Minamoto-kun Monogatari

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Minamoto's Story

Japanese: 源君物語

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 16

Chapters: 360

Status: Finished

Published: Sep 15, 2011 to Sep 5, 2019

Genres: Romance, Ecchi

Themes: Harem, School

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Young Jump

Authors: Inaba, Minori (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.26¹ (scored by 22,604 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #5267²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #284

Members: 57,364

Favorites: 1,293

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7.26

Ranked #5267Popularity #284Members 57,364

MangaYoung JumpInaba, Minori (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /16

Chapters: /360

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Synopsis

In his middle school years, the feminine-looking Terumi Minamoto was bullied by his female classmates after the most popular boy in the class declared Terumi to be the prettiest "girl" of them all. Living with a fear of women ever since, he seeks to change himself as he enters college. However, his father puts a wrench in his plans when he brings a pregnant woman home, announcing her to be Terumi's new mother. To accommodate her in their small apartment, Terumi is sent to live with his aunt, who is coincidentally an associate professor at his new college.

On his first day, Terumi finds out that his aunt, Kaoruko Fujiwara, is a voluptuous beauty known to hate men. As a professor, her main research is on the classic work The Tale of Genji. After a more personal introduction, Kaoruko works out that Terumi has suffered greatly because of his looks. Sensing an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of her research, she offers to help him—starting with his fear of women. But when her methods include being "raised" into the perfect lover like Genji who had sex with 14 women, will he truly be cured by the end of his very own "Tale of Minamoto"?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters

Fujiwara, Kaoruko

Main

Minamoto, Terumi

Main

Kiriyama, Aoi

Supporting

Tokonatsu, Yuu

Supporting

Momozono, Asahi

Supporting

Oboro, Tsukiko

Supporting

Hanada, Chisato

Supporting

Rokujou, Miya

Supporting

Semi, Iyo

Supporting

Gennai, Noriko

Supporting

Reviews

Jul 15, 2020

HaremTrash

Recommended

This manga is really good at portraying human relationships in my opinion, and the character development is superb. The protagonist going from a wimp to an absolute chad, but i love how the relationships aren't too unrealistic and the manga really doesn't take it self too seriously. The way the protagonist is girly and looks like a girl really adds a cool dynamic with the girls and the strategies he uses in order to 'steal their hearts' .

All in all a super fun read, would recommend for any romance fans who don't mind the censored sex scenes.

its finger lickin good

Story 9
Art 8
Enjoyment 10

-HaremTrash

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May 18, 2021

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: An incredibly well written and illustrated manga about a series of relationships and the character arcs surrounding them, though one that feels unfinished.

This manga is heavily based on the work of literature Genji no Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) which is a story written in early 11th century Japan that as far as I understand it is quite well renowned. I haven’t read it and I don’t believe that reading it is necessary for reading this manga, but I think a quick scan through the wikipedia page will definitely help. Genji no Monogatari is centered around the chronicle of fourteen relationships that a man ... named Genji had throughout his life. The basic premise of this manga is that an assistant literature professor, Kaoruko, makes her nephew, the protagonist Minamoto, basically speed run it by going through fourteen relationships similar to those experienced by Genji in order to help her research on it. This is also supposed help him get over his fear of women, which he’s had since middle school where he was bullied by girls due to being incredibly feminine looking. I believe this premise reflects the entirety of this manga quite well and you shouldn’t expect any sort of subversion or deconstruction of what seem like pretty typical tropes and archetypes. As should be clear from the premise, the protagonist is somewhat wimpy, and as he’s going through 14 relationships really quickly, though he never cheats, his relationships are never all that deep, long, or dramatic. If you think it’s impossible for you to enjoy such a manga, then this manga probably isn’t for you, because there’s no twist or anything like that that makes the manga grow into anything beyond that.

