Well. It’s been far too long since I did any of these, so I figure I might as well strike while the iron’s hot, as it were. It’ll be a simple one — no deep discussion on the quality of literature involved [Footnote 1] — but just a little mini-review of something I read recently. Very recently. As in, ‘last night the insomnia demons won so I spent my time catching up on 36 chapters of a manga instead of withering in my thoughts’ recently. And thus, without further ado — Hima-Ten! [Footnote 2].
Now why Hima-Ten! of all the manga at my disposal? You know, I’m not entirely sure. This is one of those cases where it just caught my eye while scrolling or something so I figured I’d give it a shot. And give it a shot I did. Two in fact, because the first chapter almost drove me away. But I’m getting ahead of myself. What’s this manga about? Well, it’s a high-school (light) harem rom-com in which the protagonist, a dude who does house-keeping as a part time job, ends up hired to clean the apartment of his classmate who just so happens to be a model and president of a makeup company; hijinks ensue. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, very orthodox.
Which leads naturally into the principal question: is it good? I’d direct you to my previous statement: very orthodox. It’s not bad, but it’s not really anything groundbreaking. Very much something you’ll have seen before if you’ve read the genre. Heck, when I was thinking back on it to decide whether or not I wanted to write this up, it occurred to me that it kind of feels a little bit like a very surface level copy of Toradora: protagonist has a very home-minded skillset, develops a unique friendship while looking after a classmate who can’t live by herself for crap, said classmate decides to be his Cyrano in regards to his crush until inevitably she develops feelings for him, said crush liked him from the beginning anyway just to complicate things, suddenly a third option model just to throw a spanner in the works. That’s a fairly ungenerous simplification on both sides, but it gets the point across. It’s generic. But again, not bad. It does the standard template well enough, even if it doesn’t do it so well as to become a new standard for that template.
So what’re it’s strengths? Well, the characters are generally fairly likeable. The dynamic between Himari (female lead) and Tenichi (protagonist) is rather comfortable once they settle into it and it is refreshing to see her catch on rather quickly to his crush and decide to help him with it, even if she doesn’t really tell either party she intends to help. Tenichi does somewhat fall into the trap of male protagonists in that he is somewhat bland, but he does have clear goals that he’s actively pursuing and is genuinely trying to pursue his romance, which can be something of a rarity in the genre. Himari is an interesting character because she’s just different enough from what you’d expect her to be that I find it a bit refreshing. To wit: she seems like she should be a tsundere, but she’s just kind of… not? Like, there’s a certain degree of chill to her attitude, but that comes across more as a professional attitude developed from her job than anything really personal. And beyond that, she feels like a fairly fleshed out character with reasonable strengths and weaknesses. Honoka (the other female lead / Tenichi’s crush)… exists. I’ll admit that I’m very biased against the type of character she’s meant to be — I’ll call it the ‘Onodera’ — but a majority of her personality is that she’s Tenichi’s crush who secretly likes him back. Otherwise she’s just kind of generically nice and without much drive or motivation. Then there’s Kanna. Oh, Kanna. I wish you weren’t so obviously doomed. Kanna is a younger model — Himari’s mentee — that joins the cast a bit late and she’s probably my favorite of the bunch. Not necessarily because she’s a particularly interesting character, but I just like her generally cheery attitude, drive to better herself and succeed, and the fact that she is very forward about the fact that she likes Tenichi. And yet.
That leads me into what I think the manga’s principal weakness is: it’s very orthodox. To the point that I feel like I already know how it’s going to end just 36 chapters in. To the point of Kanna, it feels like she’s a character that exists for the sole purpose of confessing her love to Tenichi first only for that confession to galvanize him in his love for one of the other girls. In that same way, on the one hand, Tenichi’s relationship with Honoka is progressing so naturally and smoothly that it kind of feels like the only way for them to not end up together would be forced drama or some misunderstanding, but on the other hand, Himari’s growing feelings for Tenichi are one of the principal focuses of the work and her name is in the title. It kind of feels like by hook or by crook, she’ll end up with him because that’s just what has to happen. It is early, so who knows, but at the moment, that’s my general impression as someone who’s probably read too many harem rom-com manga.
Otherwise, my only other complaint is that I really do think that this is one you need to give at least 2 chapters. The first chapter almost drove me away more than once because it felt like Himari’s attitude wasn’t quite settled yet. By which I mean it felt like, in that first chapter, she was written as a tsundere by someone who really didn’t care all that much about what makes a tsundere work. To the tune of, she tended to just be blatantly rude and outright insulting to Tenichi — someone she’d literally just met — just for existing. And not even because it was to try and hide some deeper feelings; just because she felt like insulting him, pretty much. But thankfully, that smooths out rather quickly.
One final note I’ll give, which really should’ve gone up with the strengths: the artwork. It’s not really anything special, but it’s pretty good. It falls mostly under the umbrella of a lot of modern manga being the same kind of generically good quality — I don’t find that there’s much to make it stick out from among the crowd, though I’ll also admit that I’m not really the person to talk to about the physical parts of a work. I do tend to place less stock in the visuals than others might. My favorite part is probably some of the exaggerated expressions in which the characters are placed in their simplified, deformed designs for emphasis. If you’ve read a manga or seen an anime, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. There’s some nice one’s on display. But what stood out to me more were actually the effects. Now I will point out that there’s a very high chance this is rather normal and I just never noticed before, because I don’t usually linger on the effects that long, but a lot of them in this one are rendered such that they’re prefaced with the relevant character’s name. Like ‘Hima-attack’ or ‘Hono-blush’. And I just found that rather charming and something that did give something I usually overlook a bit more personality.
So final thoughts: should you read it? Eh. Don’t let me tell you want to do. I enjoyed my time with it and intend to keep up, but I don’t think it’s critical reading. If you’re in the mood for a rom-com manga, this can probably scratch that itch, but it won’t do anything to change your mind if that’s not a genre you particularly like. Even if you’re just in the mood for a bit of fluff to pass the time, you can do much worse than this. While a very arbitrary metric that I haven’t given much thought to, I’d probably give it a solid 7/10. I’ll attach a link to the publisher site below [Footnote 3].
Footnote 1: ‘Not that you ever did that’ — the Twisted Jerk
Footnote 1A: Oi! Quiet you!
Footnote 2: The exclamation mark is part of the title; I’m not that excited about it.
Footnote 3: Link
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