Plot/Story
The plot of this manga is a story about the difference in mentality between two girls, from the Japanese capital and from the Japanese province, it is a reference to their common past, a melodramatic story about their tensions and ... mild to moderate sexual humor. Riko (or Kurosaki) travels to Arikawa (or Irukawa), a Japanese hot spring resort, on a Japanese Railroad train. After several unsuccessful attempts to leave the station territory to the house of Akira, a friend of her mother Kurosaki Mina, for temporary residence, her friend herself takes her to her own home, in which Riko spent her childhood ... which, however, she does not remember well. Rico is depressed - her mother went abroad to work as an escort, in connection with which she left her daughter, a model, in the care of her school friend, who owns a hot spring hotel with her husband. Expecting to find peace and solitude with nature in her house, Riko unexpectedly reunites with childhood friend Haru (or Sakurada), who is so eccentric and charismatic that she begins to enrage and anger unfortunate Riko throughout the manga with her love for her beauty and her lust. to her body. Haru is very lustful and takes every opportunity to enjoy Rico's bodily beauty, both visually and tactilely. This, of course, infuriates Riko terribly, and she, a city girl, is so annoyed by the lust and persistence of the provincial girl Haru that she often hits her and yells at her for molesting her and spying on her.
Soon, both girls go to school. During Rico's introduction, Haru jumps up from her seat and introduces Rico as his wife. Everyone is confused, but also fascinated by Rico's sweetness. On the way out of school, Haru invites Riko to join her promotion and advertising club for Arikawa. Learning more and more about this club, Rico becomes aware that it is called a dolphin, after the syllable from the name of the village. However, in order to lure Rico to her dolphin club, Haru went on to outright blackmail, leading her to a secret hot spring and declaring that she was not allowed to enter it until Rico entered the club. Rico desperately agrees, and she begins an exciting club life, albeit nervous. Gradually, she gets to know both the existing members of the club, the Hoshino sisters Aoi and Akane, and the new members, that is, a girl named Tanaka Taeko. The girls become friends while harvesting cabbage, and after a while Riko realizes that their common class teacher Kuramoto-sensei is also the head of the dolphin club. Meanwhile, Akane, obsessed with Riko and falling in love with her without memory, showed everyone the magazines in which Riko demonstrated swimwear, which delighted everyone and amazed everyone, but thereby brought a lot of attention to Riko at school. As a result, Haru insisted that Riko dress in a yukata, and Kuramoto-sensei suggested that she become "bait" for the dolphin club ...
... Several months of Riko's life together with Haru and her family, studying at school, club and social life, as well as spending time together suddenly end when Riko's mother, Mina, suddenly arrives in Irukawa and insistently demands her daughter to return to Tokyo, to their empty city apartment. And Rico reluctantly agrees. This news shocks many of her classmates: the unfortunate Hoshino Akane begins to gorge on flour with grief, and Haru from a mental disorder takes Riko's mother for her daughter when she, after Riko's departure, arrived in Irukawa. Rico announces her departure while visiting another spring with her school friends. Rico's classmates and classmates throw her a farewell party, after which they see her off with a friendly, grieving crowd. Rico arrives in Tokyo, returns to his apartment and is amazed at the loneliness and spaciousness that meet her there. She puts things in order, but her mother still does not return home - although it is already late on the clock. Suspecting something was wrong, she tries to call her, but suddenly she finds out that her mother Mina is for some reason in Irukawa, visiting Haru and her family! Not understanding anything, she calls her mother, and she happily greets her. As a result, it turned out that the concept of "home" for Riko's mother is extensible, and she meant all of Japan as a country, and not their home ... Hastily returning back, Riko sees how Mina's mother with her (again Riko) friends with admiring the photo of Riko's life on Irukawa. Outraged Riko breaks into Haru's house just at the moment when lustful Haru asks "Riko's hand and heart" from Mina's mother, already calling her "dear mother-in-law" in advance. Haru gets hit on the head by Riko with an album that the Hoshino sisters gave her before leaving, Riko is furious with anger. She is angry with her mother, trying to figure out what she is doing in the company of her friends. But her cheerful mother shows her the keys and declares that from now on she is going to live and work in Irukawa. With this news, Riko falls off her feet and tries to recover, but her mother hints to her that Riko has many friends in Irukawa, so what is there to think about? In general, the ending of this manga, it seems to me, has remained open. It is not clear whether Haru and Riko will bring their neurotic relationship to love / romantic / sexual, or they will remain forever such a scandalous, but such an inseparable couple ...
