The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Romantic Killer

What's It About? 

Romantic Killer has story and art by Wataru Momose, with English translation by Adrienne Beck, and Viz will release its first volume both digitally and physically on October 4

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Let me just say, if some teddy bear fairy popped into my life and kidnapped my cats (or dog), I would squash that sucker like the roach it clearly is. That's what happens to Anzu, who one terrible day has her beloved cat Momohiki, all of her games and consoles, and her chocolate confiscated by a nasty little bugger named Riri, a magical fairy. Apparently Japan's declining birthrate is adversely affecting the magic world, which doesn't have enough dreams and whimsy to keep fairies employed, so Riri is part of a program to force people uninterested in romance into cheesy shoujo manga scenarios so that they fall in love and have kids (dammit).

I'll admit that this made me leery at first, even without taking into account the fact that I read this volume a few days after I lost my sixteen-year-old cat Big Al. Largely that's because from a certain, possibly overthought, perspective, what Riri is doing is explicitly forcing Anzu into a situation she neither wants nor is comfortable with. Add to that the fact that the little imp makes it clear that he doesn't give a damn about whether she's anywhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, and it's a premise that can be a little uncomfortable. We don't all find hot guys sexually appealing.

It does, however, become abundantly clear that's not remotely the point here, although it still feels a little uncomfortable. What Romantic Killer turns out to be is a send-up of all of the silly shoujo romance tropes that have existed since the genre came into its own, with Anzu as its very unwilling heroine. Riri pulls no punches, as we would expect of a catnapper, whipping out the hoariest of tropes and flinging them around with mad abandon. No sooner has Anzu been informed of her role in his play than her dad comes home and announces that he's been randomly transferred to New York – even though he works at the Japanese post office. Anzu calls Riri out on this, but he's already flinging Hot Guy #1 in her face with as many meet cutes as he can devise before giving up and just conjuring up a typhoon so that he'll be stranded at her house overnight…and then destroying his house to prolong the cohabitation. The icing on the cake is when he randomly makes some poor boy Anzu's long-lost childhood friend who has been in love with her since elementary school but never said anything because reasons (you know, that old chestnut). Riri is in this to win it…but Anzu's not just going to sit back and become the fluffy, dewy-eyed heroine he wants. It's a battle between tropes and real(ish) life, and it is funny.

As a potential added bonus, this is also in full color. The art has a vague Eiichiro Oda look to it, and it's a little off-putting that we have to be specifically told that the guys are hot (they really don't look all that different from the non-hot ones), but the way Riri is drawn works really well. The series is complete at four volumes, which is either just long enough or means it's going to have a rushed ending, but I'm definitely here to see what happens. I hope Anzu gets her cat back.

Christopher Farris

Rating:

Romantic Killer starts off strong, introducing its romance-averse lead Anzu as an extremely sympathetic center of its setup. The situational satire of the gimmick Anzu gets thrust into also works well, since unlike a lot of other stories that attempt to carry out Shinzo Abe's dying wish of raising the birth rate, this one is hilariously upfront about the main motivation behind that: keeping the wheels of capitalism moving. It's just in this case the involved economy is a fantastical fairy realm that's running low on the sparkly innocence of children, necessitating magical interference in trying to steer the likes of Anzu into getting busy. It's all an appreciably absurd framing that somewhat softens the blow of, ostensibly, a story about trying to force a girl who can very clearly be read as aro/ace into a practice she has no interest in.

There are a few angles of Romantic Killer that can feel iffy in that way. Anzu's developing relationship with the seemingly-aloof Kazuki reveals his own anti-romantic tendencies, resulting in him coming off as actually pretty cool. It does sell a believably genuine connection between the two, but also comes with the danger of swerving into treating Anzu's appeal as being 'Not Like Other Girls', as Kazuki warms to her specifically because she's aggressively affecting the opposite presentation of any of the more generic lovestruck fangirls who follow him around. But then the pair's mutual appreciation for each other really does have a sense of solidarity to it as they (for the time) stake out their exasperated insistence on romantic disinterest. So even if there's no way a story like this could commit to the potential of the aro/ace angle, depicting their genuinely healthy chemistry still comes off as an entertaining option.

That's the appeal of Romantic Killer, in that it's still largely a delight to read through in spite of those questionable elements. Anzu really is an eminently engaging heroine, especially as she soon ceases the more expected panicked reactions to her ongoing romantic-comedy contrivances and instead resolves to face them head-on. It's one of the few good instances of the old "We're doing a stock trope but we're self-aware of it" joke, since the plot contrivances are the plot, and also because the heroine notably pushes back against them every step of the way. Some of the full-color art can seem a little stiff or flat in places, but it's largely made up for by the energy carried by the reactions and Anzu's extreme meme faces. There is one more side-eye-worthy plot development dropped in at the very end of this volume, but that's an issue to consider as it develops in the future. For now, Romantic Killer is a very pleasant surprise, worth checking out for its strong self-awareness driven by one of the most entertaining heroines of the year.