オトメン(乙男) 9

Otomen #9

by Aya Kanno, Aya Kanno

男子は質実剛健たるべし、女子は清楚可憐たるべしという新校訓を掲げ、オトメンへの取り締まりを強める正宗春日。理事長代理にして風紀委員でもある春日は、あるきっかけから充太の秘密に気付き…。それに対して充太の潔白を信じる飛鳥、そして秘密を守ろうとする充太は!?

Genres: Manga, Romance, Shojo, Graphic Novels, Young Adult, Comics, Humor

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 2009

About the author

Aya Kanno (菅野文; Kanno Aya) is a Japanese shōjo manga artist.

Former assistant of mangaka Masashi Asaki of Psychometrer Eiji fame, she made her debut in the January 2001 issue of Hakusensha's magazine "Hana to Yume" with Soul Rescue. Her works include Otomen.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This new committee is really causing problems for Asuka and friends. His cousin is such a jerk. Even when we find out why he hates Asuka it is a stupid reason that isn't Asuka's fault! Ugh!! Although when he gets the truth of what happens in this volume I fear he will hate him more...
Juta is targeted by him for his artwork. The lengths he goes to prove he is Jewel and the lengths Juta's friends go to cover for him amaze me. Yet Juta still hides the truth for Asuka which I find so sad...
This volume cracked me up a few times! Lots of fun and light-hearted. Go Juta!

[Michael (Mai) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good again. Ryo and Asuka are pretty good in their relationship for this installment. Instead they have to worry about a morals committee that is lead by Asuka's estranged cousin. The committee is pushing conventional gender roles down everyone's throats and everyone is learning how to deal with it.

[teacupsandunicorns · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I love how this challenges that we NEED to fit into these boxes and play these roles in order to find love and be worthy of love. This shows how this is not the case in reality, but we have absolutely been brainwashed into doing so. But being feminine or masculine does not make you inherently worthy or unworthy. True love will find you if you be yourself and look for someone to accept you as you and you accept them as them.

This one girl is the perfect girly girl and is angry that a masculine girl found love. She needs to believe that only feminine girls get boys to love or else all her work is futile and based on a lie.

Even when she is proven wrong, she buckled down more on her belief as like a fellowship with these girly girls and manly men. It’s more of a fellowship of thought even if it doesn’t produce real love even though they promise it provides true love and happiness but they’re proven time and time again that it doesn’t. But they still subscribe to this thought process because the people forcing these rules can stick together and agree with each other and placate each other.

[melhara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is part of a personal challenge to: 1) read more French books; 2) improve my French; 3) read all the French manga novels from my mom's manga collection. Seeing as I read this book in French, the rest of this review will be in French (duh).
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Cette critique fait partie d'un défi personnel: d’améliorer mon français!

Cette tome continue là où le volume 8 s'est arrêté et se concentre principalement sur le nouveau régime strict mis en place à l'école d'Asuka - pour faire respecter les stéréotypes de genre en promouvant les "manly-men" et "girly-girls". J'ai particulièrement aimé le chapitre sur l'objectif de Kasuga de révéler le secret de Juta. Ce volume était très amusant et est probablement mon tome préféré pour le moment.
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Note moyenne de la série: 4.1/5
Critiques pour le reste de la série:
Tome 1 | Tome 2 | Tome 3 | Tome 4 | Tome 5 | Tome 6 | Tome 7 | Tome 8 | Tome 9 | Tome 10 | Tome 11 | Tome 12 | Tome 13 | Tome 14 | Tome 15 | Tome 16 | Tome 17 | Tome 18

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today's post is on Otomen volume 9 by Aya Kanno. It is the ninth in her Otomen series. It is 200 pages long and is publishes by Shojo Beat. As this is the ninth volume in this series, you need to have read the first eight volumes to understand the story. The cover a dark blue has Asuka holding a wooden sword and is looking at the reader with flowers blooming in the background. The intended reader is someone who likes shojo manga, humor, and love stories. There is no foul language, no sex, and very mild violence in this manga. The story is told from third person close of the main character with moments of the other characters added in for plot development. There Be Spoilers Ahead.


From the back of the book- An anti-otomen campaign takes over the school! Asuka's cousin and campaign enforcer Kasuga Masamune starts hunting down boys who have even an ounce of girly traits in them--and his first target is...?!


Review- This whole volume is about a single story line. We get to see why Asuk'a cousin is going all out against him and all otomen. He misgendered Asuka when they were children and get his heart broken because of it. Juta is being targeted because his story line notebook is discovered. But with some quick work by his friends and manga mentor, he is saved but just barely. But Ryo has come under the attention of one of the teacher's who only wants to ruin boys and men. She had her heart broken by a selfish boy and now she lives to manipulate the boys she teaches. But Asuka only has eyes for Ryo and makes the teacher angry. She is now planning his downfall. But will true love win over gender expectations or will Asuka fall before the campaign?


