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Story:: 7.25/10
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For what seemed like a typical shoujo setup, the story was pretty good for the most part. Instead of being a completely vanilla "girl meets boy and falls in love" type of scenario, there's a bit of a unique spin on the relationship. Female lead falls in love with the boy(male lead) that her older sister was suppose to "meet with marriage intent" (an "omiai"). The sister then falls in love with another character, kicks out our female protagonist from their home which causes her to live with the male protagonist for the duration of the manga. Add in some implications here and there, ... a little romance, comedy, drama, and that sums up the plot. Putting that aside, the story itself is pretty entertaining. The atmosphere of the story is very shoujo-like with a healthy amount of comedy and romance mixed in. The drama however, seemed a bit melodramatic which caused me to make the "are you serious?" face a few times. As for the pacing of the story, it was done decently, nothing seemed too rush although there were a few filler chapters- while entertaining, were still filler.


Art:: 6.5/10
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MAL states the manga started getting published circa 2000 to whenever, so considering the time period, the art is pretty good. The characters perfectly match the shoujo atmosphere in design and detail. They were distinct enough for me to not confuse them with each other and simple, yet appealing enough to not take anything away from the manga. The focus is obviously on the characters but the details for the backgrounds were also drawn well. I'm not a big fan of this time period in manga (pointy chins, sharp hairs, etc) but if it didn't distract me, it should be fine for most folks.


Characters:: 7/10
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Very typical characters. With the cohabitation/romance theme in place, our characters don't deviate much from that standard. The female lead (Mikako) shows off the typical airhead-ish and innocent personality with the typical "am I getting in the way", "am I good enough for him", et cetera phases that's been done to death by all shoujo romance heroines. The male lead (Ro) is no different. He's the cool, dependable, at times secretive, constantly teasing yet trying his hardest to hold back his libido (rolls eyes) type of guy. It should be noted, that they are of two different ages so that made for some fun interactions. As for the supporting characters, they all had a good amount of screen time but didn't do much with it per se. Outside of the older sister having a "development", the rest were filler-ish. Screen time for "love rivals" were introduced and wrapped up fairly quickly so there's that. As for the "villains" of the series, they were pretty much nonsensical but had moderately enjoyable plots.


Enjoyment/Overall:: 7/10
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Putting aside the "drama", the other elements of the story worked pretty well together. The most enjoyable component was definitely the comedy-based character interactions. The romance? I've seen better but at least Missile Happy! didn't make it too cringe-worthy. Despite the random insert points of the filler chapters, I felt entertained as I finished each chapter. There would be no problem making this a part of my recommendations list (this doesn't exist fyi) for the shoujo lovers out there. Probably not re-read worthy, but good enough for that 1-2 day session.

Story: 6/10
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Short, simple and sweet. I haven't gotten around to reading much manga that involves the main couple already married, so this was a nice change of pace to the slow grind relationships found in other manga. However, it wasn't your typical marriage and we aren't given much opportunities to experience their lovey-dovey relationship. What I disliked, was the pacing of the story. It alternated way too much between present day and the past. I understand and can appreciate panels with flashbacks, but these occurrences went on for pretty much the entire chapter. One chapter would show their marriage and love for each other, next ... chapter would look back to their first date, then the next chapter felt like a plot wrap-up but then the following chapter flashes back to before they even met each other. Oh, and technically the main story is wrapped up in 6 chapters. Chapter 7 is a side story on one of the female protagonist's friends and as for Chapter 8, I have no idea who the characters were. Not a huge negative, but a bit strange.


Art: 6/10
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Published in 2005, so I don't expect Picasso-esque detail but I have seen a few older manga with matching or slightly better artwork. Though with respect to the author, it did have a proper shoujo-like atmosphere with appropriate details to match. I.e-- the text sound effects, the monologue speech bubbles, the excessive blushing, the cutesy inter/reactions, and the zoom-ins over every little thing that might feel and look romantic. The character designs are so-so. I mean, nothing about them really stood out aesthetically but the female lead was pretty adorable.


