Kirai (I Hate You) by Miura Noriko
Recently, I found this amazing forum that offers raw scans of complete shoujo series, so I've just been downloading by the bucketload, and this is one of the series I stumbled upon. I'd actually heard about Kirai way before I downloaded it. There was a review I read on it years ago on some English manga site. The artwork reminded me a bit of Okazaki Kyoko (some people might know her, her River's Edge was scanlated a year or two ago). I have a weak spot for series that have similar looking artwork to series by mangakas who I love, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say I wanted to read this series because of the art resemblance.
This is basically your typical girl-hates-guy-because-he-always-acts-like-a-jerk-but-she-eventually-falls-for-him. There's even the "main girl character's mom decides to remarry, and the man she's remarrying just happens to be the father of the main guy character" (ala Marmalade Boy, Akuma de Sourou....etc.etc.). What did vary from the norm was the fact that Sakura, the lead heroine, wasn't your just "average girl with no talent at anything". She's pretty popular among the boys, and she's getting pretty decent grades (well there goes the "I'm going to fail the final exam! Please help me!" storyline).
This series is definitely targetted more towards females in their 20's (from the amount of nudity, and the casualness with which sex is portrayed in it). And the relationship between Sakura and Shin (the main guy) is a bit more complicated than what you might think at first glance. But compared to all those series running in Sho-comi (My innocent eyes are no longer so after reading Haou Airen, H3 School...and all those other series running in Sho-Comi. I can't believe middle schoolers/high schoolers read this...this hentai!) the graphicness is pretty toned down. Although the mangaka does seem to be a bit more free with nudity scenes later on in the series, earlier on there's lots of "strategically placed arms draped across certain areas" for cover up.
Kirai revolves around Shin, the best looking guy in the school who's wanted by every girl and envied by every guy, and his (eventual) relationship with Sakura, a girl who can at times be hot-headed, but who has no problems standing up for herself. What I found so weird about this series was....I have no idea why Sakura fell for him. At all. One day she absolutely hated him, and the next she's blushing at every little compliment Shin throws her way (despite her knowing his character, and how compliments mean very little coming from him).
What's even more of a mystery to me, is how Shin, after falling for Sakura (and I have no idea why he fell for her either. For supposedly hating calculating females, I'm surprised he fell in love with her when she went out of her way to get a guy friend to "pretend" to be her boyfriend to make Shin jealous. And when he found out about the lie, he wasn't angry---instead he was ecstatic that she WASN'T dating anyone. Is this a normal reaction? Considering his character I would have figured he'd now consider her to be just as same as all the other girls in his eyes. But no, instead it made him fall in love with her even more? I guess she was the mother figure he never had but wished he had?) basically went from being the "cool, I-can-get-any-girl-I-want" playboy into Sakura's whipping dog. He trailed after her everywhere, proclaiming his love for her in front of their classmates, acting lovey-dovey during breaks....I mean come on.
Sakura begins to start feeling smothered by his affections (and his show of affections is extreme. No matter how much you like a person, you have to draw a line somewhere!), and decides to study abroad (surprise, surprise, it's America!). Shin feels betrayed because she kept the information about studying abroad until the day before she was supposed to leave for America. She told him that she couldn't stand how he had no trust in her (he was extremely jealous if she even TALKED to a guy). She saw this as a chance for both of them to spend some time alone. Shin tried to convince her to stay, but she left after asking him if he'd wait for her.
And the real cincher is, for volume 8 and 9, Sakura doesn't make an appearance. At all. Sure, there's the occasional e-mail (which Shin deletes without reading), and the occasional postcard (which he again, destroys), but otherwise, nada. Shin goes back to his womanizing ways, and tries to forget Sakura ever existed. Apparently, her not telling him about the studying abroad thing combined with he fact she thought they should have some "alone time" = break up.
But then things start to heat up in volume 10 when she comes back to Japan. Sakura knew they had ended things on a bad note before she left Japan, but she honestly believed once she apologized they could go back to the way things were. Surprise, surprise though when she finds out he'd reverted back to his old self, as cold as ever. And it seems she wasn't exactly faithful to him either in America (Hugh, the gaijin, even comes all the way to Japan to try to convince her to go back to America with him).
I did like the direction that the beginning of volume 10 was going in so I was really disappointed in the rushed ending with Shin and Sakura getting back together. Over half of the last volume was spent ignoring Sakura and suddenly he changes his mind? It was just a bit all too convenient. The mangaka even had the "wedding ceremony" tacked onto the end.