I give this volume at Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I bought this manga with my own money.

[Mizu · Rating 3 out of 5]

🌸SYNOPSIS
The school has changed for the worse, if you are an Otomen, even then, if one does not fit in the new rules of “Men have to be Manly and Women have to be girly”, you may as well transfer now since a new Anti-Otomen regime has been placed by Asuka’s mother but not only that but it seems that Kasuga has come in to make sure it stays like that.
Asuka may be in trouble since his cousin has turned his eyes on Asuka and his friends. Beware dear Otomen, for you are one girly thing away from being expelled!

🌸OPINION
I have a love hate for this storyline since I can relate to someone like Ryo where I am not a girly girl. Even minor characters like Yamato is being targeted for his looks, considering that is something he has very little control over. Then again, Kasuga’s hate for Otomen came from his own stupidity due to not really getting to know his cousin. Asuka’s mother is just afraid of something she clearly doesn’t want to understand cause of one bad incident.
I do enjoy the concept it is addressing since it is still a thing that occurs in most societies and it reminds me that I am lucky that not much is overly expected of me but it does give a good insight to others and their ordeals and how they would address it, debatably in a shoujo manga world but there is usually truths in stories.

🌸PRO
Finally a solid storyline that has to do with the main story.

🌸CON
The theme makes me want to punch someone.

🌸FINAL SAY
“Changing this girl is impossible”
Which is true, you can’t change someone who is not willing to change and this volume is all about trying to force a change that a lot of people doesn’t want. While inciting a witch hunt with rewards and benefits is just so wrong since it doesn’t really change a person deep down. Sometimes, it even changes people for the worse, like me reading this and wanting to punt the manga out the window.

[Amy Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it's fascinating that the main focus of this series has been shifting away from the relationship between Asuka and Ryo toward the secret between Juta/Jewel and Asuka. Juta's terrified of what will happen if his friends discover he's the famous Jewel Sachihana. When he becomes the target of Asuka's cousin in his otomen purge, Juta goes to some pretty extreme lengths to hide his identity. But what makes it worth it is discovering just how devoted Asuka is to his friend, and just how far he's willing to go to help him.

Not much else to say. It's a fun volume, there are some nice twists and turns, and some heat is put on Ryo when one of the new teachers, Ms. Moematsu tries to catch Asuka's eye. Every other guy is just falling all over her and her feminine charms, but Asuka is clearly in love with a girl who's pretty but "unfeminine." If this series continues the way I think it will, nothing much will change in Ryo's attitude, but instead, we'll see more of Ms. Moematsu's true self and find she's not at all who she appears to be.

Not that I mind it. In fact, I'm looking forward to vol. 10.

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how so many women in this series are men in disguise. It's just so over the top in every way, yet I kind of feel just like the characters when I read it. I love cute things much more than normal lol.

[Sunni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was rather interesting learning how Asuka's cousin used to feel about him.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

That actually made my heart pound! I love the chapter about Jewel Sachihana's identity!!! And i love the bond that the friends have!

[Katt Hansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now she has gone too far! Asuka's mother has invaded his school and is stamping down on anything that isn't gender appropriate. I swear, she's trying to set back gender equality about 100 years and that anyone would go along with this at all is a sign of absolute idiocy.

Juta almost comes clean, which makes me wonder just how long that particular plot device is going to last. Good grief, just tell the truth already!

Overall, I'm still reading, though I'm not liking the plot at this point and STILL have yet to see anyone really grow up at all. Ryo is still a cardboard cutout of a love interest. If my daughter weren't reading this and I wanted to use this as a bonding moment, I'd probably have given up by now.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kasuga investigates,and nearly discovers that Juta is the shojo manga author,except his friends band together and get him out of the hot spot.

Asuka accidentally also discovers Juta’s alternate identity but chooses to not confront his friend about it.

And one of the new teachers tries to to make Ryo more feminine to little success and gets surprised that a boy like Asuka could ever fall for a girl like that.

[Jennifer]

There are things I enjoy about this series, but it is also a little annoying. It doesn’t feel like the story has a stable foundation - it skips oddly from comedic to more serious, and events seem to get flossed over. The current arc is ridiculous with the mom and her crackdown.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5!

[Sara Casalino · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was hilarious! I loved it!

[Brogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spending the previous volumes strengthening their relationships really pays off as the conflict suddenly starts to ramp up in this volume!

[chex · Rating 5 out of 5]

it’s so frustrating how no one is allowed to be themselves. askua and ryo are so freaking cute as always tho 😍

[Marsha · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume shifts its focus away from Asuka and Ryo to the new situation at Ginyuri Academy. Asuka’s mother has instituted her policies to encourage manly men and girly girls with dismaying results. Students are turning against one another in the hope of promotion or fear of expulsion. The otomen boys find themselves under attack for their girlish habits; poor Yamato is singled out simply for his boyish features, which nature has given him and he’s striven in vain to overcome.

