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Reviewed by Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane Otomen has a simple premise with charming execution. If you haven't read volume 1, here's a quick rundown: our hero, Asuka, has grown up with his mother pressuring him to never have any remotely feminine traits, because his father abandoned them after deciding he really wanted to be a woman. Asuka, who attempts to live up to his mother's expectations via adopting a stoic manner and excelling in martial arts, has no interest in being a woman. Unfortunately for him, given the situation, he has lots and lots of girly interests that would break his mother's heart if she ever found out. Enter the love interest, Ryo, a girl with no girly traits whatsoever (and total cluelessness when it comes to Asuka's feelings for her), and Juta, a womanizing new friend who wants Asuka and Ryo to get together--not so much because he has altruistic concern for their feelings, but because he needs good material for Love Chick, the shoujo manga series he secretly writes. Asuka, oblivious to Juta's side career, adores the series, not realizing that he himself is Juta's inspiration for the female lead. Where the first volume of the series spent a lot of time on Asuka's realization that it didn't do anyone any good for him to pretend to be someone he wasn't--at least around the girl he likes--volume 2 deals with some of the complications of his double life. Asuka has done such a good job of perfecting his image as an ideal man that a younger, too-cute-to-be-manly student wants to study his every move and become more like him; meanwhile, everything from the weather to the discovery that he has a fiancée seems to be conspiring against his unofficial relationship with Ryo. Otomen is a lot of fun to read, and I attribute that to Asuka's utter sincerity and to the fact that Kanno manages to make Juta's blithe stalking of him over the top without being ridiculous. To some extent Juta is toying with Asuka, but he also comes to really like both Asuka and Ryo, and is cheering them on in a warped sort of way. The dynamic between the three characters is mostly played for laughs, and so far there isn't much depth there, but it's somehow endearing. I'm not entirely sure what to make of Asuka's mother, who makes her first appearance in the second half of the volume. She's a very one-note character so far, and if she continues to be largely out of the picture she may not get developed much further, but it would be nice to see if Asuka is ever able to open up to her at all. The combination of her absence (she works out of town) and Asuka's need to hide his real self from her offers the potential for interesting conflict if she's ever around long enough to have a real conversation with him. Volume 2 of Otomen includes a one-page glossary of Japanese terms. Review copy provided by VIZ Media. Comment on this review of Otomen v2 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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