The Fall 2020 Manga Guide

Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie

What's It About? 

Shikimori seems like the perfect girlfriend: cute, fun to be around, sweet when she wants to be... but she has a cool dark side that comes out under the right circumstances. And her boyfriend Izumi loves to be around when that happens!

Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie is an original manga drawn and scripted by Keigo Maki. The digital version of Volume 1 is currently available at Kodansha USA for $10.99

---

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

The author of Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie calls the stories “toothachingly sweet,” and that about sums it up. What he left out, though, was stultifyingly boring. The two don't need to go together by any means, but there's just so little to work with in this book that it ends up being a bit like candy corn: too sweet and you feel a little sick after eating a few handfuls.

The basic premise of the book is simple: Izumi has a girlfriend named Shikimori. She's super cute. But she also is really good at protecting him from things like classroom erasers, windblown paper, and cold hands, which makes her cool, too. Lather, rinse, repeat. Izumi loves how cool and protective Shikimori can be, and Shikimori adores keeping Izumi safe, so each short chapter becomes a sort of mutual admiration fest, with both of them being in love and at the same time embarrassed to be in love because they're in high school. The chapters with the most variety are when Shikimori comes over to Izumi's house for his birthday and meets his parents and the bonus, where they admire each other's hair. Neither of these chapters really involve the formula employed in the rest of the book, which makes them stand out just by virtue of being marginally different.

It's a shame that this is so repetitive, because there are some good ideas in here. Shikimori and Izumi have basically reversed their gender roles, but neither of them take on any other gendered traits (she's not construed as “masculine” nor he as “feminine”); it's just the way their relationship works. That's both a good twist on the high school romance and also very affirming, because it says that you don't have to be strictly this or that in order to find someone who loves you. Izumi's parents are also nice, caring adults (at least so far), and again in a genre rife with terrible adults, that's a pleasant surprise. Shikimori being a terrible cook is somewhat less so, because that's about as tropey as you can get with otherwise perfect girls, but neither she nor Izumi take it as a blow against her womanhood, so it doesn't come off as quite as hackneyed as it could.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't really do enough to distinguish itself. It's short, but still a bit of a slog just because it is so repetitive, and while the art is pleasant enough, it also doesn't do much to make the volume stand out. There's some moderate suggestion of increased plot from where the book leaves off, but at this point I'm more likely to recommend it as a sleep aid than as a piece of entertainment.

---

Caitlin Moore

Rating:

I've noticed a recent trend in romance manga that I'm not a huge fan of. Instead of building a story around two characters falling in love and staying together and developing their personalities, these series are structured more like gag manga. Each “story” is just a few short pages, concluding in a cute or romantic moment where a punchline would be in a comedy. There's usually some kind of gimmick to the couple. As much as I love a sweet romance, it's hard for me to get invested in these kinds of manga. It feels lazy, seeking out all the most rewarding moments of a romance without the narrative connective tissue to build audience investment. They almost always fall flat…

...is what I was going to say, but I have to admit, by the end of Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, I was charmed. Endeared, even. Izumi's adoration of his very cool girlfriend had wormed its way into my heart.

The first few segments - I hesitate to even call them chapters - left me as cold as is usual for this kind of romance. They followed an extremely rote formula: Izumi comments on how cute his girlfriend is, something unfortunate almost happens to him, Shikimori steps in, there's a close-up on her looking cool, and the segment closes with Izumi thinking about how cool she is. About a third through, though, the chapters start getting longer and less formulaic, and I could start appreciating the volume's merits.

The thing is, Izumi and Shikimori's dynamic hits on quite a few of my personal preferences. “Cool” male characters have always been some of my least favorite, but cool girls? They're great. Shikimori isn't gender nonconforming in overall presentation – she's actually pretty feminine overall – so there's a fun gap between that and her protectiveness toward Izumi. (Although, I'd still be pretty into it if she were more butch, come to think of it.) Plus, they're overall a functional couple that cares for and treats one another well, which I always love to see.

Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie won't work for everyone, but if you like gentle role-reversal between two people who act toward each other with kindness in your romance, it's worth a look.