Poor Fumi is, literally, poor and that’s even before she contracts a near-fatal case of Bad Manga Dad Syndrome. With her home taken out from under her, she’s forced to work as housekeeper for Akatsuki, a novelist with a savage glare and harsh tongue and all the other stuff you expect to slowly melt over time.
Now this is more like it. No offence to Mika Yamamori, but I find In The Clear Moonlit Dusk kind of a chore, since it seems fixated on a girl’s desire to be seen as every other girl rather than celebrating how cool she is. This, however, feels adjacent to Daytime Shooting Star in the best sense of the word.
It isn’t up there with that story, which is probably a genre classic for me, but it cribs enough from its predecessor while doing something sort-of new. Fumi is a great character, all business and money, but without letting it drag her down. She’s very easy to spend time with.
Akatsuki hasn’t done much so far, except what’s expected of him. He has to look good, need to be cared for, and make with the tsundere until he thaws out and the sparks start flying. It’s all pretty obvious, but this sort of stuff is completely Yamamori’s wheelhouse and she gets the dynamic just right.
Part of me wonders if this is in direct response to her earlier series, just because it appears to be leaning hard into the potential age gap thing yet again, despite somebody with the weirdest reason to hate Fumi showing up later on to fill out the rival role.
Either way, it’s very easy on the eyes and entertains the brain, so it’s impossible to say that I didn’t enjoy this story. It was a hoot and when the relationships are playing off one another it does a good job. There aren’t many gut-busting laughs, but there’s some strong comedic chops in all this.
Now, it’s not perfect. Our aforementioned rival is a bit of an arse and I don’t enjoy storylines based on coercing people into slavery as a general rule (look, that’s what happens!).
This also leans so hard on tropes that it isn’t funny, between deadbeat dad and the rival and the ‘hot but angry now less angry’ male lead and ye olde panty theft (this looks like it’s about to be a hero moment until it does what we expect of it), which presumably snuck in from an old shonen magazine.
Overall, however, it’s worthwhile because it’s mostly written well. When the story makes a misstep or two it tends to correct itself pretty quickly or go off on some other amusing tangent. I’ve got plenty of rope for this mangaka based on how good Daytime Shooting Star ended up.
3.5 stars - no rounding up because this needs to get itself figured out and I want to see where it’s heading. Still, even if it exists in a typical space, they’ve put up some really nice wallpaper.