Characters: 6/10
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Nothing memorable for the most part. The male lead is the same guy you'll find in typical shoujo romance stories and likewise for the supporting characters. No, wait- the supporting characters were pretty much trash. I don't believe they contributed anything outside of dialogue and being there as plot devices. The one saving grace of the story is our heroine, our narrator and female lead, Rena. Being a married high school freshman, it takes a lot of effort to pull off and there will oftentimes be mishaps, new experiences, and typical innocent-like situations. Rena went through them all with bravado and was such an adorable character to watch. She really fit the role of a young and inexperienced high school wife.


Enjoyment/Overall: 6/10
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Overall, given the faults of the story's pacing and narration, the "acceptable" artwork and the lack of genuine "characters"-- a 6/10 is what I feel this manga deserves. While the last two chapters were okay to read, one of them should have been written in earlier for a better effect and the other chapter seemingly comes out of nowhere. The manga is short enough to not take up a lot of your precious time but unfortunately not written well enough to satisfy the hunger of most shoujo fans.

To be clear, I have no touched the anime adaptation at all prior to reading.


Story: 6/10
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Harem, harem, harem. This is pretty much introduced in the first few panels. Therefore, I expected a majority of the story to center around the character interactions and comedy; specifically male lead + each of his girls. That was pretty much what I got. Each chapter of the manga focuses on one specific girl for the story and they take turns alternating between the 3 heroines. There were 4 chapters designated to Rin, 3 chapters focusing on Kuriko, 3 chapters for Yuuna, 1 chapter on a late addition to the ... cast and the final chapter served as a wrap-up to the entire series. Surprisingly, I liked this format. It allowed for separate analyses for each of the heroines and for the most part, equal amounts of screen time and enjoyment. The ending however, did not sit right with me. It felt out of place- rushed even, and left me with a bit of a "uhh, that's it?" kind of feeling.


Art: 6.5/10
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Pretty good for the most part. Considering the manga dates back about a decade, the art style is still drawn well. The mangaka did a good job meshing the styles of a high school life with elements of magic/supernatural. To my surprise there were not much, if any, ecchi scenarios drawn. If I recall, even if there were, there were extremely modest and not like the typical ones we've come to know and love. Our females while appealing, were pretty damn innocent and cute- with the designs matching their personalities to a tee. As for the background work, there weren't anything special worth mentioning but it was sufficient enough in detail to know where and when a scene was taking place. Most of the details was focused on the characters, their expressions and reactions.


Characters: 6.5/10
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By being your standard harem characters, you wouldn't expect much in this area of the manga. However, I believe designing chapters focusing on a character at a time greatly helped the female cast. Usually in a manga with a broad cast, introductions are short, simple, and rarely tapped into further. In Maburaho, the focused chapters allowed each female to have a full explanation of their back story, their emotions, their relationship with each other and the male lead and so forth. Without saying too much, each of the girl's reason to get with the main character isn't as trivial as you would think, so that was a pleasant surprise. As for the male lead, he wasn't highlighted as much as his female counterparts and his character did a sudden 180 in regards to the story.


Enjoyment/Overall: 6.5/10
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For what it's worth, this was still a decent manga to read. It was still standard fare as its genre tags go, but unique enough to standout a little from the rest. I might have enjoyed it more overall if not for the ending of the story. As I mentioned at the beginning, I have yet to watch the anime adaptation so I can't comment on accuracy, enjoyment and recommendations but I'll probably come back to edit this in the future when I do.

Despite there having only ~46 chapters scanlated, I figured I'd leave a review considering there isn't any. This manga deserves that much at least.


