Manga Match 68 Hana no Kishi

You know, I thought this manga was going to be different from what it actually was. I don't know why though. The synopsis was pretty accurate and everything. But for some reason I thought it was going to be different.

{Spoilers, but it's kind of just about honor and battling}

This was definitely an...interesting read. There's this girl named Kurono Ran who's disguised as a male knight in order to fulfill her deceased brother's lifelong wish to be Ohtori Sei's, this super pretty high-tier ojou-sama, knight. Because in this world rich people have knights I guess? I don't really know. Everything revolved around this school and the idea that only one person could be Ohtori's first knight and everyone would challenge Kurono for that honor. There was no real world-building outside of this premise.

And of course there's a love interest. It's this also rich dude named Ibara. His trope is the super-rich, but #relatable guy because he acts super humble. He just reads manga and eats cup noodle all day, but he's a pretty cool guy with morals. He even wants to be normal, but his brain and his fighting skills are too powerful so his family wants him to usurp his older brother. So from this short summary, you can see there's a lot of family politics packed into these 29 chapters.

Basically there's a lot of knights fighting Kurono for the honor of being Ohtori's knight. There's a lot of Kurono denying her feelings for Ibara which arguably all stem from the fact that he's the only one that treats her like a girl. There's sudden drama as there always is when there's revealed to be head trauma on Kurono's part which made her forget her brother's betrayal and how he didn't actually die. And there was a whole coup orchestrated by her brother ALL SO OHTORI DIDN'T HAVE TO END UP AS THE NEXT LEADER OF THE OHTORI GROUP because the guy didn't want her to take on the hardship. I mean that's sweet and all, but I think Ohtori really had it. She was sweet, confident, supported, and intelligent. Way better than that puppet he wanted to put as the next head of the group pppft. Not a lot of this added up, but it was alright.

Would I say this was the best thing ever? No, probably not. Would I say that it was alright and there were some doki-doki moment? Well, yeah sure I'll grant it that. Did everything add up for me? No, not really. Do I recommend it? I mean, it's a nice thought but not really sure about the execution part. Maybe you'll like it if you've got a hankering for a short gender bender?