Most of the main characters seem to be operating under some hidden wound or childhood secret that has warped their views on masculinity and femininity. The only person who seems level headed enough to weather the storm is the always emotionally opaque Ryo. Originally annoyed at her seeming smiling indifference, I have come to understand and accept her calm attitude as compared to the jittery immaturity in the boys around her. She has never suffered the censorship of an angry parent or the rejection of a lover who found her deficient in some way. Thus Ryo has come to terms with the fact that she’s not adept in cooking, sewing or cleaning and she’s a tough martial arts fighter, a fact that fills her cop father with a great deal of pride.

However, the Ginyuri otomen boys lack her mellowness. All of them—Asuka, Kitora, Juta and Yamato—have been hurt by rejection and abandonment and that distorts their public behavior. Even Asuka’s cousin Kasuga, leader of the Anti-Otomen brigade, is laboring under a childhood event that fills him with hatred for the baffled Asuka. Perhaps this explains why Asuka is the only one of them in a relationship with a girl. Juta is a playboy with no steady girlfriend. Kitora is creepily obsessed with flowers to the exclusion of all else. Yamato keeps tripping over his own delusions about manly behavior. Even Tonomine, from another school, only sees women as a canvas for beauty products; he can’t seem to relate to them as people at all.

All this aside, there are certain dramatic holes that are glaringly apparent to even the most casual reader. Asuka’s mother is no fainting lily that will collapse and die if she finds out her son has girly habits but a strong-willed dragon queen who isn’t above emotionally manipulating her own son. But why does no one point out what hypocrisy it is for this woman, who heads the school, rules with an iron fist and frequently travels abroad leaving her son alone, to insist on traditional feminine pursuits for women (cooking, cleaning, sewing, flower arrangement, demureness, cuteness, etc.) that will befit them only to become housewives? Why has none of the committee under her leadership taken the time to look into the background of the four replacement teachers, all of them so unorthodox that they were rejected by other schools, an ominous warning of their incompetence to deal with students?

While such considerations might be considered dismissible (this is a manga, not a novel), the serious turn this volume has taken demands that such questions can’t be overlooked. It’s difficult to believe this level of blindness in scholastic faculty could exist. One bad teacher might slip through the cracks, leave a school after an embarrassing scandal and resurface elsewhere to commit misdemeanors. But four of them? Utterly ridiculous.

Let’s hope subsequent volumes can make up for such huge character lapses.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The traditional gender roles campaign at Asuka and Ryo's school is in full swing in this volume, lead by Asuka's cousin. I don't think I like this storyline much. I have a hard time believing that the parents of all of these students would approve of the academy firing all of the competent teachers, hiring incompetent ones that can't keep a teaching job, and ditch the curriculum entirely in favor of traditional gender role training and nothing else. How are these kids going to perform on their university entrance exams? I know, realism is optional if it advances the storyline, but still.

[Jade Vidal · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Otomen Volume 9, Asuka's older cousin comes in and changes all the school rules! He makes all the tom-boy girls girly and the cake-baking boys manly. His cousin thought when him and Asuka were little thought that Asuka was a girl. So, his cousin hates him now that he found out that he's actually a guy.

I love this volume because his cousin is so cute!

I was annoyed that his cousin stalked him the entire book.

[Mariah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The situation at the academy is scary. I mean not all people are the same but the school demands oneness in the ideals of manliness and feminism. To hide your true self is to lie to oneself which, in the end, is never good.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like Juta finally telling Asuka the truth about his work as a mangaka is the driving question of this story--far more so than the rather tepid romance between Asuka and Ryo. I also think Kanno isn't likely to resolve it in any meaningful way, but I'm determined to read to the end.

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great volume filled with interesting twists and great character developments. I am looking forward to reading the next volume.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Juta's manga in class is very amusing!
I'M IN LOVE WITH YOUR FISTS!!!

[nidah05 (SleepDreamWrite) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good volume. Story takes a new but interesting turn. Series good as ever.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still an interesting series, though not entirely deep. Quite fluffy, but enjoyable.

[Pinky · Rating 3 out of 5]

School reforms might prove too much the otomen. Kasuga threatens to reveal Juta's secret life as Jewel Sachihana.

[Kereesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

And the crazy Jewel scenarios continue....

and go increasingly crazier....

3/5

[Rici · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wieder ziemlich süß, dazu kommt, dass wir fast den wahren Autor von Love Tick gesehen hätten, wie sein Geheimnis öffentlich gezeigt wurde. Und dann haben wir auch noch den Anbeginn der Lehrer, die versuchen wollen alles zu verändern. Besonders die eine lehrerin ist sehr manipulativ.