Story: 6.5/10
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This was quite a roller coaster throughout. Initially we're introduced to a possible childhood friend reunion love story. Then of course, a possible love-triangle/minor harem comes into play. A bit later, there are a handful of ecchi scenes accompanied by a handful of sex scenes. Add in some "conflicts" every now and then for a change of pace and that's pretty much what has occurred so far. For the first half of the manga, the story progression is paced pretty well ... although I have no idea regarding the later half. Sadly, there were some filler chapters that were time wasting but for the most, the flow of the manga is pretty much on point. As for the few conflicts that arose so far, they were definitely eye-roll worthy. Even though quite some time was invested into them, they were usually solved simply- almost to the point of being deus ex machina'ed away by our protagonist.


Art: 6.5/10
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Well considering the manga dates back to 2004-2006, it obviously will not be as refined as today's works. Given that, it really isn't that bad. We have a school based setting and with good background work to match. It is worth mentioning that the artwork did improve through the course of the manga. U-Jin definitely improved his/her drawings and it showed through the work. The characters are drawn pretty well but I feel that the male lead and female lead don't really look exactly their age despite being adults among high school kids. To the mangaka's credit, there were a large variety of characters and s/he did a good job with each of them having distinct and varying details that made them unique/distinguishable.


Characters: 6.5/10
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It's a bit hard to get into character depth without spoiling a lot of the story as it's pretty much the meat and potatoes of the manga. For the most part, the male lead was a indecisive (read: a wuss) guy but came through when his female cast relied on him. The females? to put it nicely, they were pretty wanting to get a piece of the MC. U-Jin did a nice job when it came down to separating on-screen time for characters and didn't abandon the supporting characters. The cast weren't abnormally stupid or silly and pretty realistic when it came to their reaction and antics. Like I mentioned in the Story section, conflicts were a non-factor. Therefore the "villains" that were setup for the conflicts were pathetically silly and eventually transitioned into supporting characters later on. I feel rather disdained of the situations our male lead gets himself into though I don't think that was the author's intention, maybe.


Enjoyment/Overall: 6.5/10
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So far despite the wonky story line and less than appreciable characters, it has been a decent read. The current scanlations left off at a rather interesting point in the story that I actually want to read further into; so the manga can be quite enthralling when it wants to be. As far as recommending it to others, yeah it's still good enough for that purpose. The genre tags are spot on with perhaps romance taking more of a backseat, so if you're a fan of the genres then you already know your course of action huh?

Story: 7.25/10
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A pretty hilarious take on a boy and "monster-girl" romantic-comedy. The manga is told to us via the male lead serving as the narrator with the story progressing neatly in a continuous format. I must admit, this overall story was done very well and the pacing gets an A for both effort and execution. The comedy was aplenty, the supernatural/fantasy aspects was a nice touch, the romance was very cutesy (the harem wasn't really that strong), and when it came down to it, the drama was implemented rather well. Not sure if this counts a spoiler, but the whole feet licking thing was pretty ... weird for me, though one could argue that it added a unique spin on things- still pretty weird though in my opinion. As for the ending, it wasn't rushed and offered a satisfying wrap up to the story.


Art: 7.5/10
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Artwork was wonderful. The color pages made for some excellent presentation. There was definite a change in the art, more of an improvement in my opinion. After the first 2 or 3 chapters, the art became more smooth and refined. In the early chapters, some of the art was a bit sketchy-like with an excessive amount of texture, shading and toning. The mangaka would eventually tone it down resulting in more defined art work overall. However, textures were still heavily present. Not sure if it was a technique done for visual presentation for depth but I'd prefer less, please. The designs for our characters- whether mains or side ones were drawn really well. The male lead seemed to get the short end of the stick aesthetically as a majority of the effort and attention to detail were focused more on the females; but hey I'm not complaining.