However, if you think that it’s possible to enjoy such a manga, then you almost certainly will because this is for the most part this manga is incredibly well executed. Minamoto starts off really lame, and to be honest by the end he’s still kind of lame, but he’s significantly less lame than he was in the beginning, and his character growth in becoming so is incredibly clear and well done. He also doesn’t seem to have much agency a lot of the time, basically just going with the flow of the heroine’s stories, but within those bounds despite being pretty lame he’s a surprisingly likable character that managed to surprise me quite often. The heroines are also incredibly well done. There’s a tremendous amount of variety to them, in terms of backgrounds, personalities, and what kinds of plot threads they have centered on them. As there’s a lot of variety to the heroines, there’s a lot of variety to the relationships they have with Minamoto as well, but in general it manages to be really fluffy and cute. Some ultimately get focused on and thus fleshed out more than others, but none of them despite there being so many felt like flat characters. All of them have their own stories Minamoto gets involved with. They have their own goals and dreams that are easy to get invested in and to cheer them on in. Most of them also go through pretty solid character development alongside their relationship development with Minamoto which is also executed well. The focus on the heroines being just as strong as if not stronger than the focus on Minamoto really helps with that. Thus, Minamoto being kind of lame actually manages to work pretty well. Additionally, though each gets their own time in the focus, they all remain present to at least some degree after that, so seeing them pop up again with progress in their own plot threads and character arcs and sometimes even developing connections with the other heroines is also really interesting and spices things up beyond it simply being a series of disconnected stories.

Additionally, it also felt mostly really well written. Despite him going through 14 relationships, the manga never feels all that heavy and it never gets all that melodramatic. This is in part because the writing manages to write around it getting that way quite well. It still gets kind of forced sometimes, but overall felt like it flowed pretty naturally. The other reason for this is the pacing. Chapters in this manga are really short, only about ten pages. This helps with pacing and allows itself to move really quickly when it needs to. But it also results in the plot being incredibly simplistic. Though there are a large number of plot threads, each individual chapter feels very focused on what plot thread it’s focusing on, and thus it’s an incredibly straight forward manga that’s really easy to follow. As a result of all this, the manga manages to keep a pretty lighthearted atmosphere throughout which the good parts of the manga, the fluffy and amusing parts, stand out without getting bogged down by the parts surrounding them. On top of that, the art is fantastic as well, fitting the atmosphere incredibly well, being of really high quality, having a good sense of design, and just in general being really pleasing to look at, especially when it matters most. I would especially like to highlight that the artist is really good with clothes, especially frilly clothes.

The biggest problem with the manga is the ending, which unfortunately is rushed and pretty unfinished. There were certain events that it absolutely needed to do before ending and not doing them would be incredibly disappointing, and thankfully it managed to stuff in all of those. That’s the only positive I can give to the ending though. Though Minamoto does grow significantly over the course of the manga, his arc really doesn’t seem over at all. Really, no one’s arc seems completely over, and the attempt to quickly try to give all the characters some sort of an ending didn’t really work at all either. The point where most character’s arcs were when this was attempted wasn’t far enough along to even attempt to do so, so it obviously didn’t work. And, thus things felt really unfinished. There were some areas in the ending that it probably could have done well but it didn’t manage to do well either since the writing quality overall felt like it took a major drop due to how rushed things were. Thankfully, it’s still not a crippling sort of bad ending that does incredibly stupid things and it makes it feel like the whole manga’s pointless as sometimes turns out to be the case with axed manga. Rather, it’s the type of ending that makes it feel simply unfinished and like the story will simply continue past the ending. And this is a manga that even without managing to land a good ending, has a solid enough journey that I think it’s still pretty enjoyable and satisfying overall.

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Nov 2, 2020

IrrelevantGuy

Mixed Feelings

Note ~ For all the people who are concerned about the manga's length, it isn't actually that long. There are indeed more than 350 chapters, but all of the chapters are fairly short. Most of them can be read within only 5 minutes each. At least I did.

Life isn't all easy for college student Terumi Minamoto. Imagine being a boy so pretty that strangers usually mistake you for a girl. Being that pretty must benefit Terumi a lot, right? That doesn't seem to be the case with him, though, as he is left severely scarred from his traumatic experiences caused by his middle school female ... classmates. Since then, Terumi has developed an apprehension towards women and tried to avoid any kind of interaction with them.

However, all this dramatically changes when Terumi begins to live with his aunt, Kaoruko Fujiwara. He soon finds out that Kaoruko is doing a research on "The Tale of Genji", a Japanese classic about a guy who had sexual intercourse with 14 different women. Much to his surprise and dismay, Terumi learns that Karoruko is going to use him as a guinea pig for her research. Forced by his aunt, Terumi starts approaching 14 different girls in order to win their hearts and mitigate his fear of women.

