vignette00's manga / #high school(74)

A follow-up to a oneshot that is not yet translated. In a weird inversion of the "rape is love" trope, a highschooler finds himself engaging in truly bizarre sex with his friend, and no one makes any confessions. There are enough random comedy bits ("you're the only 167 cm 50 kg 17 year old virgin who's friend recently fucked him with fruit", Kaede's offscreen wailing interpreted as cat noises) that I suspect it's a knowing parody and just a way to draw a couple too dumb for words, including words of active consent.

Gym teacher gets his dream job, but it turns out it's a school full of glasses fanatics where the social hierarchy is determined by whether or not you have glasses. Fortunately for him, he meets a student who falls for his hot-blooded spirit. This is the kind of manga that would excel at the hands of Araya Miki (think "We Are Gorgeous" http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/we_are_gorgeous/) but I'm not sure panco is going to give it the parody angle it deserves. Instead the teacherxstudent relationship looks like it's going to be predictably pat (the teacher reminds the student of his dog! tell me something I don't already know), and the cover makes me suspect we're really going to be looking at the relationship of the student council president and vp, which, again, tell me something I don't already know!! This is also most definitely an early work by panco, as her art is derivative and clumsy, with huge noses and lips.

Tropey and by the book story about high school boys The first couple moves through the paces of strangers to friends to sudden confession to lovey dovey in a wooden, pre-determined pattern, while the second couple, though also tropey, have at least a lively connection to see through their short chapter and a half. Nothing memorable, but nothing objectionable either.

Natsume Isaku writes the best "men at work" manga, from the salarymen in "Doushiyoumo Nai Keredo" to the pap reporters in "Ameiro Paradox" to the mafia heirs in "Tight Rope." Her characters are always well-meaning, rambunctious types with a streak of competitiveness, and she always makes the stakes clear and realistic for the reader. "Hanakoi Tsurane" is no different. Here, two sons of kabuki families are asked to perform together as romantic leads, and it turns out they've both been secretly inspiring each other to be better. The beats to this story feel familiar (lead character softens on his one-sided rivalry while slowly falling into an unintentional love trap), and Sougorou is a well-trod Natsume fave (spoiled, selfish, and very conscious of his own responsibilities and expectations) while Gensuke is another tried-and-true upbeat, naturally romantic type. But as always, Natsume Isaku brings out the best, with funny dialogue and a great off-stage rapport between the leads.

Though it doesn't advertise this fact, Yuri Danshi-kun is the 4-koma-esque spin-off of Yuri Danshi (http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/yuri_danshi/bt/302602/Vol1_Ch1/). Yuri Danshi (the original) is much talkier, with traditional paneling, but also stars Hanadera Keisuke as a high school boy obsessed with yuri. In some ways, Yuri Danshi-kun is a meta-joke: Yuri Danshi takes fujoshi characters like Tama from Barakamon and makes them into yuri-obsessed fudanshi who see yuri-undertones in every casual girl-on-girl interaction. The tropes about the pure, barely sexual, and completely idealized relationships in yuri give a World Only God Knows vibe to Yuri Danshi. Yuri Danshi-kun, on the other hand, panders straight back to the Tama's of the manga-reading world. Hanadera, along with a handful of other male yuri fans, are thrown into a bizarre alternate world where there are no women at all -- and thus, obviously, no yuri. So the parody of the parody becomes the thing parodied in the first parody -- not confusing at all! I think part of the reason why Yuri Danshi-kun may seem so confusing is that I rather suspect the other guys in Yuri Danshi-kun are characters we meet later in Yuri Danshi, and Yuri Danshi-kun assumes we're familiar with their personalities and interactions. Once you get around to figuring out who is who (not an easy feat, as everyone shares the same SD-face and there are two megane characters, one of whom shares a haircut with a non-megane character), the jokes are relatively stand-alone and entertaining, but I strangely find myself more interested in the mechanics of this alt-universe, like where DO babies come from?!