 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | VIZ MEDIA | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | AKIRA TORIYAMA | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W / COLOR | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 550 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | T+ | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 03/17/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 06/10/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | RACHEL BENTHAM |
Just when you thought things couldn’t get more twisted, they do! No matter how much Hatsumi should hate Azusa (he tried to have her gang raped), she can’t (she really ought to). She’s too soft-hearted. She keeps recalling the boy she treasured during her childhood and the ideal of Azusa that she fell in love with. On the other side is Ryo, the socially twisted guy who doesn’t know how to behave with an actual girlfriend. He’s used to owning people, not caring for them. But he did save Hatsumi when she needed a hero the most. But she’s scared senseless of the boy who used to terrorize her as a kid. If that’s true though, then why does her heart start thumping and throbbing every time he gets close to her? Wow, it’s hard to get more messed up than this lot. Hatsumi is torn between two guys she should stay twenty yards from. The latest volumes stir up sympathy for Azusa, showing what his childhood away from the complex was like. But if that’s so sad and he treasured those letters from Hatsumi so much, why is he Hell bent on being so hateful towards her? Even he doesn’t understand it. He can get revenge on her father without involving her but he keeps targeting her even when he thinks he shouldn’t. Holy dysfunction! With Ryo it’s another story. He’s realizing, in a very hilarious way depicted in the manga, that he has feelings for Hatsumi. Now he has to figure out how to deal with it and win her over. Not so simple a goal for this guy as he’s stacked the deck against him. When his mother forces all the tenants to shun Hatsumi’s family, it is his intervention that saves Hatsumi yet again along with her dear mother and brothers and sister. He tells her straight up why he did it but she insists she doesn’t feel the same. She’s willing to be his slave but not his girlfriend. Just how messed up is that? It gets confusing for her when she thinks maybe, just maybe, she might have feelings starting to grow towards him. They end up dating and call it ‘training’ but this could blow up in their faces. Why? You may well ask. One reason is Azusa who keeps stirring the pot. The other is Hatsumi’s oldest brother Shinogu. His secret gets out and it is a two-part doozy. The first is that he’s adopted, meaning he’s not blood related to Hatsumi. The other, the part she still doesn’t realize, is that he’s in love with her! It gets so bad for him that he finally moves out, leaving her bereft and confused while others such as Azusa and Ryo have a big clue about what is really going down. Hatsumi lives in denial, refusing to see the obvious. The drama doesn’t stop there. In this arc, her sister Akane convinces herself to help her Hatsumi get hooked up with Ryo, completely oblivious to what is really going on. She enlists Subaru to help, but Akane can’t help how she feels towards the short Gundam otaku. He’s everything she would never go for, but she likes him, she just can’t help herself. Between her resentment at feeling that way towards him and his naïveté with girls, the two go through a few bumpy misunderstandings until at last Akane finds just the right way to let him know how she feels. It involves a toy, a true gesture of affection, and a beautifully drawn scene. Speaking of lovebirds, New Year ’s Eve approaches and Ryo has made a bargain with Hatsumi: if she does well on her exams due to his help, then she has to spend New Year’s Eve – the whole eve – with him! It looks like it could be ‘the night’ for this couple, but it just so happens that they are staying at the hotel that Shinogu is working at… This teenage soap opera is like nothing I have read before. It hooks you immediately and never lets up. Each chapter has a new facet of the complicated characters being revealed, every turn in the story is around a precarious corner of emotional mines that we watch the characters go through. It is mesmerizing, like watching a train wreck hoping for survivors. And the art work is amazing. It is so polished, so emotive, it is some of the most attractive illustrations I have had the pleasure of seeing in shojo. The VIZBIG edition holds volumes 4 to 6. Plus there are author notes, a title page gallery and nearly 20 pages of color throughout the giant sized manga adventure!
IN SUMMARY:
One girl torn between two guys that are bad news! Be one with the drama in Hot Gimmick! |