Characters: 7.75/10
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I believe the full cast is composed of our male lead and 5 female characters. A witch, her companion/partner who both serve as plot drivers, the female protagonist and romantic interest, the little sister and the classmate. So by definition, a harem- what an assemble huh? Not let me be clear, I quickly skimmed through the manga (I read this a while ago contrary to my review date) and as soon as I got caught a quick glance of one of the females I could immediately recall most if not all of their interactions, roles and scenes throughout that chapter. Now you may think I have pretty darn good memory but it's more of a testament to how memorable the characters were. They were truly unique with a personality to match.


Enjoyment/Overall 7.5/10
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A very enjoyable read that I would recommend to anybody. The variety and combination of the genre tags might seem a bit off putting but setting aside the fantasy and supernatural aspects, deep down Perowan! contains a rather decent love story in it's roots. For those familiar with Harumi Chihiro's manga [Come Come Vanilla!], the premise of the stories are similar but Perowan! is more fleshed out in detail with a more varied cast of characters.

[ Disclaimer ]
This review will be done for the two chapters that are available on the interwebs as of right now (chapter 0 and chapter 1).


Story: 7.5/10
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For what it's worth, pretty good setup for a romantic-comedy. Obviously, I have yet to progress further so the majority of the story is unbeknownst to me (likewise for the ending) but I think it's safe to say that it'll progress and work out similarly to the first few chapters. As our narrator (male MC) tells us, because he's a possible candidate to succeed his grandfather's industrial conglomerate- he's been forced to live with a worker from the educational ... sector of the company. This "worker" turns out to be quite a character; I'll get to that later on. There seems to be plenty of ecchi and fan service with the rest emphasizing on comedic situations.


Art: 8/10
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Really really superb. The designs of the male lead and female lead are both well drawn and appealing aesthetically. The first few color pages of chapter 0 (not sure if fan filled or not) was done really well. Background work gave an impression of being done with detail because it was implemented properly and not thrown in last second as filler. Other details such as text sound effects added nicely to the art style and the speech bubbles were clean and not excessive.


Characters: 8/10
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So far, only two characters have been introduced. The male lead- a 16 year old possible candidate to a large conglomerate and the company's worker sent to teach and evaluate his candidacy to succeed the corporation. Per his words, he is a perfectly healthy high school boy; and well, for the worker- she is "his maid, his educator, his guardian, his arbitrator, his childhood friend, his cousin, his little sister, and bride candidate". Whew, wow. Not sure how that cousin and little sister part works out but I digress. By the way, if you didn't catch her name- she's the one the manga's title takes after: Hatoko. Hatoko is an adorable character, not by being kawaii and lively but through her sharp words with that straight-edged poker face. She is no tsundere though, sorry. The chemistry, interactions and the way they play off each other's words and actions are a joy to watch.


Enjoyment/Overall: 8/10
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A fair score for what I've read so far. If and hopefully when this manga is fully released, I'll come back to readjust my assessment. Putting that aside, as far the genre tags go, it's spot on. The story is a good read for your ecchi comedy needs. A easy recommendation for me and should be quite memorable when it's all said and done.

Story [6.25/10]
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Right off the bat, just by reading and "looking" at the first few color intro pages, you get the cliche ecchi guy+girl kind of feeling. Not long after (literally a few panels), we get introduced to the supernatural aspects of the story. Advance a few more panels and we get to the comedic and romance elements. Although not listed on MAL specifically, the gender-bender genre gets thrown in as well. See the pattern so far? Everything is pretty jammed pack right from the get-go. While the plot was pretty simple the pacing was horrid. I think this manga would have benefited from more chapters; ... maybe not 20-30 like other works but definitely more than 6.


Art [6.5/10]
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~Okay for the most part. Very simple character designs but unique enough to tell apart each and every character. Background work was pretty much nonexistent and our characters often interact in front of flat, glowing, airy backgrounds a la shoujo manga. One "winning point", if you can call it that, is at least the female cast was for the most part appealing enough. The focus is pretty much on these females so kudos to the mangaka for handling that department properly.