Characters
Since there are a lot of characters in this manga, I will limit myself to only those of them who appear in it most often.
Kurosaki Riko is a beautiful and still very young girl, who, however, has obvious mental disorders: she is afraid to be filmed in front of a large crowd of people, is extremely irritable and prone to assault in anger. She works in the modeling business, demonstrates women's clothing on camera for showing in a magazine. Fatherless, but has a mother named Kurosaki Mina, who is focused on her escort business and clothing brand (appears in the last chapters). Extremely dislikes sexual harassment and is shy even of friendly touch. He prefers to go with the flow and naively succumbs to the opinions of others, especially in emergency situations. But sometimes, seeing problems with loved ones, he takes the initiative and comes forward to improve the situation. Blonde, long-haired, tall.
Sakuradu Haru is a pretty ugly girl who is very sociable, cheerful, responsible and just patriotic. Loves Arikawa, considering it the best, and considers it his duty to help its residents in promoting both private commercial services and the public image of Arikawa around the world. At the same time, she is lustful and prone to sexual perversions of varying severity, up to the sudden grabbing of the intimate places of a woman attractive to her. She is very intrusive and annoying if she wants to achieve her goals, has excellent manual dexterity and physical endurance. He can deceive, he can lie - but all for the sake of business and duty. Lives in the village, in the family of hotel owners and gardeners. Brunette, short hair, short stature.
Hoshino Aoi is a pretty girl, sister of Hoshino Akane. He appears with his sister in Chapter 3. The complete opposite of her sister: balanced, calm, prudent and reasonable. A confident laptop user, he is engaged in software-digital management of the dolphin club, in which he and his sister. From a family of local restaurateurs from Irukawa who work in the Italian pasta and pizzeria Una Stella, helping her parents as a waitress. Polite and courteous, does not allow herself to shout or speak in a high tone without special need. He often smiles, but he can also put the troublemaker in his place.
Hoshino Akane is another pretty girl, sister of Aoi. However, I would not call them twins somehow, they still have different faces and even different hairstyles. However, Akane always needs her sister's closeness because, due to mental illness such as anthropophobia, she is afraid of people, especially strangers. But, at the moment when she is required to overcome herself, she is able to loudly declare herself in front of the public, express all her thoughts about a loved or hated person, and even get close to another person as close as possible in case of special need. But, unfortunately for her, this happens rarely and is extremely painful, and does not last long. Basically, she sees the world from behind her sister or being next to her, and in moments when she is experiencing great happiness or suffering, the vessels in her nose may burst and bleeding may begin, followed by fainting. After watching the magazines in which Riko demonstrates clothes, Akane fell in love with her without memory and became obsessed with her, but she could not confess her love to her - but she is very jealous and vicious towards anyone who only dares to show Riko attention and courtship (in in particular, Haru) and can go into a real hysteria if he learns that Riko will leave her for a while. The short, like her sister, works as a waitress in a family restaurant and serves as a photographer at the dolphin club.
Tanaka Taeko - Appears in Chapter 9. A highly satirical character, HIJIKI irones her up and down, ridiculing her vices and urging her into virtues. Ugly girl floating with the flow. Not wanting to engage in either club activities or general school activities. Boorish and rude, who constantly runs from responsibility and problems. Apparently, she has a problematic relationship with Haru and the Hoshino sisters, so, upon learning that she was in their club, she tried to escape. She can refuse and throw a tantrum if she is forced to do what she refused. Doesn't want to stand out and tries to be “ordinary”. Dislikes Rico for her flamboyant personality. Has a bit of an inferiority complex because of his name. Either red or brunette hair, the height is close to that of Rico.
Drawing Style
Background Graphics Quality:
The background in this manga is very, very bold, dark and contrasting ... On the one hand, all the lines are well drawn: exactly where it is straight, and smooth where it is rounded. Even objects in the background delight with their evenness and smoothness. Well, what else can you expect from Japanese manga authors? .. Japanese mangaka doesn't knit brooms! However, the fill in most cases stands out too much, so this manga is literally teeming with many slash sticks on all kinds of objects (lines tilted from right to left). The desire to avoid perfect cleanliness and the almost ubiquitous presence of any dirt, dust, litter is also impressive - this makes the manga somehow more realistic.
