The first volume of “My Love Story!!” was quite delightful and I don’t know what direction Kazune Kawahara and Aruko will take the series but after reading this first volume alone, I’m absolutely hooked! I can’t wait to read the second volume of “My Love Story!!”.
Image courtesy of © 2011 by Kazune Kawahara, Aruko. All Rights Reserved.
MANGA TITLE: My Love Story Vol. 1
STORY AND ART BY: Story by Kazune Kawahara, Art by Aruko
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: SHUEISHA INC.
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Viz Media
RATED: T for Teen
Available on July 1, 2014
Takeo Goda is a giant guy with a giant heart. Too bad the girls don’t want him! (They want his good-looking best friend, Sunakawa.) Used to being on the sidelines, Takeo simply stands tall and accepts his fate. But one day when he saves a girl named Yamato from a harasser on the train, his (love!) life suddenly takes an incredible turn!
Takeo Goda is a GIANT guy with a GIANT heart.
Too bad the girls don’t want him! (They want his good-looking best friend, Sunakawa.)
Used to being on the sidelines, Takeo simply stands tall and accepts his fate. But one day when he saves a girl named Yamato from a harasser on the train, his (love!) life suddenly takes an incredible turn!
Takeo can hardly believe it when he crosses paths with Yamato again, and he finds himself falling in love with her… But with handsome Sunakawa around, does Takeo even stand a chance?
In 2011, mangaka Kazune Kawahara and illustrator Aruko began their manga series “Ore Monogatarii!”.
A Japanese romantic comedy manga series, the manga was serialized in Shueisha’s “Bessatsu Margaret” magazine and is published in the U.S. courtesy of Viz Media.
The manga series was made into an anime series courtesy of Madhouse in 2015 and a live action film adaptation was released later that year.
“My Love Story!!” revolves around a tall, athletic student named Takeo Goda.
While he excels in sports and well respected for it, he’s never been a ladies man. In fact, his childhood friend, Makoto Sunakawa, is the guy who all the girls in school have fallen for. But to Takeo’s surprise, he has turned them down.
One day, while Takeo and Makoto are riding on the subway, they see a guy trying to group a girl.
Takeo comes to the girl’s rescue, her name…Rinko Yamato.
And as Rinko is grateful for what Takeo has done and makes pastries (which he loves), Takeo automatically assumes that she has fallen for Makoto and so, he wants to make both of them happy by getting them together.
But what Takeo doesn’t know is that Rinko likes him and not Makoto.
How will Takeo deal with the fact that a cute girl actually likes him?
Meanwhile, Makoto’s older sister Ai, who has always liked Takeo, finds out that another girl likes him. And now, she is jealous.
How will everything work out for Takeo?
Possibly one of the more delightful romantic comedies that I have read, typically we have seen manga series that deal with the “ugly duckling”, who are particularly a female character that gets the attention of the very handsome guy.
Kazume Kawahara and Aruko’s “My Love Story!!” is much different in the fact that the main character Takeo is athletic, very nice and well-mannered, he just doesn’t have the looks, especially compared to his childhood friend Makoto.
Granted, love is in the eye of the beholder and to some, Takeo might be handsome (as Kazune Kawahara writes in her notes throughout the manga series of her love for Takeo’s looks), but he is often seen in many hilarious expressions throughout the book and it doesn’t help that unlike other male characters, his lips are fairly huge.
But you have to enjoy the storyline band root for the underdog because Takeo is a very cool guy!
After saving a beautiful girl from a groper, what happens when he mistakes her affection for being towards Makoto and tries to set them up together, when in reality, she likes him.
It’s an interesting story because unlike other manga series, we have the inexperienced and naive Takeo and in the opposite situation of other manga series protagonists and we can only enjoy and laugh with his inexperience. For example, he wants to know how to kiss a girl, so he asks for Makoto to kiss him and teach him.
The first volume of “My Love Story!!” was quite delightful and I don’t know what direction Kazune Kawahara and Aruko will take the series but after reading this first volume alone, I’m absolutely hooked!
I can’t wait to read the second volume of “My Love Story!!”.