Monkey High 4

I’ve got three volumes of this in reserve, so I decided to start with the earliest volume I had.  I went into it with no prior knowledge and just assumed it was a shoujo romance/comedy.

I was very surprised, actually.  I figured it would be mostly comedy-oriented, something like Hana Kimi, but it was comedy mixed with some pretty serious moments.  I liked it in the same way I liked High School Debut.  The difference seems to be that Monkey High seems like it’s got a pretty serious structure with some lighthearted jokes slapped on top to cover it up.  It’s like… I don’t know, Hana Kimi mixed with Sand Chronicles?  Something like that?

The main couple is kind of unlikely, only because Macharu is completely different from any shoujo love interest.  The other characters call him a “hyper monkey,” I’m not exactly sure why, but it seems to be mostly because he has a positive, energetic outlook on life.  He’s much different than the sullen, handsome boy you’d find in most series.  He apparently gets mistaken for a little kid pretty often (because he’s also very short and tiny), and doesn’t seem to take himself very seriously.  He’s kind of awesome.  It’s weird seeing him paired up with Haruna, who is the quiet, no-smile type character, except she appears to take genuine delight in Macharu, and they seem to be a pretty solid couple.  Bonus: they also have a circle of friends, which always seems to help out these types of series a great deal.

One of the friends is Atsu, who is apparently Macharu’s best friend.  Atsu seems to really enjoy tormenting Macharu, and Macharu just takes it good-naturedly.  The drama starts when Atsu begins to slowly make moves on Haruna.  Haruna doesn’t really take him seriously, but Macharu does, and Macharu gets pretty serious about Haruna throughout the volume.  Often fairly light moments, like a trip to the beach or a fireworks festival, will be interrupted with some strange and what seems to be uncharacteristic serious conversations coming from Macharu about their future as a couple.  Squirmy drama comes in when Haruna isn’t sure how to deal with this and blushes and avoids Macharu.

I like it.  I like it a bit better than High School Debut, actually, because while that seems to throw its excellent serious moments in at the end of something fairly comedic, this only has a comedy veneer and is a pretty serious story otherwise.  I’m looking forward to seeing if the story can keep up this pace in the next two volumes.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.