manga: Butterflies, Flowers Vol 1
This is marketed in the US as shoujo, but I think it’s actually josei.
Choko is the daughter of a venerable, Old Money family that went bankrupt. Now, her family runs a soba shop and she’s entering the work force as an office worker. At the interview, a manager asks her if she’s a virgin, and later selects her to be his personal assistant. Which is just as skeevy as it sounds. Since this is mangaland, the manager, Masayuki, turns out to be the son of her family’s chauffeur, who looked after her when Choko was little, and who remains fixated on her. So now he bullies her mercilessly at work, and then tries to put her in a gilded cage acts like he’s still the family’s devoted servant and “treats her like a princess” after work.
I checked this out mostly because descriptions had to be seen to be believed, and it’s kind of true. A few years ago, I suspect I would have read this feverishly out of morbid fascination, but not now. The only character that was really any fun at all was Masayuki’s crossdressing BFF, Suou, who only shows up later in the volume. Masayuki is a bit creepy and neither version of his fixation appeals, and while Choko is OK, there are more interesting versions of the character type in better series.
If the subset of romantic manga with strange power issues, monomaniacal leads, and “how does someone come up with this?” setups hold any appeal to you, it’s probably worth checking out (I’m glad I satisfied my curiosity, at the very least), but I’m not sure it’s worth sticking with unless it triggers your morbid fascination/kinks.
Choko is the daughter of a venerable, Old Money family that went bankrupt. Now, her family runs a soba shop and she’s entering the work force as an office worker. At the interview, a manager asks her if she’s a virgin, and later selects her to be his personal assistant. Which is just as skeevy as it sounds. Since this is mangaland, the manager, Masayuki, turns out to be the son of her family’s chauffeur, who looked after her when Choko was little, and who remains fixated on her. So now he bullies her mercilessly at work, and then tries to put her in a gilded cage acts like he’s still the family’s devoted servant and “treats her like a princess” after work.
I checked this out mostly because descriptions had to be seen to be believed, and it’s kind of true. A few years ago, I suspect I would have read this feverishly out of morbid fascination, but not now. The only character that was really any fun at all was Masayuki’s crossdressing BFF, Suou, who only shows up later in the volume. Masayuki is a bit creepy and neither version of his fixation appeals, and while Choko is OK, there are more interesting versions of the character type in better series.
If the subset of romantic manga with strange power issues, monomaniacal leads, and “how does someone come up with this?” setups hold any appeal to you, it’s probably worth checking out (I’m glad I satisfied my curiosity, at the very least), but I’m not sure it’s worth sticking with unless it triggers your morbid fascination/kinks.