Jan 2, 2011
"As long as there is someone for me to want to protect...I can be stronger!"
Asahi Kouga has been training since she was small to fight crime. Raised in Nekomata, a bar and secret crime fighting house. She is the best of her age, and was top of her class. Asahi was picked to be the bodyguard of the young heir and noble prize winner Sakuya Kisaragi. Sukaya doesn't want or "need" a bodyguard and Asahi doesn't want to work for someone as arrogant as him. Everyone else seems to differ and they are stuck together in master and servant relationship.
The Characters:
Asahi is
...
to put it simply, fun. She is actually pretty perfect, which is usually the role of the male lead in manga. Not to say that Sukaya isn't perfect...Asahi is a strong lead girl. She isn't impulsive, she is attentive, but then again she wouldn't be a good bodyguard if she weren't. She doesn't blurt out nonsense to the guy she likes like the girls in other manga, also she didn't up and confess her love for him in two pages, which wins her a little gold star from me.
Sukaya, who is suppose to be portrayed as the arrogant one, he doesn't come off as extremely arrogant. he has a good amount of arrogance and proudness for his work while also being sincere. And not to mention a sense of humor, though dark sometimes. I really loved his character, sometimes more than Asahi. Maybe because I usually tend to shift towards the characters that seem lonely and misunderstood.
There are more characters that add to the story and they all do it with their personal style. The mangaka had more than one chance to turn this into a love triangle (rectangle?) but she didn't and for that I thank her, that would have made me think less of the manga. Sakuya's childhood best friend, Riku, was one of my favorite supporting characters along with Akatsuki, who is Asahi's childhood friend that also has a guardian angel role towards Asahi.
The Art is very simple yet I was impressed. Asahi "transformations" really did transform her but still left her into someone else while still looking like herself where it mattered. The one that impressed me was Sukaya. He doesn't have anything that is ostentatious about him, not suppose to be anyway. He isn't overly tall or is strong built, he's just a simple guy, but his character was beautiful and looked graceful while still maintaining his boyness, which is not usually a word I use to describe a guy in a manga. Along with Akatsuki, who without saying a word in the manga the way he is drawn shows respect and you can tell he could kick some major ass and the glasses just give him a smart look.
The story is very entertaining to say the least. Maybe its because I've been reading too many school dramas lately, but this change of...scenery was a breath of fresh air. Not so fresh because it's still a romance, so my air is still a little polluted. ALL the characters were interesting in their own way. Some had secrets some and the important ones had good personalities.
The plot also touches on hard subjects that most one-shots just skim through. My favorite was family and how it's not the person that helps bring you into this world but the one that takes care of you while you're in it that deserves be called family to begin with.
There is a line from the manga that explains a lot of what it is about. It was said by a very interesting character, "Even though you can always take things by force. But if it involves human feelings, it won't turn out the way you want to." And that is true to the core, money can buy you lots of things but human feelings aren't for sale or for given easily, it's funny that way.
Humor, revenge, romance, action, and a little bit of a tear jerker. Thank you Emura!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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