Name: ケダモノ彼氏 9 (マーガレットコミックスDIGITAL) (Japanese Edition)
Rating: 4.06 (6 reviews)

Bibliothecat

1,797 reviews80 followers

October 11, 2025

Review for complete series

A Note on Aikawa Saki
If you've read one, you've read them all.
If there's an author who I love and read despite my better judgment, it's Aikawa Saki. I absolutely adore her artwork. However, her plots and characters are virtually all the same and filled with cliches. Knowing all that, I still seem to love each and every one of her works.

Himari's mother has married again so a new home and school are waiting for her as they move to live with their new family. The first shock comes when Himari finds out the boy who used to bully her years before is in her new class. The second shock comes when she arrives at home - he is also her new stepbrother.

Stepsiblings falling in love seems a popular trope in manga. I don't mind the trope itself so much but I am rather surprised how each time the parents rush into things. By that, I mean that they get married and move together before their children get a chance to meet each other; wouldn't it be more normal to gradually let the two families get used to one another rather than having first introductions take place in the doorway of the new house?

Either way, Aikawa Saki does it again: Kedamono Kareshi's characters, situations and plot directions are more or less interchangeable with all her other school romances. And despite that, she once again manages to make me love it. Himari and her new stepbrother Keita are much the same as all her other protagonists. Although, this may be down to translation, but the way Keita talks reads as though he's never been to school in his life. I suppose they were opting for a cool slag or something, and my guess is he did have some form of slang in the Japanese original, but goodness it's irritating, especially for a character who is supposed to have good grades. Luckily, I can more or less ignore it and just mentally change his dialogue to normal speech.

To be fair in Himari, I think she is a tad more assertive than previous Aikawa female leads and she is a lot more clear about what she does and doesn't want. Meanwhile, there's also Saeki - the friendly classmate who Himari initially falls for. Poor Saeki, I think Aikawa really needs to make a manga where at least for once, the nice guy gets the girl. Aikawa always adds quite a few love rivals and Kedamono Kareshi makes no exception, introducing a total of three boys who are genuinely interested in Himari. The problem is that she always makes them all perfectly likeable so that at the end, you don't even know which one you're rooting for.

That being said, I really did like Keita - the teasing in their early school days was your typical boy teasing the girl he likes. Himari would probably disagree, but from a reader's perspective, it was pretty cute. His teasing ways continue as they're older but he also shows a lot of care for Himari and becomes rather cute when he realises that he likes her.

Of course, the main issue lies with them being stepsiblings and how their parents and society would accept it. While it doesn't seem to be a big deal at school - rather, they are often suspected - they mostly worry about their parents. I like how Himari and Keita reacted differently about these worries, with one being more cautious and considerate of the other. Especially Himari's struggles were well written.

I felt as though the end was a little rushed and some things dragged a little with their back and forth. It's also Aikawa's longest series to date and I've never been a big fan of drawn-out Romance stories, but apart from the rush at the end, Kedamono Kareshi has good pacing and as always with Aikawa, the art is beautiful - I would read this entire series just for that.

home-library-comics

Catwithbooks

2,401 reviews9 followers

February 18, 2018

Eigentlich wollten Himari und Keita mit ihren Eltern über sich reden, doch die haben was Missverstanden und Keita und Himari kamen nicht mehr dazu das Ganze aufzuklären. Jetzt sind die beiden allein zu Hause und können so nu sich was näher kommen. Doch Himari fühlt sich dabei nicht wohl und möchte das die Eltern erst noch Bescheid wissen. Sehr zum Verdruss für Keita.

Es könnte alles so einfach sein nachdem die Eltern auf Grund des Jobangebots von Keitas Vater nun alleine sind. Doch da ja das Gespräch mit den Eltern nicht stattgefunden hat, weil diese irrtümlich glaubten die Kinder sind nur deshalb dagegen dass Himari mit kommt weil diese sich nun verstehen. Himari möchte aber erst noch klare Verhältnisse mit den Eltern schaffen, denn die Familie ist ihr nach wie vor wichtig. Dank Kurados auftauchen an ihrer Schule gibt es direkt wieder ein Missverständnis, eins das Keita überhaupt nicht paßt. Aber auch seine Ex taucht wieder auf und kommt dem Geheimnis der beiden sehr nahe.
An sich passiert hier so einiges, aber was ich nicht verstehe dass die beiden das nicht mit den Eltern klären konnten. Okay es soll halt so sein aber ist doch was Realitätsfern in dem Fall. Das sind dann immer so die Sachen wo ich nicht weiter drüber nachdenken darf und die Geschichte einfach Geschichte sein lassen muss.
Saeki tut mir schon ein wenig leid, da er sich ja in den letzten Bändern doch viel Mühe gemacht hat, aber ob seine Gefühle wirklich real sind für Himari?
Kurado ist noch schwer einzuschätzen. Irgendwie hilft er Himari immer zur rechten Zeit, etwas was sonst meist immer Keita geschafft hat. So recht weiss ich immer noch nicht was ich von ihm halten soll. Er hat nicht so eine raue Schale wie Keita sie anfangs hatte, aber doch im großen und ganzen ist er sehr direkt mit allen. Vom Äußeren unterscheidet er sich sehr von Keita und Saeki. Wobei mir da nu Kana einfällt, sie sieht Himarie extrem ähnlich und sowas mag ich ja nicht, aber ich frage mich hier ob Keita nicht immer Mädchen hatte die Himari äußerlich geähnelt haben.
Toll fand ich hier wieder das Bonuskapitel, diese ist mehr als aufschlussreich und ein muss!

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