Manga Match 81 Mademoiselle Butterfly

On the MangaRock app, they have these categories about like historical shoujo or about geisha in the red light district or something along those lines. For some reason I'm really attracted to them lately. Not in like a perverse way or anything weird like that, but just the stories they tell and the vibe of them is really interesting to me. I'm sure I'll get over this weird stage soon enough, but they're just really different. You should really try to read one, they're pretty good.

{Spoilers and there's an actual plot this time}

This takes place in the Showa era where it was still common for girls of poor families to be sold off as geishas. Our main character, Butterfly, yes her name is Butterfly, is a young girl who befriends the neighboring tattoo artist Chinatsu. All this time, Butterfly has constantly bothered this guy while he's working and just whenever because he's literally right next door. You can already see where this is going. And you can already tell I like it because it's my favorite childhood friend trope. Anyways, as Butterfly grows up, she begins to realize that her feelings for Chinatsu go beyond just friends. This climaxes when Butterfly gets sold to some random visiting European dude and she solidifies her feelings for Chinatsu. Eventually she gets returned because Chinatsu bought her back or something, I don't really know how this all happened. This transaction and seeing Butterfly's love for him, confirmed Chinatsu's feelings as well that Butterfly was no longer an innocent child. You start to see this transition within him because before, when she was a child, Butterfly would always ask for a tattoo but Chinatsu would only paint with ink on top of her skin. However, when he realizes his feelings for her, he then accepts that she wants to be tattooed and then gives her a beautiful butterfly tattoo. And honestly it's pretty wholesome because he treasures her so much, even though this frustrates her that he treats her as a child under his care rather than as a love interest. But this just makes it cuter somehow? I dunno, it's hard to explain which is why you should just read it for yourself and see!

The main point of this manga, or the climax I guess, was when Chinatsu was drafted to fight in the war. At the time, Butterfly became pregnant and they had to separate for a while, with Butterfly safe in her father-in-law's house. And at one point they believed Chinatsu to be dead. But don't worry! There's a happy ending to the story. Chinatsu comes back from the war, physically unscathed and the family is reunited!

I would definitely recommend the manga. It's pretty wholesome and sweet, with Butterfly not being incredibly annoying, and all of the characters being really sincere and consistent with their character motivations and actions and everything like that. For a 10 chapter work it's incredibly well-done and somehow really endearing.

Manga Match 58 Taishou Otome Otogibanashi

So I went through a short historical manga stint. I'm not too sure if this is the genre for me. It's not that they're not enjoyable, maybe I just haven't found the right one? Also throughout this story I was trying to figure out if this story was really meant for girls or guys. Because honestly some of it is pretty shoujo, but when you look at the genres it's listed under it says shounen so maybe that's why I couldn't relate too much and there was too much oppai. That's just me though.

{Spoilers because there's actually a plot}

Fun fact, while I was studying for my exam I actually read this during my breaks and it was so addicting I had a hard time studying honestly. Some advice I would give to any students out there is to not start reading a new manga, especially ones with lots of chapters/is completed, if you're in the middle of a critical testing period. It's really not worth it.

So this manga focuses around this affluent household in the [insert the era here sorry I forgot] era, the Shima household. They're super rich, but the father was twisted from a young age to believe that the only thing that would bring happiness is power and money. And so he raised his kids in such a way that there was no love in the household and everything he did for them was ultimately for his own gain. So as you can imagine it was a pretty twisted household. One of the boys Tamahiko was in an accident where he lost functionality in his dominant right hand. He was sent to a rural area in Chiba to live the rest of his days out as the dead son of the Shima household. And there Tamahiko was, with no friends or anyone to love him. His dad bought him a wife to take care of him and, to all the lolicons out there's delight, here enters Yuzuki. She's this tiny 14 year old girl that sold herself to pay off her family's debt. Even though she's in this dire situation, she's still a tiny beam of sunshine in Tamahiko's life, or as he likes to refer to her "the spring storm." And so with her taking care of him and his sister Tamako who comes to visit with such kindness, the cold hearts of the Shima siblings begins to thaw and they live a very nice life.

There are some ups and downs with Tamahiko being reinstated as the heir to the Shima household, but he skrts out of there real quick and ends up marrying into Yuzuki's household because true love you know? And then they live happily ever after.

Okay, it's a little bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea. It's a fuwa fuwa time overall. Though I would say that there are a lot of random arcs and twists and turns that I didn't expect, I think it was a nice read overall. If you can get past all of the unneeded oppai scenes and all of the borderline ecchi that is :') I think that you'll find a very cute story of a boy that regains his will to live and begins to value himself again and the power of the spring storm.

Manga Match 44 Migawari Hakushaku no Bouken

23 Sept 2018

Well, I've officially moved into my dorm for the year and the good part is that I'm not really homesick to the point of tears this time. The bad part is that there is no kitchen in this building. I took all of the luxuries from last year for granted and now I miss it :((((

{Spoilers}

Well this is another gender swap kind of manga that's set in this fantastical ~medieval(?)~ era (LOL it's hard to describe because I know little to nothing about what kind of era it's supposed to be set in). There's this girl Mireille who has to stand in as her twin brother inside the royal court and while she's there she encounters many interesting people. She takes part in many of the mysteries that unfold such as the secret plot to kill one of the princesses of a nearby kingdom and all of the plot twists that came along with it.

I was reminded a bit of Clannad with the fact that Mireille and her family own a bakery and yet she's such a terrible breadmaker similar to Nagisa's mom.

It's kind of hard to summarize something that had such a complex plot for only being 32 chapters, so if this summary ish thing doesn't make any sense please just don't mind it. In fact it was so complex that I don't even think I got some of the more nuanced mystery points. It's definitely a manga that you could reread and probably gain more insight on into everyone's hidden motives and such, especially the king's.

{Ahah I just woke up, maybe I should've picked a better time to write this}

Overall though it was a pretty interesting read. There was just enough mystery, and the normal amount of romantic misunderstandings for it to be shoujo, and a bit of comedy as well which made it enjoyable to read. If you're looking for something a bit more dimensional than your straight up shoujo, you should consider reading this one.

I just had to add this one because Fred is actually gold. It's hard to read him since he is always scheming and plotting things from multiple angles, so it's hard to tell if he was really scared of having to do a test of courage in the haunted house or if that was just an excuse for him to go on vacation or investigate other threats to the royal family.

When Richard is not only the main interest, but also the castle's hero.