A heartwarming and often very funny title about when humans and gods interact. If you're reading the scanlations, be warned that for around the first dozen chapters, the translation becomes pretty appalling, but it's worth pushing on because the quality suddenly rises to pretty much professional level after that (thanks AM!).

... Last updated on April 14th, 2013, 5:39am

Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. is definitely not what one would expect from a series about a girl who gains the power to transform into other people. In fact, it's not about the transformations at all. It's about how Inari (the main character) grows and develops as she learns not to rely on this ability to help her in difficult situations. It's really an unbelievably adorable series.

All the characters are fairly strong on their own, though, arguably, everyone other than Inari remains largely static. Understandable, really, since the entire series is about Inari's growth.

Would I recommend this series to everyone? Yes, of course. Is it for everyone? No, I don't think so. If you come into this manga expecting a lot of flashy transformations, misunderstandings galore, and caricature villains, you'll be disappointed. At its heart, Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. is really a slice-of-life series that's more character-focused on plot-focused. But that's what I like about it, really.

Liked the first chapter, but was frustrated that there the transformation element was soon neglected. (I've seen this in Ranma 1/2 and Gatcha Gatch Secret, but my guess is the author ran out of ideas almost immediately after deciding to write a story about a girl who shifts forms. So we end up with a plot thread that just eats up virtual space since you keep wondering when there will be a shift, only it never happens.) Also the main character and her crush are boring people, and I stopped reading their conversations. The only thing that kept me reading to ch 20 was curiosity about the Goddess's slow as molasses relationship with someone that reminds me of CardCaptorSakura's brother. Yes they're both stock characters, but they're still funner to watch than the main story and it leaves you wondering if they should have been the focus of this work.

Overall its obvious the story could have been executed much better, and I saw a lot of missed chances for character elaboration or better drama...jokes for instance that only had two panels rather than 3 or more. There is also no antagonist and the series just limps along unsure of where its going...

In fact, I'm expecting a dreaded ending of the type where "the protagonist loses her memories of it all," to come any time now. Authors use it when they want drama, but are creatively bereft or have written themselves into a corner, and want to stop beating their head against the wall. They would rather reset everything at the end and make everything you read meaningless, than write a solution to the story. Also known as the screw-the-reader ending? I really wish Japanese authors didn't have a propensity for this type of ending, and Buddhism must be a deep influence. (I hope this direction isn't followed, but then again I never enjoyed Buddhist reincarnation in stories either, since if it doesn't allow you to keep your old memories, writing about a person's past is meaningless.) If I knew the author I'd try to convince him that this forshadowed ending is a lame cop-out, and ask him to please not give us a ending such as from the manga Karin.

The transitions were also pretty quick with sloppy time-skips, and more than once I had to stop reading to figure out where we were chronologically, or what just happened. I didn't care about most of the characters and the jokes stopped being as funny early on (I blame it on the lack of "follow-through" in the writing, although maybe it was also the translation.?) Add the fact that many characters are so simply differentiated that its easy to mix them up, and you have a recipe for confusion.

No transformation, suspicious foreshadowing of a crappy ending, light character development, and awkward transitions keep me from recommending this series to others. If you'd like to satisfy your curiousity just treat the 1st chapter as an interesting one-shot.

... Last updated on November 24th, 2012, 5:58am

I really liked this, until around chapter 5... then it turned slice of lify, the story is interesting at first but it doesn't go anywhere i may drop it, or just not read it for a very long time has a shoujo ai feel not sure why it is labelled as seinen its mostly about a girls emotions and how they feel and coming to terms with how they feel... i really don't see the seinen aspect sigh

This comedy is very light, there is nothing major plot behind he scenes nor apocalyptic weapons nor a handsome bishounen flipping into the main character's life and stealing her heart away and stuff like that. At it's core, it's hard to see at first but this story is about feelings, for one side we have the feelings that create a character's persona, feelings of over protection, or wanting to share, or wanting to experience, feelings of innocence or simply earnest feelings; on the other side we have the feelings of "love" and "wanting to love".

The writing style and the way the story unveils is very refreshing, the way the characters portray themselves is interesting and eventually they sneak upon you, making you care for them.... this is when the feelings of "being themselves" touch the reader; the feelings of love are also clearly explained and one of the strongest grabs of the story: you can't describe the story as "a cheap harem" or "a cheap love triangle", characters change their perspective, experience more things and explain themselves better; in fact some of the side love stories in this work are strong enough to carry on the manga by themselves; in fact while I do like Inari's quest for love, I have to admit that eventually the possible story of Uka's -the Goddess that gave Inari her powers- has become my favorite thing about the manga.



As long as you don't hate lighthearted not plot heavy stories and female perspective strongly present in the story, this one should score highly on your books, as it does gets better with time. By chapter 3 I really "liked it" and by chapter 10 this one is within my reading top priorities, and perhaps it will get better from now on.

... Last updated on July 17th, 2012, 10:28am

Feeling after reading first chapter
This manga has a plot that doesnt appear much on shounen. (a female lead)
I personally not really interested in shounen with female lead but this manga has attracted me after
Also, the story so far develop to an interesting line.
I will look forward for the future release



Rating : 10/10

... Last updated on October 9th, 2010, 12:40pm