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Love Com Vols. 4 & 5 – Manga Review

Continuing my library binge of manga, here’s my review of Lovely Complex volumes 4 and 5. The bad news: Otani can’t come up with a new name besides “Jumbo-gal” to call Risa, and Risa can’t come up with something other than “Shrimp” to call Otani.

Continuing my library binge of manga, here’s my review of Lovely Complex volumes 4 and 5. The bad news: Otani can’t come up with a new name besides “Jumbo-gal” to call Risa, and Risa can’t come up with something other than “Shrimp” to call Otani.

In volume 4, Risa has finally decided to pursue Otani. Unfortunately for her, Otani is the densest guy in history. Slowly but surely, Otani gets clues about the guy that Risa likes. He’s shorter than her, plays in the basketball team, and is an idiot. When that’s not enough, Risa even says it’s him, but he just takes it as a joke. Finally, after saying it to his face a number of times, Otani finally figures out that Risa indeed likes him.

Otani tells Risa that he needs time to figure things out. And eventually he just tells her that he can’t think of her as girlfriend material immediately after being a comedy duo. D’oh! At least he’s being sincere. This pretty much destroys Risa and we get [Bad End] shown to us. Or at least, that’s the way it should be. To be continued…

Volume 5 is a bit emo for my tastes. It’s mainly Risa and Otani fighting (like before) except there’s the uncomfortable aura of Risa’s confession behind their fighting. But then there’s also some awesomeness when they get to hang out with Umibozu, who turns out to be a really nice guy.

Risa takes the approach of wearing Otani down until he eventually succumbs to her female charms. While this is probably a bad idea in real life, Risa actually gets somewhere with her constant attacks. It seems like volume 5 is also a bit repetitive though, since all we’re seeing is Risa chip away at Otani’s defenses.

Overall, the manga is still heading somewhere, albeit pretty slowly. I can accept this since Risa’s crying face is way too moe. But I can’t understand how Otani can keep making her cry like that! I’ll never forgive him! I’m kind of dreading the whole Mighty Sensei arc since that was the most annoying to me. And after that is the arc I totally stopped watching the anime at since Risa and Otani seemed to have finally gotten together and they just introduced some new rival to drag the series along. Oh, but I guess I should write about that once I’ve read it…

Also, Happy Birthday to Risa! Today is August 3rd, which is Koizumi Risa’s birthday, according to the profile in the back of Book 5. She must be 23 or 24 now since Lovely Complex was published in 2001. Unless manga characters don’t age like we do.

One reply on “Love Com Vols. 4 & 5 – Manga Review”

You quit watching at the Mighty-sensei part of the anime? I loved that part, though I kept cringing whenever Risa was leading his fanclub… I felt so embarrassed for her because of it. I’d never do something like that! XD

I love this manga/anime. I think it’s brilliant, and it may sound strange, but I kinda like the angsty emo parts. XD Makes it seem like my own life (which is pretty damn sucky at the moment) seem a little better. At least I’m not pining after someone unattainable on top of it all! XD

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