Manga4Kids: Manga Reviews for Parents and Kids

Plot Summary:

Yukino Miyazawa lives for praise and admiration. She wants to be the best at everything—looks, athletics, academics—so she studies hard, practices for sports in secret, and makes a special effort to look good. At home, though, she hangs around in glasses and sweats and is rude to her family, including her two younger sisters (who give it right back to her).

Yukino has competition, however, in the person of Soichiro Arima, who is not only handsome and popular but also does just a bit better at everything. The other students flock around him, admiring his prowess at academics and sports. Yukino, jealous, decides to take him down. She studies hard and gets the highest score on the midterm exams, but to her chagrin, instead of getting mad, Arima congratulates her graciously. This makes Yukino feel even worse, and she decides she is a fraud and a hypocrite. Nonetheless, she and Arima begin to become friendly, and Yukino begins to suspect he likes her. At first she is delighted—"In the game of love, the adored one has all the power! Ha ha ha," she gloats. But she quickly realizes she kinda likes him too.

Their relationship changes radically when Arima drops by unexpectedly and Yukino, clad in big glasses and baggy sweats, greets him with a kick to the windpipe (she was expecting her sister). Her secret is out: She's not perfect. She stews about this for a few days, and then Arima tells her she has to do his homework for him, or he will tell everyone what she's really like. Yukino goes along with this for a while, but finally can't take it any more. She confronts Arima and tells him the deal is off, then runs away. He catches her and explains that he would never really tell anyone about her; the "blackmail" was just a way to get to know her better.

For a few weeks, all is bliss; Yukino and Arima even meet each others' parents. Then Arima grows suddenly cold, and Yukino can't figure out why. Finally, he explains that his birth parents were criminals who abused him. His adoptive family treats him with love, but when he was adopted, his relatives told him that he would probably turn out bad, like his parents. So Arima lives with the fear that he is really a bad person, and he compensates by trying to be the best at everything. Yukino tells him she likes him best when he lets his guard down, and the pair agree to drop all their pretenses and just be themselves from then on.

There is another, brief story at the end of the book, about a shy girl, Koharu Mizumoto, who thinks she is ugly and her classmate Toshiro Sakajo, a cool, aloof type that hangs around with hoodlums. Sakajo accidentally breaks Mizumoto's glasses and volunteers to be her "eyes" for a week, while she waits for a new pair. What happens is predictable, but nicely handled: The supposedly tough guy is a knight in shining armor, and the ugly duckling turns out to be a graceful swan.