Characters [5.75/10]
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Disappointing. As mentioned in my story assessment, the characters in the story would have benefited from more chapters. This in turn would allow for more backstories, more development, more growth and more interactions. While it was obvious telling apart the two mains and the side characters, it's quite easy to consider them all to be mains. Also, the romance/relationships between our characters was just one big snafu. One female shown with possible romantic interest was abandoned, another female (who I THINK was the osananajimi) hinted at romantic feelings but was wrapped up and abandoned within mere minutes of each other. A real mess in this department honestly.


Enjoyment/Overall [6/10]
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After I finished up the manga, I went on MAL for my usual business. Which was then that I noticed there was an anime adaptation! Ah, I possible screwed up. Fun fact: I never read a manga without watching the anime adaptation first just to see how far off the adaptation was. However, looking at the mere 6 chapters of clusterfunk that is the manga source and seeing the higher overall score with a proper 1-cour duration, I can't help but wonder if the anime was tons better than the manga. Maybe once I get around to watching the anime, I will come back to edit my overall assessment but as of right now, there's really no reason to read this unless you need a quick read while commuting or something.

Story: [7.5/10]
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This was a rather pleasant surprise considering several factors. 1) I'm not a huge fan of supernatural settings and 2) There's only 15 chapters so I was hesitant in fear of a rushed story. While the supernatural aspects were pretty much evident in each chapter, it wasn't out of control and still flowed rather naturally. In short, a young man (male protagonist) was chosen to become the servant of a goddess/deity (female protagonist) and we're treated to the wild development and scenarios between the mains and side characters. As for the rushed aspect, sadly this manga could not escape that fate. The story went ... from happy go lucky to all of a sudden [dramatic plot and conflict intensifies]. The last few wrap up chapters seemingly come out of left field and while we get a happy ending, the resolution to the conflict was rather trivial.


Art: [7.5/10]
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Very good artwork and designs throughout each chapter. The male lead, while being fairly decent looking was dwarfed by the female lead in terms of aesthetics. Aya (the goddess) is an attractive/appealing character and the variety of facial expressions/reactions drawn for her really contributed to her personality on-screen. For the most part, the story takes place in a school setting with some chapters detailing life in the shrine/castle/temple where our mains reside; the art style was consistent and fitting to the story.


Characters: [7.5/10]
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As with the artwork, our female protagonist Aya really is the highlight of this manga. She dictates and sets the pace and the male lead (Taroumaru) follows along. Without a doubt, the naivety and overall personality of Aya is kawaii bait for the readers but it's done so well that honestly, I couldn't help but go along with it as well. As for the side characters-- some of them kept up pretty well with the main's tempos but most of them contributed close to nothing. Personally, I wish there were more screen time for the main character's little sister who he swears is his life but there was hardly any mention of it outside of a handful of panels.


Enjoyment/Overall: [7.5/10]
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The combination of a decent plot, productive (for the most part) characters, and a solid art foundation resulted in a pretty good read overall. Despite the romance genre tag, it wasn't a heavy influence on the story but rather a soft jab here and there. Comedy and a minor slice of life aspect were more pronounced for this manga. Still, I can and will recommend this for most readers.

Story
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Yet another collection of one-shots, so I'll try to give my thoughts for each respective chapter.

[chapter 1] 7.25/10
I gotta say, this was pretty enjoyable. The combination of a overly aggressive male lead and helpless female lead was a pleasure to read. It had a rather mature feel despite taking place in your typical high school. I respect the mangaka for writing a story that was able to mold a unorthodox relationship into a solid romance.

[chapter 2] 7.25/10
Using something silly like an umbrella for a plot device sounded really silly and far'fetched. However, it did work for this story. Again, we have an aggressive male vying ... for the passive female's attention in your typical high school setting. The ending/conflict resolution made light of the "drama" plot line and made it seem a tad nonsensical.

