Kimi ni Todoke 3

Karuho Shiina – Viz – 2010 – 10+ volumes

For some reason, I felt compelled to finish the Ring before I picked this series back up.  The two have nothing in common, but all the same, I kept telling myself I had to finish the novel before I got to read this manga.  If anything, it makes me a little more sad to hear the other students calling her Sadako since I know how horrible she is now.  Not terribly important.

Anyway.  This series still makes me ridiculously happy.  It’s still a little light in content, but it doesn’t really need it.  The first half of the volume had me grinning ear to ear with nothing more than a dinner date with friends and a lively get-together at Ryu’s house.  Sawako is still overwhelmed by all the kindness she recieves from those around her, and she’s still incredibly shy and tongue-tied around Kazehaya.  It’s equally obvious that Kazehaya is shy and tongue-tied around her, though, and it becomes pretty clear in this volume that the two will likely get together at some point in the immediate future.  Not that it wasn’t already obvious, but we don’t have to take the extra step of “Kazehaya is just being nice because he’s nice to everyone, now he’s being nice ’cause he likes her.”  Sawako’s friends know what’s up between them, but it still seems like a bit of a mystery to Sawako herself, and I wonder if Kazehaya knows his feelings on the matter yet, too.

The second half is another serious story, and I admire the story’s light touch with these things.  The topic is that of a girl who is using Sawako to get to Kazehaya, pretending to be her friend to get what she wants.  Most of her tactics to discourage Sawako, aside from interrupting and intervening in her conversations with Kazehaya, have the opposite effect and make her feel a little better about herself and her frustration.  Sawako also tends to take the girl’s insults for compliments, compliments that make her extremely happy.  Sawako’s friends can see the storm coming and discuss it amongst themselves, but don’t intervene directly.  I thought this was sort of cruel of them at first, but by the end of the volume, it becomes obvious that Sawako can deal with the situation herself.  Quite a bit is left up in the air, but all the same, I don’t think Sawako will wind up on the wrong end of things.

And even while she’s being antagonized, Sawako’s joy is infectious.  She just takes such pleasure from every little thing, and even at its most serious, it’s still nearly impossible not to crack a smile.  It’s also super-easy to relate to Sawako and her awkwardness around others, her difficulty in connecting to other people, and the simple way she conveys all her positive thoughts.  I love her, and I love this manga.  As I said, it’s a little light on overarching plot, but at this point, there’s enough there in the subplots and it drips enough charm that it will be able to keep going for some time, I think.

Also, Sawako is somehow one of the sparkliest shoujo manga characters I’ve ever seen.  She’s almost as sparkly as Asuka from Otomen, who is pretty darn sparkly.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.

Kimi ni Todoke 2

Karuho Shiina – Viz – 2009 – 8+ volumes

Ah!  I just finished reading this!  Too cute for words!  Part of me feels secretly bad that I liked something that is literally injected with as much niceness as any book could possibly take, but the result is… well, too nice not to like.

Misunderstandings run rampant through this volume, and Sawako spends most of the story here feeling bad.  Someone is spreading rumors about her new friends, and that someone is apparently her.  Yano and Yoshida don’t believe she’s spreading the rumors, but when they overhear Sawako telling someone that they aren’t friends, and when she says point blank that she doesn’t like them… well, what can they think?  Of course Sawako was telling one of her old classmates that she wasn’t friends with Yano and Yoshida because she couldn’t presume to be freinds with them, and she got cut off when she started saying “I don’t like you, I adore you.”  So, you know.  Don’t worry though, Yano and Yoshida can’t get Sawako’s niceness out of their heads, and Kazehaya is watching Sawako crash from a distance, so you know something good will happen in the end.

Like I said, the niceness is almost too much.  A couple classmates that pick a fight with Sawako at the end of the volume are eventually driven away because Sawako has no wish to fight and just keeps talking about how nice Yano and Yoshida are.  Yano and Yoshida also put a lot more thought into their relationship with Sawako than any high school students ever would.

But it’s just so cute.  I can’t begrudge it its niceness, especially when, as I said, the result winds up being so enjoyable.  After all the bad stuff that happens here, when things are straightened out and Yano, Yoshida, and Sawako are better friends because of it, and Kazehaya is looking on with his crush on Sawako written all over his face… I mean, isn’t this what every shoujo manga should be like?

This was a review copy provided by Viz.

Kimi ni Todoke 1

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.