And that's basically what Minamoto-kun Monogatari is all about. No, I'm not exaggerating.

I'm pretty sure that reading the plot alone is enough to tell you that Minamoto-kun Monogatari isn't something suitable for kids. Almost every chapter of the manga contains at least one sex scene. Well, that's an exaggeration, but it's certainly true that the entire manga consists of lots and lots of sex scenes. However, despite almost being a hentai, I believe Minamoto-kun Monogatari has quite a few things to offer even to the readers who aren't horny on main.

It's a no-brainer to say that the plot of Minamoto-kun Monogatari is ludicrous. However, while the ridiculousness of the plot never changes, the manga does redeem itself a bit by adding short but decently presented backstories to all the female characters. Every female character is distinct from each other. I don't know how faithful the narrative is to its original source ''The Tale of Genji'', but according to the manga, all the female characters are based on the women Genji had relationship with. Every one of them is a representative of different character archetypes, which can be a plus for some readers. This also enables the readers to find at least one character whom they can relate to or find likeable.

Now, the fact that pretty much any girl Terumi meets almost instantly becomes attracted to him is still extremely absurd and unrealistic. However, adding relatable backstories to the characters made them feel more life-like and sympathetic. Their character development throughout the manga is very noteworthy. Given the overly sexual nature of the story, how Terumi helps the girls overcome their struggles is weirdly heartwarming; in a way, it's kinda inspirational as well.

The most prominent character of Minamoto-kun Monogatari is, without a doubt, Terumi's aunt Kaoruko Fujiwara. The "trashiest" parts of the manga usually revolve around her, and I would say those are also the most interesting parts. One may find the incestuous relationship of Terumi and Kaoruko existent throughout the entire manga repulsive and bothersome (understably so), but the fact that Kaoruko plays a really pivotal role in the story is simply undeniable.

Later on in the manga, Terumi's traumatic experiences from middle school are displayed which make his gynophobia a lot more justified. However, it's really difficult to label Terumi as a great protagonist. There isn't anything appealing about his character to begin with (besides his face, I guess), and he doesn't receive much development either. Fortunately, Terumi does get rid of his fear of women and goes through slight change in the end, but most of his actions remain very questionable for most of the manga.

Another flawed aspect regarding the characters is that some of them remain severely underdeveloped even after more than 300 chapters. Although developing all the characters equally when there are already more than a dozen of them is difficult, it's an inescapable issue in this case. Characters like Chisato, Noriko, Iyo, etc. are considerably less prioritized, and their stories are poorly resolved. This issue becomes especially apparent in the later stages of the story.

However, the worst part of Minamoto-kun Monogatari, in my opinion, is the one of the final arcs of the story. That specific arc focuses on Terumi tutoring a middle school girl and helping her tackle her communication issues. That in of itself sounds very wholesome, doesn't it? However, any sort of good intention is almost completely ruined by the fact that, at times, there are implications of a non-platonic relationship between Terumi and that certain girl, which is utterly repulsive. Fortunately, their relationship ultimately doesn't cross the line, but that still doesn't make the romance indications okay.

Lastly, the ending of Minamoto-kun Monogatari is incredibly rushed. The manga just kind of ends. Terumi's relationship with some of the characters aren't properly established after 350+ chapters, for which a lot of readers, including me, were very dissatisfied with how the manga ended. Even how Terumi and Kaoruko's relationship came to its conclusion is presented very poorly, and when they are the main focus of the story, that's more than just concerning.

Regarding the art, it isn't anything spectacular, but it is fairly decent. All the characters are drawn pretty nicely. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the manga contains a lot of sex scenes. And I mean A LOT. Obviously, the sex scenes aren't shown entirely. If they were, this manga would've become a hentai, you know? And it's already really close to being one.

Minamoto-kun Monogatari is not a bad read, but it's certainly not something I would recommend to an average reader. And even if you don't mind the ridiculous plot and the excessive amount of sex scenes, I can't assure you that you will have an amazing time reading it. But hey, if you are as trashy as me, give Minamoto-kun Monogatari a try. As I said before, it does have some genuinely praiseworthy things to offer. However, do keep in mind that, in the end, this is just a manga about a feminine guy trying to get into the pants of a dozen girls. So don't expect anything too great.

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