[chapter 3] 7.5/10
*clap, clap, clap*
Without spoiling the premise of the plot, I really enjoyed the mangaka's spin on the typical confession romance, it was terrific. The characters are your day to day high school kids but most of the story transpired outside of school. It was a "open ending" but you can pretty much figure out the general idea the mangaka had in mind.

[chapter 4] 7.25/10
Typical childhood friends story here. This one starts off with a bang and you would think that the romance starts developing right from the start. It doesn't but actually goes on a roller coaster ride before beginning to settle down at the end. This chapter probably contained the most character development and the story benefited greatly from it.


Art 7.5/10
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Aesthetically pleasing and satisfying overall. Designs for characters had variety and weren't simple copy and paste techniques for each chapter. The males were handsome, females were attractive and supporting characters were good enough to stand out from obvious background fodder. The art style was consistent for all of the one-shots and matched the shoujo-like atmosphere.


Characters 7/10
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In short, the main characters from each story weren't anything most manga readers haven't seen before. While they weren't copies of each other, they did share similarities. The males of each one-shot were the aggressive, cool and mature kind while the females were passive, emotionally unsure and got swept along by the males. Given the fact that the females served as our narrators, their growth and development was the main focus. If the males had any developing emotions it was pretty much done "off-screen".


Enjoyment/Overall 7.5/10
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The mature atmosphere despite being based around obvious high school kids worked out really well. I wouldn't go as far as to say that each one-shot was a hidden gem/masterpiece but they were definitely enjoyable. If you need your daily dose of shoujo, romance and or comedy with a decently written story line, then I would recommend this series.

Story
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This series is composed of 4 different one-shots, so I'll try to evaluate a little bit of each one.

(chapter 1) 6/10
Classic tale of "don't judge a book by its cover". Something done before in plenty of manga and a subject that I personally feel doesn't run that well in a one-shot. However, the story did build up slowly and surely and was able to eventually reach the romantic peak towards the end.

(chapter 2) 5.75/10
A unique spin of the classic high school romance but not due to the story itself. It was head scratching to the point of near stupidity at times. The mangaka tried to ... deviate a bit and attempted to build up a drama that felt forced and didn't match with the flow.

(chapter 3) 6.5/10
A student/sensei scenario. Usually just by saying this, one could figure out the basic premise of it all and this story was no different. The musical aspect of the story could make one feel as if it was a bit pretentious; it's pretty much interchangeable with other subject matters. The ending was of a fast forward on the pace but nothing too extreme.

(chapter 4) 5.5/10
A cop out. Using a rather non-traditional subject matter and attempting to make the readers feel connected and relatable didn't work for me at all. The story elements were all over the place and had no flow to it. It was also the shortest in terms of length compared to the other 3 chapters so that should say something.


Art 6.5/10
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The art work was decent I suppose. Designs such as the overly sharp chins and excessively sharp/defined hairstyles are things I don't particularly like but could work for most readers. While our characters weren't aesthetically pleasing, I will applaud the mangaka for drawing each and every main character differently enough in design to be distinguishable. Though facial designs were pretty consistent for the male and female leads.


Characters 6.5/10
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The characters found in each one-shot chapter were pretty straight forward. Each of them also follow the same format in regards to introduction and development. We get a bit of a back story of each of them, meet the potential love interest, have the female lead (who usually serves as the narrator as well) initially reject the opposite sex, and through some event and plot here and there, gather their thoughts and come to terms with their true feelings. Supporting characters, if there were any, were pretty much nonexistent and contributed nothing to the story unless they were "forced" to by the plot.


Enjoyment/Overall 6.5/10
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Despite the rather high overall score of ~7.40, I didn't like these series of one-shots that much. I'm sure if I skim through my manga list or recall ones I've bookmarked somewhere I could get a hold of some better ones. The art was medicore, the stories were typical and oftentimes I found myself just power-reading through the stories. There are plenty of better romance stories out there for you shoujo fans, but if you got a quick ~30 minutes or so-- this collection of romance one-shots is feasible I suppose.