Character graphics quality:
The characters in this manga are simply gorgeous ... Even women and men in extreme old age here delight the eye, and at the same time look very European (if not Slavic). In general, of course, I have noticed many times that with their manga the Japanese are constantly and from time to time trying to bring themselves closer to Europe. They make their characters European "big-eyed" faces, they dress them in loose European clothes, and their houses in various works are externally Japanese, and inside they somehow suspiciously look like European interiors (taking into account the lifestyle of the Japanese: sitting on the floor, a bed on the floor, sticks instead of spoons and forks ... Japan managed to become Europeanized, but at the same time it remains itself - we, the Slavs, are torn between East and West, heh ... However, I digress. parts of bodies, faces, hair, clothes - give great aesthetic pleasure.Therefore, this manga will really appeal to everyone who loves characters with beautiful (breasts, crossed out) drawing, even monochrome. This manga is an amazing work of fiction, in which for some reason there are many ... Soviet ... posters-motivators. Here you and "Arikawa-mother is calling !!!", and "Have you signed up for a PR-club 😕", and everything else in the spirit of Soviet motivators of the twentieth century. I don’t know how it happened, but this is the umpteenth time in my memory when I notice that Japanese authors are fighting everything not only from the Americans and Europeans, but from the Slavs too. So much for globalism, so much for cultural exchange, heh. The most curious thing is that many of such frames in this manga are suspiciously large, so they ask for some snide and sarcastic, but already DEMOTIVATOR, which are very popular in my country (because we have no freedom, but only humor remains). And I strongly advise bloggers in Russia to use this manga for their demotivators - it should turn out to be very cute and funny.
Enjoyment
Manga from the series "I read it and as if I went on vacation." The plot, the graphics, and the characters were very delivered. And indeed: everyone who reads this Japanese epic reading can feel that he really visited a resort, sanatorium or boarding house (depending on life experience and places where he lives. I liked the beautiful Riko, even though she is a schoolgirl. She was very amused by the charismatic Haru, although she is not beautiful. And all the other characters were also very delivered. HIJIKI managed to convey in this manga the pastoral world of the modern Japanese province, which is just as full of cultural life as in the capital, in which the same serious passions are simmering, as in the capital, in which all sorts of delicacies and beauties are also traded, as in the capital - but at the same time, all this supposedly happens in a village, closer to the ground, in close proximity to the natural environment and surrounded by natural economy. This manga really wants to read in winter, when it is cold, snowy and lonely, and it is very pleasant to read it in the summer, when you feel that everything that happens as if o happens somewhere nearby, outside the boundaries of your city, and the characters you see on the pages of this manga seem to be among your friends who have left for their country estate and cheerfully spend their time in the splashes of life-giving moisture and in the rays of a nutritious star ... By the way, if you want to mess with the character Haru from this manga, then for this I would again like to recommend you the Deco figure for the Poser program. She has a face very similar to Haru, although her height is probably taller. In general, of course, the manga has very canonical graphics, so almost all characters can be recreated in Poser using models such as Decoco and Anime Doll \ Maya Doll or Terai Yuki (I have nothing to do with the creators of these models and do not engage in commercial promotion in this article).
Overall
Manga with pleasant, high-quality and professional graphics, with an entertaining, interesting and funny plot, epic and almost devoid of moralism. The behavior of the characters is almost universally understandable and explainable, with the exception of some strange passages that are not easy to understand from the first reading. This literary and graphic work leaves a pleasant impression, speaks about various important things, about how important friendship, honesty, decency and responsibility are, how important it is to be polite and be able to admit your mistakes. In a sense, this manga promotes suburban life - the dream of more and more townspeople, exhausted by the hardships and misfortunes of urban life in an industrialized capital. Despite all its lightness, this manga is quite thoughtful, and in some places even represents examples of the right or wrong behavior of modern young women in a Western-style city. This manga is a melodrama with elements of comedy, a moralizing novel with elements of eroticism, a comedy with dramatic moments full of grief. But all these genres are collected here in a reasonable dosage, so one does not supplant or overshadow the other. And the author's deep patriotic feeling for Japan, which prevails in this manga, is admirable and worthy of respect, for it is healthy and not as cave-like and not mortally dangerous in a country like mine, for example.