Kimi ni Todoke 1
Posted: June 25, 2009 Filed under: Kimi ni Todoke 11 Comments »Ahh! I have such a soft spot for Sawako! I always sympathize with the girls that get teased and called “Sadako” since I bear a strong enough resemblance to the little girl in The Ring to make group viewings awkward. In my case, the movie came out after I’d finished high school, so I didn’t get hazed for it nearly as badly as Sawako, but I did suffer from the same type of crippling shyness that she has, both in high school and college. She’s a lot more positive and tries a lot harder than I ever did, though.
Aside from Sawako, another thing I liked about this book was its 100% positive nature. It’s a lot like Venus in Love in that way, except it doesn’t sparkle quite as hard as that one does. Sawako, despite being scary-looking on the outside and the subject of a lot of supernatural rumors, tries hard to greet all her classmates every day and takes on the chores and anything else that her classmates don’t want to be burdened with. After going quietly through her days without making friends, a boy named Kazehaya gets her to open up to him. Kazehaya is the exact opposite of Sawako, since he is outwardly very cheerful-looking and has an innate talent to be loved by everyone. Kazehaya is a nice boy, and throughout the volume Sawako and Kazeyaha get to frequently exchange heartfelt expressions of just how nice each thinks the other is.
The incredible thing is that there is no romance here. There’s lots of blushing, and Kazehaya is quite a nice boy, but nothing deeper than an appreciation for each other has come between Sawako and Kazehaya. Sawako begins acknowledging deeper feelings towards the end of the volume, and Kazehaya may have always had feelings for Sawako, but nothing concrete has passed between them just yet. I like their mutual niceness relationship as it stands now, and I imagine it will melt my bitter heart as it grows into love.
I also love how all of Sawako’s classmates get to like her the more she opens up and the more people open up to her. She gains two friends early on in the series when she overhears them and agrees to be a ghost in a haunted walk-type event, and then when popular Kazehaya starts talking to her, others follow. There’s still a lot of “don’t look at her or you’ll be cursed” business going on, but seeing Sawako get happier and happier as people treat her like a normal person is just… heartwarming in a very special way.
I was a little sad when Sawako admitted that her hobby was studying because she liked to fantasize about the person next to her asking questions, and always hoped that someone would ask her for help so that she could do them a favor. That was one of the most devastatingly lonely things I’ve ever seen.
About the only bad thing I can think to say is that the volume was a little repetitive. There’s lots of Sawako being overcome by happiness over a small thing, and lots of people blushing as they see her acting grateful. The plot is starting to go somewhere as of the end of the volume, which does make me happy. I kind of liked the extended blushing sequences, but I can see how someone might be turned off by the fact that not much aside from Sawako getting more and more happy happens in this volume.
The verdict? Kimi ni Todoke is full of some of the nicest girls and boys you’ll see in a shoujo manga. I like series like this that are positive without being kiddy, and like I said, the only other manga that comes close to this level of happiness is probably Venus in Love, or maybe Guru Guru Pon-chan. I loved it, I loved Sawako, I loved Kazehaya, and I loved their cute little blushing sessions, and I can’t wait to read more.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
edit: Also, I’m totally into all the cute extras Viz has been cramming into its volumes lately. Several shoujo series have come with stickers (this, Choco Mimi, Beauty Pop), and let’s not forget the totally awesome tattoos in Detroit Metal City or the color pages in the Signature books like Real, Children of the Sea, and Pluto, and the awesome color section in Monster.
[...] 9 of High School Girls (Okazu) Connie on vol. 22 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga) Connie on vol. 1 of Kimi no Todoke (Slightly Biased Manga) Noah Berlatsky on vol. 1 of Lady Snowblood (The Hooded Utilitarian) Lissa [...]
I’m really looking forward to this series, especially after reading your review. I’ve read chapter 1 in Shojo Beat and it looks so… adorable! Unfortunately this is also a series that has gone on hiatus in Japan D: Hopefully it’ll be back before the English volumes catch up.
It was really, really super-cute without being full of comedy, which seems really rare. I was expecting it to be full of a lot more gags and misunderstandings, but I was so happy when it was just a relatively regular story about a girl finding happiness in opening herself up and relatively simple things. It wasn’t on my radar at all, but I’m looking forward to more of it now.
Aww, and that’s a bummer that it got put on hiatus. I know that We Were There just came off of a year-or-so hiatus, and I was really worried about that one since I fell more in love with it every volume. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Kimi ni Todoke and hope for the same luck again.
What a lovely review for such a feel good series. I agree Kimi ni Todoke’s blushing sessions are adorable. I love the series and its my top shoujo series to date. Can’t wait for the rest of the series cause this series is magnificent. The characters have such endearing personalities as well. Love Kazehaya (not being your typical popular guy) and Sawako (being all naive, slow, but very honest and nice). Oh and the supporting cast are great as well.
