Kyou, Koi Wo Hajimemasu

OhHaiDer :]


Hello~
I think I'll stick to one huge series a week for a little bit. 
A lot more relaxed for me.
Today I bring you..
Kyou, Koi Wo Hajimemasu~


Kyou, Koi Wo Hajimemasu


Story & Art: Kanan Minami
Publisher: Shogakukan
Rating: 18+
Synopsis: (Wikipedia.com) Despite Tsubaki Hibino's talent in styling other people's hair, she isn't comfortable with doing the same for herself. On her first day of high school, she is immediately looked down upon her delinquent-like classmates for her old-fashioned taste. When she is teased by the top student, Kyouta Tsubaki, who shares the same name as her, she defiantly cuts his hair. Interested in her actions, Kyouta decides to make her his target. Kyouta, who is not only a promiscuous playboy but also has control of the class, makes Tsubaki need him during class activities, although Tsubaki attempts to resist his advances. Gradually, the two begin to fall in love with each other until Tsubaki discovers that Kyouta cannot commit himself into a relationship due to his mother and a nurse he trusted. However, after understanding Tsubaki's trust in him, Kyouta begins to heal emotionally as he opens his heart up to Tsubaki. But with both of them having their first experiences in love, troubles start to weigh and test their relationship.


Art Review: 4/5 


I kinda liked this style. The eyes on the girls creeped me out a bit at times, but at others the eyes were very well done. The hair and detailing is pretty, and the guys aren't too bad to look at either.


