Eiko, une jeune femme célibataire de 29 ans, passionnée de jeux vidéo, se sent de plus en plus seule car toutes ses copines la lâchent les unes après les autres pour se marier. Un beau jour, Koigakubo, un splendide jeune homme, débarque dans sa vie professionnelle. Lors d'une soirée arrosée entre collègues, ce dernier lui fait une proposition étonnante : devenir son coach en amour !
This is a really interesting title because they do not bang until volume 2...I wonder if its a translation error or if it means something else colloquially... it is her first kiss
On the cusp of 30, noted wallflower Kagehara is indispensable to her workplace, but just as hard-working when it comes to her favourite MMO game. When her bestie quits the game to get married, Kagehara has an existential crisis that collides with the introduction of Koigakubo, a hot young guy working with Kagehara’s company. Now he’s offering love lessons, but Kagehara might not be the only person learning a few things.
Okay, so this doesn’t start off great, but it definitely gets better by the end. There’s a lot of introvert dissing that leads this volume off, as if that’s some horrible affliction that Kagehara needs to be cured of, and Koigakubo comes more than a little close to taking advantage when she gets very, very drunk in the face of bad news (given the mangaka’s previous series, With the Sheik in his Harem, this is not terribly surprising).
We also see that he’s more than a little bit of a shark in these waters, clearly angling to toy with Kagehara a bit while also going after a proper girlfriend simultaneously, using his traditional methods to keep them on the line. And if they want to be chased? That’s for lesser men, not this guy.
Which is all to say that the line between smooth mover and dickhead is precariously thin, so it’s rather a nice touch when things start to change towards the end of the book and we see that, whatever Koigakubo might have thought of Kagehara at first, there’s more than a little charm beneath her exterior as well.
So while I don’t love his character, he definitely ends up being the one in pursuit, once Kagehara turns out to be perfectly content with the couple of experiences she’s received from him because she feels that was more than she’d ever hoped for. That little reversal makes this end much better than it starts.
It’s still not the most healthy set-up going, with Kagehara turning on a dime from being happy gamer girl to crying mess because she’s losing a friend to marriage and such. I do like older leads in shojo, but having Kagehara be such a virginal milquetoast kind of turns her into a high school girl with the serial numbers filed off.
And there’s nothing wrong with being a virginal milquetoast! But this story sure seems to think there is and it’s kind of annoying to see the suggestion that there’s something wrong with Kagehara enjoying life on her terms. Not to mention her tragic past experiences that clearly show that the problem isn’t with her.
There’s enough of her being a uniquely popular gamer in the MMO she plays, a fairly cute mash-up of Animal Crossing and Monster Hunter, with lots of generosity and creativity, but there’s also a lot of implied judgement over her using it as a safe space. Her own fear that nobody will ever need her as her workplace needs her desperately is kind of odd.
Eh, I am probably being grumpy. Like I said, the later chapters are way better once the tables are turned and Kagehara gets to really strut her stuff and shows how caring and thoughtful she is no matter what the situation. Koigakubo gets to finally come around on accepting her too.
That will be enough to get me in for another volume because the idea that he’s now coming calling to her not out of pity, but because he’s realizing she’s a catch is a decent point to launch the rest of the story from.
It doesn’t help that this is trying very hard to be funny, but kind of isn’t. Kagehara’s flailing achieves very little and is often at odds with her reserved nature in favour of a joke and some of the goofier drawings like her boss are very distracting. Also, I still can’t figure out what the heck the company does or is doing with Koigakubo’s company.
3 stars - my general annoyance at seeing a confident working woman act like she just got visited by the puberty fairy over a cute guy aside, this kind of figures itself out by the end and there’s the hint that this could definitely be something better by next time.
3.5-4 stars. Don't let the title fool you, as this is more sweet and wholesome (at least in vol 1) than the title would lead one to believe. I really enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised. Leaning more to 4 stars.
Okay, this was really cute?! I got this because it was listed as a shoujo, and it was correctly labeled. It intially sounded like it would be really risqué based on the title alone, but it was honestly adorable and cutesy. It's nice reading about older characters around my age, as I typically go for high-school themed storylines. この本はかわいいでした。よかった。
Ehehehe, apparently I'm on a FMC otaku reading spree.
FMC is a 27-29 (I forget) gaming otaku who has zero interest in romance. In comes an office merger and she works closely with this younger guy (23) who offers to help her learn about love and relationships after a night of drinking! She thinks he has ulterior motives, he's warming up to her, things are so cute, I cannot.
Volume ends at the end of their first date where she's about to let him off the hook from these lessons but he asks her to not end their relationship with a kiss.
Masih ongoing, tapi sejauh ini bacanya asik banget haha
Okay, jadi Koigakubo jelas banget SUS di awal! Ya gimana nggak ya kan :DDD Tapi terus cerita berkembang ke arah yang lebih bagus dan manis. Suka banget karena Koigakubo juga tuh menghormati dan hubungan mereka juga pake consent. Awal volume tuh masih aman btw, tapi lama-lama scene-nya makin panas 🔥
This is so cute & very humorous!! I love Eiko as a main character. She's very relatable, I also wish my friends would stop growing up and just play video games with me all the time like before :')
Vol. 1 sets the stage for the potential love story between Eiko, a hardworking, introverted office drone whose one joy is being a dedicated MMM gamer and Koigakubo, her younger, charismatic, popular new office colleague. This is definitely a slow-burn romance because as of now, Koigakubo is just being Eiko’s Love Guru. The plot line and progression is predictable, cheesy and yet comforting in its familiarity. Both the leads are likeable and you want to see not only Eiko but also Koigakubo hone their entrenched personalities, grow emotionally and be together in a relationship of mutual respect and love.
