Great chapter.

This is a fun series, as well as an admirable attempt to do a mildly explicit manga in the Shojo Beat line. (The title that occurred to me as I read this, Sensual Phrase, came out long before this line came into being.) More to the point, the heroine is shy and embarrassed but not a drip or a doormat. And the hero is cool and likes to tease, but isn’t a jerk and is clearly thrown off by Choko at every turn. If you’re an older reader (this is so not for kids), I really recommend this as a great romance.

Pink Innocent Volume 1

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By Kotori Momoyuki. Released in Japan by Kodansha, serialized in the magazine Nakayoshi. Released in North America by Del Rey.

Sometimes, when reading a new title by a publisher, you have to try to put yourself into the shoes of the people who work there. What made this title stand out, what made Del Rey feel that this would be a good addition to their shoujo line, a manga that both teens and adults would like? (The manga was written for Japanese girls age 6-12, but is rated 13+ here because… well, actually, I dunno why. Possibly the fetishey outfit her best friend is seen in at some point, but that’s about it.) What made Del Rey think that Pink Innocent would be *it*?

After reading the first volume, I’m pretty sure I have the answer: they knew that people would buy volumes 2 and 3 to see if the cast finally snaps and kills the heroine.

Even by the standards of Nakayoshi, a magazine that specializes in overbearingly perky girls going after uninterested guys, this one really goes above and beyond the call of duty. You can’t even argue this time that the heroine is supposed to be a reader stand-in – she’s shown to be one of the richest girls in Japan, and habitually goes to school walking on a red carpet. She is appallingly naive to the point of utter stupidity, and spends the entire volume either living in magical happy shoujo fantasy land that only exists in her head, or in the depths of despair as her brain attempts to shriek at her that she’s appalling.

Into this mix comes the lead guy. He’s an emotionally repressed blond loner (in Nakayoshi? You jest!), and he also loves to work on computers. Four of which are broken by the heroine. In this manga’s four chapters. See, cause it’s funny! Oh yes, and she also BURNS HIS APARTMENT DOWN. By accident, I grant you. She has the rest of her class (all of whom are strangely agreeable) do Romeo and Juliet so that he can declare his love to her in a play. She dresses up as a miniskirted nun because he asks her to. (This last one is actually his perverted brother disguising himself as the hero – our hero would not be nearly that interesting.)

Despite this, Renji (the guy) is shown to slowly be falling for Kokona (the girl). He first decides she’s interesting when she leaps out of a helicopter at about 50 feet (and lands unharmed, I might add) to get his attention. Then at Christmas he buys her the charm she wanted, admitting that he likes her because she’s insane. Well, at least he’s honest. The final chapter has us meeting his weird family, and is probably the weakest for me, in that it’s the most normal. Yes, she destroys another computer, but that’s not enough anymore.

All of this is served up with very Nakayoshi-esque art. If you hear people talking about manga as being girls with huge eyes that take up their entire face, they mean either a title from this magazine, or from its competitors for young girls, Ribon and Ciao. And sure enough, Kokona is supposed to be 16 but looks about 6. Those impossible-in-real-life princess curls don’t help. It’s especially jarring when you see her best friend, Aery, drawn as a normal high-school shoujo student. It’s as if she wandered over from Betsufure (Kodansha’s magazine for teen girls, basically the next step up after Nakayoshi). Speaking of the best friend, we get occasional glimpses of her life, as she works hard as a part-time model. I wish we’d had more of that plotline instead.

This manga is bad. But it’s bad in a very entertaining and funny way. Your jaw will drop when you read about Kokona’s antics, and I suspect that you too will at least flip through the next 2 volumes (as least it’s a short series) to see if it ends with Renji finally snapping and burying her body behind the forge. I’m not sure what Del Rey was looking for when they started licensing tons of shoujo to find the next Kitchen Princess, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it. Still, recommended for those with twisted sensibilities. Like myself.