Hope to see your future reviews for the rest of the volumes.
Trust me this series is great!
PS: Kimi ni Todoke will resume this October, Shiina Karuho puts this series on hiatus because she is pregnant. I think she gave birth already and can continue. Which is a Great news.
Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed my review. I am looking forward to future volumes, so I’ll definitely be reviewing them all here. And thanks for the update on serialization too, I’m glad it wasn’t stopped for any terrible reason and I’m also glad she can resume the story!
I am looking forward in reading your reviews for Kimi ni Todoke. I like reading reviews about my favourite series and series that I want to check out. Yeah I’m very grateful that Shiina Karuho are able to resume the serialization sooner.. Glad she didn’t took a long break.
I often read your reviews whenever I start to buy a certain series. Your reviews are a great help. For the most series that I like you seem to like/enjoy them too! We might have the same taste. Your review for Apothecarius Argentum provoked me to finally check the series out. I am thankful for that, the first volume was great. Oh and you definitely should check out the earlier volumes of Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden since you liked the volumes you’ve read.
You’ve read a ton of series. May I ask if you buy everything?
Btw I love reading shoujo!
Thanks so much! I’m so happy that you get so much out of my reviews! I’m especially happy that you picked up Apothecarius Argentum, that one really is one of my favorites, and just gets better and better with every volume, and could probably use all the new readers it can get. Shoujo manga are almost always my favorites, I think, since they’re so easy to get into and so easy to like. There’s a few shounen manga among my favorites, too, but shoujo almost never disappoints me.
I was actually debating over whether to go back to the original Fushigi Yugi series just last week. I’ve been torn over whether or not to pick up the new VizBig editions of the series. I read it a long time ago and didn’t really like it, but I have a feeling I would enjoy it quite a bit if I picked it up now. Especially since I liked the Genbu Kaiden volumes I read so much. I keep wondering if I should pick up the early volumes of that series first, or read through the original before I go for those.
I buy almost everything I read on here, the only things I don’t pay for are the ones where I note at the bottom the copy was provided by the publisher. Even then, there are certain things I’ll buy a second copy of in order to support the release or that I’ll forget to cancel my preorder for and wind up buying a copy anyway. I don’t spend quite as much money as it looks like I do since I buy almost everything on sale, but I do love to collect. ^_^
Yeah, I bought volumes 1-5 unfortunately I’ve just read volume 1 and I really liked it. I have a handful of series I needed to read. Thanks for the recommendation. I am looking forward in reading volume 2.
I like shoujo cause I’m a sucker for romance. Even though most of shoujo series have cliche plot I still like reading them. I read shounen once in awhile.
Well the original Fushigi Yugi is one of my faves, its classic. But yeah Miaka and Tamahome can be irritating. Though the suporting characters are great and the series is pretty funny. The BigViz edition looked really nice, and the quality of paper is top notch too! Though I recommend that you pick up the early volumes of Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden cause this series is better than the original. Story wise and character wise its more mature.. You don’t have to check the original to understand FY Genbu Kaiden.. I’ll stop now, Fushigi series are my faves!
Yeah same here I buy most of my collection from ebay.. Though the ones that I really like I buy it from store or would order it from online.. I do support my fave series and mangaka. I like collecting too!
Btw have you read Shinobi Life or Wild Ones?
Hope to hear from you soon!?
Yeah, there are a lot of shoujo series I hate myself for liking so much, because I know they are just going through the motions of common plot devices and whatnot, but I love the structure of shoujo series so much, and the romance, that I usually wind up liking even the ones that aren’t all that great.
I haven’t read either Shinobi Life or Wild Ones. I almost picked up Shinobi Life the last time I saw it on sale, but I wound up getting Wild Adapter instead, because I’d heard more good things about it. I’ve got a couple volumes of Wild Ones here, I think, as review copies. Since you mentioned it, I’ll probably read them over the next couple days since I need to start a new review series.
And thanks again for your comments!
Yeah what I like about shoujo is the love the character feels. I like reading how their romance story unfolds and reading their interactions.. Shoujo has its ups and downs, most series might have alot of things in common but they are all good.
Now that I read about your comment about Wild Ones I’m not nearly as confident to recommend Shinobi Life. You might end up not liking the series..
Its nice talking to you so thanks for replying to me as well.
Does Shinobi Life have a lot of filler chapters? I’m usually okay with that as long as I get a volume or two at the beginning with characters I like. I think I came down on Wild Ones mostly because I wasn’t as fond of the characters since I hadn’t read the other volumes. I probably still would have grumbled, even if I loved them, but I don’t mind filler too much as long as other parts of the story come through elsewhere.
And thanks again for your comments! I appreciate them.