manga: Otomen Vol 1
Feb. 20th, 2009 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreAsuka is smart and stoic and the captain of the kendo team, and is widely regarded as being a masculine guy. He’s also in love with anything remotely feminine, cooks, and loves pink, scented baths and sewing. Actually, he’s a monster sewer. To be honest, if mpreg were real, he’d probably be the spawn of Bleach’s Ichigo and Ishida. As raised by Orihime. He falls in love at first sight with Ryo, a tomboy who can’t cook or sew, knows martial arts, and was raised by her father who has taught her to only admire the manliest of men.
In one of the sidebars, the mangaka basically says that she writes Asuka as herself, and Ryo as a thick-skinned and clueless, but cool, shoujo hero. It shows in all the best ways. The cover blurb implies that Asuka keeps his real self a secret, but Ryo actually knows about it almost right off the bat. And, in true shoujo hero form, wants to protect him, and is utterly clueless about how he likes her. Thrown into the mix is Juta, a playboy who flirts with Ryo and latches on to Asuka as his new best friend. He also seems to be abnormally interested in pushing the two together.
In a reveal that’s almost epic in proportions, we learn that Juta is actually the mangaka of Asuka’s favorite shoujo manga, and that his heroine is based on Asuka, and his heroine on Ryo. He needs their relationship to move forward so he can have a plot, and starts matchmaking to get them together.
We also learn that the source of Asuka’s angst and the reason he tries hard to appear to be a stoic manly man to the world is that his mother made him promise not to be like his father, who left the family because…
…HE WAS A WOMAN IN A MAN’S BODY!!
I…OK, I actually don’t quite know what I think of that one as his father hasn’t been heard from again since the switch, but there are several flashbacks but the repeated flashback to where he tells mom about it and we see a shocked little Asuka holding his stuffed bunny in the background is priceless. As is the fact that he must hide his true self from his mother because she fainted and begged him not to be like his father when she saw him playing with little girl things.
Cute, with a hero who absolutely must meet Haruna of High School Debut so they can bond over imprinting on shoujo characters of the opposite gender for how to act when in love.
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Date: 2009-02-20 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 06:06 pm (UTC)To be honest, if mpreg were real, he’d probably be the spawn of Bleach’s Ichigo and Ishida. As raised by Orihime.
ROFL!
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Date: 2009-02-20 06:12 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've
read Basaraseen better and more subversive takes on gender roles, but that doesn't detract from this one.Juta ships the three of them together, too.
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Date: 2009-02-20 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 08:39 pm (UTC)There's currently 6 books out? (I think a 7th one will be out soon.)
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Date: 2009-02-20 07:35 pm (UTC)I still can't get over the fact that Juta is a best-selling shoujo mangaka. I've seen some silly examples of 'high school student who secretly works as [some incredibly time-consuming profession]', but that's got to be one of the best.
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Date: 2009-02-20 07:36 pm (UTC)I've encountered "high school mangaka" before, but it was much better here.
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Date: 2009-02-21 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-02-21 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
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