Series: My Little Monster #1 (Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun)
Author: Robico
Translator: Joshua Weeks
Lettering: Kiyoko Shiromasa, Mugwump Design
Genre: manga, shoujo, romance, comedy
Published: March 11, 2014 (first published January 13, 2009)
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Eiwa Manga (PH)
Author: Robico
Translator: Joshua Weeks
Lettering: Kiyoko Shiromasa, Mugwump Design
Genre: manga, shoujo, romance, comedy
Published: March 11, 2014 (first published January 13, 2009)
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Eiwa Manga (PH)
OPPOSITES ATTRACT… MAYBE?
Haru Yoshida is feared as an unstable and violent “monster.” Shizuku Mizutani is a grade-obsessed student with no friends. Fate brings these two together to form the most unlikely pair. Haru firmly believes he’s in love with Shizuku and she firmly believes he’s insane.
* * *
Haru: Did you know? All the lucky and unlucky things in our lives have already been predestined and by the time we die, they all balance each other out!
Shizuku: So no one’s luckier than anyone else?
H: Well, I don’t actually believe it.
S: It kinda sounds like a fallacy.
H: But still these days, I’ve been thinking… If meeting you was something lucky for me, I think it balanced out all the other stuff for me. Ever since I met you, things have been great for me.
* * *
I watched My Little Monster’s anime a couple of years back. It was fun. Romance-comedy is already a great watch. Nothing deep. Always fun and games. Full of clichés.
My Little Monster certainly started well for me. I can recall the anime quite well as I read through. Even though I’ve seen the anime, it doesn’t exactly ruin anything for me. It’s still a fun and relaxing manga to read. This first volume had a nice amount of cute and cheesy moments. There were also a good amount of fun exchanges between Haru and Shizuku. First thing you know they’re all fun and games, then next thing there’s some kind of aggressiveness around Haru or just that sweet little moment between the two of them.
Haru and Shizuku are fun. They’re both straight forward. They’re both inexperience. They’re both loners. They are both unsure of a lot of things in life especially of love. Their combination is so clichéd especially when it comes to manga/anime. They are extremities. Haru is a very aggressive guy and at the same time he’s like a kid who wants to make friends. Shizuku, on the other hand, is this grade conscious girl who thinks of nothing else but getting the highest score. She misses out on a lot of things and that makes her character something good to see develop.
Manga and anime presentations are really different. The anime art really shows the style of the production company that picked it up. And I'm really glad that it's not really far from the manga's art. Of course there're no colors but overall, it's still good especially all those fun expressions they show were really funny and expressive. The romance side were well shown through those really light use of tones. I'm not so big on romance manga so they're quite refreshing to see for me.
* * *
What I Like: (1) its cliché-ness, (2) Haru and Shizuku’s straightforwardness, (3) the really cute romance developing between Haru and Shizuku
What I Didn’t Like: (1) nothing in particular :)
