This is a series revolving around a modified story of Sleeping Beauty, but instead of putting the
Female lead, Makura, out of commission for the whole of the story, it allows the story to continue
having her around by making her a ghost while she's asleep.
So to summarize the plot up to chapter 17,
the story began with Makura being in love Keisuke, but was cursed and put to sleep, with the side effect of appearing as a ghost while she sleeps. Meanwhile, Keisuke, her childhood friend who's like family to her, realised that he was the only one who could see her, and thus took up the responsibility of searching for a way to wake her up, while at the same time, tried to give her a normal live as a ghost by taking her out to restaurant
for dinner and letting her watching tv, etc.
His search for clues on her condition led him to meet Yukihime, a beautiful senpai who's both an
idol and the granddaughter of the doctor who's trying to cure Makura. She would then become the 3rd party in this love triangle, while Keisuke juggled his feelings of affection about the two girls in
his life. After been attracted to Keisuke because he treated her differently from other people (re:
not like an idol), Yukihime shared information on his grandfather's research with Keisuke by
inviting him to her grandparent's home in another town. An incident at that town solidified
Yukihime's affections for Keisuke, and she confessed her feelings to him. Coincidentally at the
same time, something strange started happening to Makura. When she saw Yukihime hugging Keisuke, Makura started feeling pains in her left pinky finger. At that moment, another female ghost
appeared and helped ease her pains, while hinting that the curse was something that Makura wished for. She also said that the promised day was fast approaching and if Makura did not fulfilled her promise by then, she would die.
Makura hid that meeting from Keisuke, and secretly decided to support Keisuke in his relationship
with Yukihime, which was a misunderstanding that she had made right before she became a ghost. The next day, the three of them journeyed to Yukihime's grandfather's old research lab on a nearby
island, where they found an old picture of the other female ghost, and clues that suggested that
the solution to wake Makura was for her prince to kiss her. Keisuke struggled with the idea of
kissing Makura, but found himself trying to kiss Makura while she was asleep by convincing himself
that it was okay since he was just like family to her, and also because it was a possible solution
to wake her up. However, when Makura asked him why he was trying to kiss her seconds before he did so, Keisuke realised that he might have tried to do it because he wanted to kiss her, but instead
came out with a lousy excuse, which made Makura mad for his untruthfulness. Keisuke revealed half
of the truth about his approach the next day by telliing her that a kiss might possibly wake her up.
While at a festival, Keisuke finally realised that he couldn't allow another guy to be with Makura,
and made up his mind to tell her his thoughts. When he found Makura however, he was told by Makura that she wasn't going to be a burden to him anymore, and forcefully kissed Keisuke, thereby breaking the curse and disappearing. Keisuke met the other female ghost in a dream of his past, and the ghost told him that Makura had returned to her own body with that kiss. Keisuke returned home and was given a welcome-back-embrace by Makura at the train station.
And that's the story up till chapter 17, which is a definitive end for Pajama na Kanojo, mainly
because Makura stops wearing pajamas all the time in the remainder of the chapters.
And now for the review. The story up to this point was pretty good. It is a cliche story about a
boy trying to help a girl who was troubled by supernatural circumstances, however it had a couple
of mysteries centered around a mysterious girl in an old picture that was seeded consistently
throughout the story, so that the reader would not forget the plot. This helped push the story
forward and separated the series from other love triangle mangas.
Coupled with the beautiful art, which was especially obvious in close up shots, it made the characters' emotions look easy to read, even without reading the dialogues. The character's personalities were pretty well defined through the dialogues and character designs, though the first few chapters were a little shaky and inconsistent in terms of artwork. The panel distributions and panel transitions were very smooth, since the author wasn't afraid of using big panels when the situation calls for it. In the end, regardless of the cliched conclusion, it was the journey that mattered. And it was a good journey, in that you can understand the characters' motivations and emotions, even if some of the decisions they made didn't agree with you.
The next half of the series is made up by chapter 18 to 26. Here's a brief summary about what
happened.
Makura returned to school. Keisuke and Makura's relationship returned to normal, but Keisuke did not have the courage to ask her about the final kiss, and was therefore unable to find out if she remembered anything from when she was a ghost. Yukihime mistakenly thought Keisuke had accepted her confession, and regarded him as her boyfriend while Keisuke was confused and went with it. Keisuke started a new astrology club and his friends joined in. A new girl was introduced, and a sub character, who might be in love with Keisuke, was given way too much character development.
Along the way, while spending time with Makura in the club, Keisuke saw sides of her that he didn't
know about, and his feelings for her started to grow. However, this also caused him to become more
attentive to Makura's action, and it made normal conversations between them awkward. Furthermore, Makura was also starting to hang out with Keisuke lesser and lesser. It was then discovered that this might have been because she was moving away. Even though Keisuke tried to get her to stay, Makura told him that being around him was making her feel terrible, mostly because she was convinced that Keisuke was in a relationship with Yukihime. Keisuke decided to reject Yukihime and chose Makura. However, he was unable to determine the reason that was making Makura feel terrible, and so he didn't confess his feelings to her.
Fast forward 4 months, memories of Makura's dead mother made him decide to make an unannounced visit to Makura at her new town. After making a stop at a restaurant, Keisuke accidentally heard rumors about Makura having a boyfriend, and then saw Makura at the same restaurant. Thinking she was already attached, Keisuke promptly stormed out of the place, but Makura ran after him and cleared up the misunderstanding. The rumored boyfriend was actually talking about Keisuke. Keisuke told Makura that she was looking prettier now, and Makura confessed to him before he did.
The End.
And that is why I recommend stopping at chapter 17. Firstly, the 2nd half of the story does not address any of the mysteries presented in the first half, and instead slapped a superficial explanation to tie up all loose ends by having the female ghost appear to say goodbye, and carry the remainder of the curse off with her. Of course, that attempt failed miserably in my opinions, especially since the mysteries are one of the things that caught my attention in the first place. I mean, they didn't even reveal why exactly Makura fainted in the botanical garden, either in a flashback or an exposition.
Next, the artwork also started to fluctuate a lot in terms of details in the art. There were also quite a bit of problems with proportions in the characters. Not to mention the extra focus on sub characters. Even Yukihime herself made very little appearance and had very little character development in the 2nd half when compared to the sub characters. In fact, one would say she lost the depth in her characterization, and regressed into a girlfriend that's just there waiting to be dumped by the main character.
And of course, the ending was pretty abrupt. It came out of nowhere with no seeding or preparation, and characters were behaving strangely when compared to the 1st half, as if they were just trying to make things more dramatic for the final event. The whole 2nd half was also seen from only Keisuke point of view, instead of from both Makura and Keisuke's POV, like it was in the first half. It allowed the reader to be surprised by Makura's sudden moving to another town, but it also caused the story to become unable to reveal any of Makura's motivations for her actions, or address the truth behind whether or not Makura remembers anything.
Overall, I don't think very highly of the 2nd half, even with the understanding that it was a rushed ending due to being cancelled. However, the 1st half features a fast-moving story with decent character personalities. Also, there are lots of cute ghost Makura shots that cannot be denied of their cuteness. So read it if you like to finally see a good story where the main character falls in love with his childhood friend, (in case you don't know, childhood-friends-as-lovers love comedy stories are in very short supply)... but only up to chapter 17!
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