Miyazawa Yukino has spent her entire life obsessing about being perfect. She has perfect grades, perfect looks, and has the perfect personality to gain the admiration of both her peers and teachers. It’s also all completely fake. The “real” Yukino is shallow and petty and a slob, and has to study non-stop to get good grades. She’s also vain and craves attention and admiration, and her public persona feeds her wants. She’s spent years as top dog, but abruptly finds herself outdone in high school by Arima Soichiro, who seems to effortlessly outdo her in every category, but has also fallen for her perfect persona.
Things change, however, when Arima brings something to Yukino’s house and sees her “real” self, allowing him to reveal that his perfect persona is also a fake in an effort to be the perfect son for his adoptive parents. Naturally, they soon fall for the others “real” self.
The series seems to be operating from a deliberate awareness of common shoujo tropes, somehow making it atypical in its typicalness. It has plenty of humor without actually being a comedy, and plenty of drama and angst without being driven by either. I like that Yukino and Arima work out most of their romantic issues almost immediately, and that their problems and the hurdles their relationship faces are their having to face problems from the world, not each other’s secrets, or exes (so far), or whether or not the other likes them. And I love that Yukino is spazzy and not perfect or self-sacrificial or always placing herself second, but also smart, and I like how Arima is angsty but nice and not remotely like most shoujo heroes of his background. Yukino and Arima also both have some great internal monologues regarding each other, themselves, and their relationship. My favorite bit may be this part of one of Arima’s internal monologues, as he’s reasoning out why he loves Yukino: “She’s allowed me to have the valuable experience of getting kicked in the guts by someone who doesn’t respect my feelings.”
But I also have some problems with it. When Arima is asked by a friend why he likes Yukino, his response is “She stays by me, even without getting anything in return.” I understand-and even agree with-the sentiment, but it really bugged me because it often seems that romantic fiction reduces women to that role, and because of what seems to be controversy surrounding the ending. (Please note: I know there’s a lot of dispute regarding the ending of the series. I don’t know what it is and would like for it to stay that way until I get there, and would rather people not try to influence me either way regarding it beforehand.)
( spoilery complaint )Not perfect, but fun. The first three volumes have been released by Tokyopop in an omnibus that’s priced at $12.99.
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