I honestly did like the first 5-6 volumes so I just wish the mangaka had just stayed true to the characters instead of changing Shin into someone's whipping boy, and that whole storyline with the "studying abroad" deal. The "studying abroad" wasn't a terrible idea all together. But I just think that two WHOLE volumes WITHOUT the main heroine is a bit pointless. It could have easily been condensed into one chapter and had that "one year later" sign, because in those two volumes useless characters were introduced that carried no significance in the last volume. In a short series like this, there's no need to create characters who contribute nothing to the main storyline.
This is basically your typical girl-hates-guy-because-he-always-acts-like-a-jerk-but-she-eventually-falls-for-him. There's even the "main girl character's mom decides to remarry, and the man she's remarrying just happens to be the father of the main guy character" (ala Marmalade Boy, Akuma de Sourou....etc.etc.). What did vary from the norm was the fact that Sakura, the lead heroine, wasn't your just "average girl with no talent at anything". She's pretty popular among the boys, and she's getting pretty decent grades (well there goes the "I'm going to fail the final exam! Please help me!" storyline).
This series is definitely targetted more towards females in their 20's (from the amount of nudity, and the casualness with which sex is portrayed in it). And the relationship between Sakura and Shin (the main guy) is a bit more complicated than what you might think at first glance. But compared to all those series running in Sho-comi (My innocent eyes are no longer so after reading Haou Airen, H3 School...and all those other series running in Sho-Comi. I can't believe middle schoolers/high schoolers read this...this hentai!) the graphicness is pretty toned down. Although the mangaka does seem to be a bit more free with nudity scenes later on in the series, earlier on there's lots of "strategically placed arms draped across certain areas" for cover up.
Kirai revolves around Shin, the best looking guy in the school who's wanted by every girl and envied by every guy, and his (eventual) relationship with Sakura, a girl who can at times be hot-headed, but who has no problems standing up for herself. What I found so weird about this series was....I have no idea why Sakura fell for him. At all. One day she absolutely hated him, and the next she's blushing at every little compliment Shin throws her way (despite her knowing his character, and how compliments mean very little coming from him).
What's even more of a mystery to me, is how Shin, after falling for Sakura (and I have no idea why he fell for her either. For supposedly hating calculating females, I'm surprised he fell in love with her when she went out of her way to get a guy friend to "pretend" to be her boyfriend to make Shin jealous. And when he found out about the lie, he wasn't angry---instead he was ecstatic that she WASN'T dating anyone. Is this a normal reaction? Considering his character I would have figured he'd now consider her to be just as same as all the other girls in his eyes. But no, instead it made him fall in love with her even more? I guess she was the mother figure he never had but wished he had?) basically went from being the "cool, I-can-get-any-girl-I-want" playboy into Sakura's whipping dog. He trailed after her everywhere, proclaiming his love for her in front of their classmates, acting lovey-dovey during breaks....I mean come on.
Sakura begins to start feeling smothered by his affections (and his show of affections is extreme. No matter how much you like a person, you have to draw a line somewhere!), and decides to study abroad (surprise, surprise, it's America!). Shin feels betrayed because she kept the information about studying abroad until the day before she was supposed to leave for America. She told him that she couldn't stand how he had no trust in her (he was extremely jealous if she even TALKED to a guy). She saw this as a chance for both of them to spend some time alone. Shin tried to convince her to stay, but she left after asking him if he'd wait for her.
And the real cincher is, for volume 8 and 9, Sakura doesn't make an appearance. At all. Sure, there's the occasional e-mail (which Shin deletes without reading), and the occasional postcard (which he again, destroys), but otherwise, nada. Shin goes back to his womanizing ways, and tries to forget Sakura ever existed. Apparently, her not telling him about the studying abroad thing combined with he fact she thought they should have some "alone time" = break up.
But then things start to heat up in volume 10 when she comes back to Japan. Sakura knew they had ended things on a bad note before she left Japan, but she honestly believed once she apologized they could go back to the way things were. Surprise, surprise though when she finds out he'd reverted back to his old self, as cold as ever. And it seems she wasn't exactly faithful to him either in America (Hugh, the gaijin, even comes all the way to Japan to try to convince her to go back to America with him).
I did like the direction that the beginning of volume 10 was going in so I was really disappointed in the rushed ending with Shin and Sakura getting back together. Over half of the last volume was spent ignoring Sakura and suddenly he changes his mind? It was just a bit all too convenient. The mangaka even had the "wedding ceremony" tacked onto the end.
I honestly did like the first 5-6 volumes so I just wish the mangaka had just stayed true to the characters instead of changing Shin into someone's whipping boy, and that whole storyline with the "studying abroad" deal. The "studying abroad" wasn't a terrible idea all together. But I just think that two WHOLE volumes WITHOUT the main heroine is a bit pointless. It could have easily been condensed into one chapter and had that "one year later" sign, because in those two volumes useless characters were introduced that carried no significance in the last volume. In a short series like this, there's no need to create characters who contribute nothing to the main storyline.