This is not as risqué as it sounds. It's OK but it's not really stand out, and the main character is too much of a recluse for me. Like, I'm a homebody, and she makes me seem like an outgoing extrovert.
*Also, there's already a word for shojo for adult women: josei, which this definitely is*
This is really cute. Both leads are immensely likable. Eiko is nearing 30 and has never been in love or done anything slightly romantic whatsoever. A work colleague who is much younger, Koigakubo is the opposite. He’s got plenty of love experience and feels like it’s his duty to help her get the gist of things because she helped him out so selflessly during a game raid a while back and he’s never forgotten that kindness. Eiko isn’t so sure because she thinks this hot, young popular guy should be spending his time doing other things than help her. But on reflecting her horrible experiences with never being desired and getting a good shove by her bestie she decides to learn from him. Not gonna lie, this felt so slow for the first half. And I can relate to my gloomy introverts, but her demeanor was starting to grate on my nerves a bit. But then we see how she’s a truly hardworking person who cares a lot about others and does acts of kindness without ever expecting anything back in return. And I think that calls to something deep inside Koigakubo to seek her out and help her and actually want to know her more. So has this type of story been done to death already? Yeah, gods yes! But it’s still got plenty of charm and that cliffhanger is gold!! And my deciding factor in staying tuned for volume two. Because their fake relationship is going too smoothly and I think so bumps in the road are bound to pop up and I want to see what happens.
This was actually so funny and cute, and made my heart flutter. (Don't let the title scare you into thinking it's spicy. It's not. Well, not yet at least)
I'm still a little suspicious of Koigakubo, so we'll see how that goes.
J'ai aimé que le personnage féminin soit une gameuse à fond dans son univers. Et oui, c'est super cliché, mais cette lecture m'a fait du bien et j'étais totalement emportée. J'ai été attendrie et j'ai pas mal ri aussi. Je suis donc maintenant super curieuse de l'évolution de la situation.
Résumé : Eiko, jeune femme introvertie de 29 ans, n’a jamais connu l’amour ; elle préfère de loin passer tout son temps libre sur « Animal Hunter World », un jeu en ligne dans lequel elle a acquis au fil des années une certaine renommée. Mais lorsque sa partenaire de jeu et meilleure amie lui annonce qu’elle va se marier, et donc cesser de se connecter aussi souvent, elle noie son chagrin dans l’alcool lors d’une soirée avec ses collègues. Le lendemain matin, elle se réveille aux côtés de Koigakubo, son nouveau collègue de travail, jeune et séduisant, qui se propose de devenir son coach amoureux !
Avis : Shojo adulte (scènes explicites dans les tomes suivants) qui suit un schéma assez typique ; la jeune femme complètement novice et timide, avec le petit côté geek en plus, et le jeune homme très populaire et séduisant qui n’a jamais eu de relations sérieuses avant (mais tout est différent avec elle, bien entendu ! ). L’originalité réside plutôt dans l’écart d’âge, et donc de leurs préoccupations respectives ; Eiko approche de la trentaine, et ses amies autour d’elles sont toutes en train de se marier et d’avoir des enfants, tandis que le jeune homme ne fait que commencer sa carrière, et évolue dans une bande plutôt cosmopolite. Les dessins sont propres, et agréables à découvrir ; point important, le protagoniste masculin est loin d’être toxique ou insupportable (on a le droit à des crises de jalousie, mais rien de trop possessif ou borderline manipulateur). 7 tomes en cours au Japon. Plutôt sympa dans l’ensemble, même si ça ne renouvelle pas le genre.
I was surprised at how earnest this story was despite the premise of a man helping Eiko learn to be in love/a girlfriend.
It's going to be really emotional and relatable to anyone who has felt like Eiko before, lonely, overlooked, and boring. One thing she feels embarrassed about is enjoying a children's game (think: gacha games or pokemon). That's real! There's a tendency to feel bad as an adult for enjoying something for youth in your leisure time. :o
Wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but it's very cute. The characters are fun, like their designs. The inciting incident is a good blend of Romance Reasons and realistic--I can see how Kagehara would hit a low point and make an impulsive decision to get wasted to drown out her problems. I hope we get a bit more of her friend in later volumes.
I didn’t expect to think this was cute, but it really was! Something about the female lead's inexperience with love and the male lead's almost overexperience? Romance is not a game to him, but it is a skill, to the point where he treats it a little callously but not too callously, and never callously towards her. Sweet!
Just a pretty wholesome romance shoujo about a gamer girl x popular boi in love. However I hate the fact that they say the girls in this are "running out of time" just because they are nearing end of their 20s like dude how ageism can you get?! Just back off!
Story drags a bit at first but definitely picks up in the last chapter or so. I'm not sure about the male lead as his intention are a bit sus, but at least the age gap isn't the usual type, it's a bit refreshing.
I’m hooked. I think this is pretty relatable to when you feel socially awkward and I think in our current social atmosphere where people have trouble making interpersonal relationships of the romantic kind. The title is weird but the manga doesn’t seem to be.
Eiko is very cute, I think she prioritized her hobbies after being let down by people, which led her to be shut down and not date anyone. Koigakubo is more experienced than her, and is trying to repay her kindness in the game animal hunter, but is that all? Or is he starting to enjoy her company?