Hot Gimmick

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

It's a little bit ridiculous to see how much influence one ornery woman can have on an entire apartment complex, but nevertheless, drama permeates every part of this manga. Anything gossip that is remotely scandalous is spread like wildfire and affects everyone's behavior; past relationships are brought out into the open and current ones crumble in a few chapters. Romance is fragile, complicated, and at times stupid and incomprehensible. Ah, but that's life, isn't it?

What made Hot Gimmick the most appealing to me was its interpretation of love. The characters attend high school and are not quite inexperienced but also have not experienced real relationships. ... Upon encountering these new situations and people, they discover the truth about love, that all those songs with sappy lyrics really do express romantic feelings at some point or another. "What is this feeling?" "Why is that that I want this person more than anyone else?" "This is so stupid, so idiotic, so asinine, yet my heart wants this."

It was better in the first half of the manga, though. After a while it was annoying to see the same characters still struggling with their feelings, messing up, and hurting everyone around them in their efforts to come to terms with their own thoughts. But I suppose that just points out how love can be a bad thing when it gets out of hand.

However, coming back the plot, the drama within the apartment complex due to previous relations and just plain nosy neighbors was absolutely immature and made me roll my eyes a lot while I read. It sounds like such a middle school thing to do and it's ridiculous for grown adults to take part in shunning a particular family for a rumor they have not confirmed, though even if it were true, it wouldn't be nice to ostracize a family like that.

I do commend the mangaka for creating distinct characters, but character development seemed very slight for a few of them, especially for the main character Hatsumi. For the majority of the manga she was a crybaby who repeatedly denied herself her greatest desire because it was so different from what she wanted before. While it is a good thing that she is generally nice to others, that can easily be taken advantage of, as it is a lot of times in the manga, which I consider one of her greatest faults.

The men in her life are Ryoki (a bully from her childhood who happens to be the landlady's son and is fearsome, commanding, and cold), Azusa (a childhood hero who moved away but came back later as a handsome model), and Shinogu (Hatsumi's extremely kind brother). They're quite an interesting bunch to hang around, let me tell you.

As far as the artwork went, I thought the men were attractive, but the females, not so much. It wasn't because of the crying, but rather the women's appearances I found not to be as attractive as the male's. Their eyes were so big that they made the girls look childlike, and they just weren't as comely as the men.

The manga didn't exactly end with a bang and I was more satisfied with the first half than the second half, I still thought Hot Gimmick was a pleasant read for that romance. There is a little bit of smut in there, but there isn't a whole ton and is actually kind of unnecessary. It may not be appropriate for people of certain ages, though.

THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. I will try to be as oblique as possible, but if you correctly guess who or what I am talking about, that's your own damn fault.

Hot Gimmick is all right. It's not a particularly good manga by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not an offensively horrible one either. The art isn't bad, it's actually pretty good, albeit uninspired. The story is rather standard Soap Opera fare, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. It is ostensibly about Hatsumi, our intrepid heroine, but throughout the series we see her will subverted by the male lead(s). However, ... my issue isn't that she isn't a strong or willful character, because I can still say, "Well, at least she isn't flat." And she really isn't. There is some small amount of depth to this character. She has internal conflicts and drama. It's everyone else I don't like.

All of the men in this make me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Like, reading this, I can't help but feel like the mangaka was sexually assaulted at a relatively young age, or perhaps knows someone who was. All of the guys in this are either so transparently evil you can practically see them twirling their moustaches, totally ineffectual, willfully ignorant of what Hatsumi really wants in favor of whatever the hell it is THEY want, obsessed with sex, on the autism spectrum, or some combination of these things.

For instance, let's take Ryoki, Hatsumi's "slave master." Aihara-sensei spends the entire series trying to convince us that he does have feelings for her. But I just don't buy it one bit. All he cares about his own gratification, he spends so much time actively trying to make her suffer. And when he isn't doing so intentionally, it's because he really doesn't understand anything about how Hatsumi thinks and feels, or any other human being for that matter. But what makes me even more frustrated with his character is that despite the fact that he's so easy to read, Hatsumi can't understand anything about him or his worldview either! Is assholishness really so foreign a concept that the average Japanese high school girl can't wrap her head around it?

Then there's Azusa. He's an okay character, I guess. You might actually enjoy reading about him. Y'know, if you're stupid. I don't want to give anything specific away--even though I'm very clearly recommending you not read this manga--but there's a part very early on in the series where he does something pretty awful, and the entire rest of the series we're led to believe he's an okay guy. No, he's not. He's a jerkass, and this "ends justify the means" bullshit isn't gonna fly here. "Oh, he had a really tortured past, he can't help but be bad." You know who else had a really tortured past? Adolf Hitler. There, I said it. Godwin's law can go to hell.

So, is Hot Gimmick good? No. Is it bad? ...No? I wanna say it's a horrible train wreck nobody should ever read, but the plotline, standard and predictable as it is, was fairly entertaining throughout most of it. There were some plot elements that seemed like they were shoehorned in ("WOW WHAT A TWIST! I CERTAINLY DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING" "Of course not, because it wasn't set up in any way shape or form and really just came out of nowhere"). So, while I can't say that I hated it, I also can't say that I'd recommend this to anyone. Maybe if you're thirteen years old. I mean, that's how old I was when I originally read it, and I really seemed to enjoy it back then. But as is true of a lot of things I liked back then, it cannot withstand the harsh light of day being shined upon it.

Don't read this. It's not worth it, even as a "it's so bad it's good" type of read, and, if you're the sort of person who was interested in the premise due to it sounding like it'd appeal to bdsm tastes: it doesn't get that far, so this manga isn't even that good for that.
If anything, this manga is a cautionary tale of what happens if you have no spine and let people push you around. A story like that by itself isn't bad and in fact can be interesting, however it's extremely tone deaf and almost insultingly predictable, it's a very typical "jerk ... guy and doormat girl," taken to its worst levels. It reads like a bad y/n wattpad story. If that's your thing, then you'll like this story, otherwise, steer clear.
I will concede and say that the art is appealing, the character designs fit each character well.