Story Review: This is just one of those shoujos where I hate the male that the female falls for, and I hate the school that they attend. Kyouta is the worst sort of person. He’s known to be a player and is seen frequently in the beginning feeling up chicks. He even has a lover, who the translators apparently named Yuui, who proudly announces that she is a C-cup when Kyouta rejects her while Hibino is watching. I don't know about you but when you get caught fooling around with girls even though you claim to be serious about Hibino, that pretty much says it all, instead, the whole fact that she was there was ignored by Kyouta's sweet talk. I do rather like Hibino, the main character. The first day of high school, she does meet Kyouta, and he is entirely an ass to her. He pulls her hair and calls her stupid, and she cuts his hair (which is rather infuriating, I’ll agree, he looks like he’s trying to pull off the ‘long haired bishie’ look but failed and now just looks like a greasy pot head.) She also is pretty naïve, which ends up to be very amusing as she is very straight forward and often ruins a serious situation with her inability to recognise subtle wordplay, euphemisms and things that teenagers in the 21st century would know. In one of the chapters where Arisa beats her up after becoming Kyouta’s girlfriend, she says that she’s going to give something to her, but Hibino doesn’t really get the saying and asks loudly what the hell she meant. I think that was one of the first times I’ve ever laughed at a shoujo. Usually I’m yelling at them because they all can’t just stop thinking with their hormones and do something smart for once. She tries to do everything by a schedule and to perfection like a school assignment and that only adds to her cuteness. As I mentioned, I hate the school she is attending. Why is it in every shoujo the girls in the school act as if the hot male character who falls in love with the main character is their possession, and they don’t even think about if they got caught by a teacher or a janitor (I’m seriously waiting for the manga that will have a super janitor. With a cape, and sunglasses, and a secret lance hidden inside of his mop, and a jetpack!) or, worse, just happening to have the sort of guy who will only be nice to the girl he likes, and will just beat the shit out of anyone else if they try anything, even if it was a girl that was bothering her. That ALMOST happened this time, but not quite. They even get two college guys to rape her during a race in the public bathroom, claiming they only wanted to scare her. Um, to scare someone, whatever happened to wearing a scary costume or pranking her. Since when does getting two guys to rape her only serve as a purpose to scare her? What is she, the female Chuck Norris? I don’t think she needs that much to be scared. Hibino’s only friend is very predictable. She becomes her friend because Kyouta was teasing her and because she thought that it might make her look better or get a chance with him. This time around, Miho didn’t want to betray Hibino and actually wanted to help her, but Nishiki unbeknownst to Hibino and Miho goes and tells everyone about Hibino and Kyouta’s relationship and they eventually do reconcile. What amuses me is that they make a deal that whoever wins has to say everything they were thinking about their misunderstanding at the moment, and neither of them win, but Miho decides to just speak up about everything. What is amusing is that she decides to let Hibino cut her hair while she does it. I don’t know if Hibino is the vengeful type, but she might decide that Miho looks better without a head by the end of this. Sakura, Hibino’s sister, is kind of a whore, but she gets away with it for a single reason. A bad one, I might add. Just being a little sister. She first meets Kyouya by visiting the school one day, and asks Hibino to introduce her to ‘the hot guy’. Even though Hibino tells Sakura that Kyouta is a jerk (not straying far from the truth on that one) she goes and talks to him and decides there that she is going to chase after him. Reminds me of Akane in Hot Gimmick, who tries to go after Ryouki. Of course, being a younger sister, and not an ironic manga means that Kyouta does not like the poor slutty younger sister. They try and trick Sakura into being “alone” with Nishiki, one of the many guys who have fallen in love with Sakura. She decides to give up and just go sleep with Nishiki anyway. What bothers me is that she says, “Enough is enough, this will be fine, I can like you.” That’s just code for “Meh. I’ll hit it, I guess.” Now I like Hibino even more. Usually, the girls who terrorise the love interest of the guy they all like do terrible things to her and they eventually apologise, and the heroine just cutely smiles and tells them it’s ok and that she forgives them and they root for her in the background. Hibino, after hearing their apologies, tells them not to apologise as she will never forgive them. You go girl. And even after then they are still helping her against more Kyouta fans.  I do find it rather cute that Kyouta does eventually become a better person, but it still doesn’t excuse for him being a jackass just because women just happened to ‘betray’ him as a child. Kyouta wants to comfort Hibino after he finds out that she nearly got raped, and Hibino says “you’d do anything for me? Even… belly dancing?” And Kyouta pulls up his shirt. Made me laugh, since it reminded me of this. Another dramatic arc all starts with Hibino's refusal to have sex. At one point, Hibino says that she wants to stay a virgin until her honeymoon. That’s a great endeavor, except that she calls the concept “The Virgin Road.” And eventually Hibino, with her classic planning, tries to make Kyouta happy by starting to learn about sex. Hibino reads a shoujo manga in a shoujo manga. SHOUCEPTION. Sometimes Hibino’s habit of valuing only marks doesn't allow her to make much sense especially when she says, “If he finds out how low my grades are I’m sure to be hated.” Yeah, that would only be true of Kyouta was the High-Expectation-Asian-Father. When you think about it, the only reason why this manga is as long as it is is because Hibino is always dragging her feet when it comes to new experiences and she becomes over excited and ends up hurting Kyouta inadvertently. Frustrating, only because that sort of thing happens in real life. Sorry, guys. A new story arc appears with the Entry of a new character.. Haru.. who appears draped in cats. It’s not even a girl so you can’t even make a crazy cat lady joke. The first plot device that Haru uses is that he’s too tall for Hibino to see behind him and she asks him to switch seats, but he proposes that she breaks up with Kyouta first. This is a stupid plot device, just switch seats with someone else… It does evolve into a more serious matter but Haru didn’t even have the balls to go through with it. Somewhat half assed.. AND THE VIRGIN ROAD LIVES ONNN (For some reason, when I wrote that, I thought of this. Pro-tip: Dragonforce sucks, so you only need to listen to the chorus for that to make sense.) How eerie, after Kyouta and Hibino break up, Haru and Kyouta talk and they eventually go to the topic of Haru nearly raping Hibino, Kyouta becomes angered at Haru and punches the shit out of him, and all we see is blood on one of the cats that accompanies Haru while the police drag Haru and Kyouta away. Hibino tries to visit Kyouta after he is suspended and she meets his father, who looks all nice, but then we are reminded that he’s a drunken bitch, if anyone remembers that Kyouta’s past entails his father being a crybaby bitch about his mother leaving him. After reconciling yet again, Hibino decides to stay a little longer, blushes cutely and decides to use his telescope. What made me laugh was that she pointed it at the ground and said,” The moon is so beautiful..” I do like with the Haru arc that they perfectly portray how the Japanese act towards foreigners ie.  Hibino dragging him to the place he needed to go then running off, and being very shy about their levels of affection. My Japanese teacher told me that the people in Japan actually do that. I'm not being racist. Hibino says that she ‘unconsciously’ picks the island that Kyouta likes. So does that mean that someone knocked her out and made her pick an island? Seems disturbing if you ask me. Not a lot of consent in this, is there? Does this cloth smell like chloroform to you? They go on the trip and Kyouta purposely misses the boat so that he can see the stars on the island. They eventually get a hotel room, and the inevitable happens. Don’t worry, it’s not too NSFW, all the important things are covered by convenient item placement, and it’s not even the end yet, who would make this end right at that moment? At least Hibino knows how to protect herself. Hibino’s still adorably old fashioned after all this time. "Doing THAT is just for making babies, right?” Oh yeah, because all teenagers have sex in hopes of having a baby. We know ALLL about making babies. Sakura leaves for the fireworks festival and brings a change of clothes. Hibino asks what they are for and she says “If they become undone she won’t have any idea how to put it back on." That’s a great combination. Whore-ish and stupid. While Kyouta is gone in America, Hibino decides that she does want to start fooling around. Unfortunately for her, things just aren't that easy to obtain. Awkward moment: Going to buy condoms and then all of a sudden some neighbor who knows your mother shows up and starts talking to you. Kinda laughed at Kyouta’s huge ass suitcase. Although you’d think that with Japan they would make everything smaller, not bigger. That’s an American thing. I think I’m allowed to say: Bigger suitcase is best suitcase. Oh Hibino, another one of your shy and subtle acts. "Can we go to your room"=FUCKFUCKFUCK. That’s just proving all of the teenager stereotypes.  I find that this manga doesn't seem to be all creative to someone who has read a huge amount of manga. It seems to be a combination of Hot Gimmick, with Kyouta being a huge jerk to her most of the time and being manipulative, Kimi ni Todoke, with the unpopular scary girl becoming cute and popular, and We Were There, with the pressures of kissing and having sex and such. Overall, a cute romance that I enjoyed reading, although all the events become more and more frustrating. A long read, and still ongoing if you're interested in picking it up (although from mangafox.com alone I've found out what goes on to chapter 87.)


7/10