CotV: My Girlfriend's a Geek vol 1
“Don’t worry kiddo! We’re living in a modern world
were boys can be brides, queens and concubines!”
Another volume by volume review and this time we have the shojo title My Girlfriend’s a Geek. It’s also the first to use the title ‘Crank out the Volume’ Now we aren’t talking about the cool and sexy geeks like Konata from Lucky Star or Katie from No Ordinary Family but something rather different. For those out there who know some Japanese she is a fujoshi for everyone else wouldn’t it be fun if we found out along with the lead? Well I do so we are going to do it that way. Back on the 11 of august 2005 a blog appeared on the web by a man known only as Pentabu, I have no idea if that’s his real name but that’s all that’s credited for the story, this blog recounted his dealings with his new girlfriend. This was eventually compiled into a novel which I haven’t read but I have read the preview in the back and plan to get it so I’ll make a comparison later but for now let’s focus on the manga adaptation by Rize Shinba. So let’s take a look at My Girlfriend’s a Geek volume 1 shall we?
A quick note on the visuals and storytelling style. This is a shojo manga, which means it is aimed at girls, and as I have noticed shojo tends to be a lot softer and slightly blurred compared to shonen’s tendency towards sharp and clear visuals. It is not as cut and dry as this though and each has its own sub styles but it is generally true. This series is far clearer than manga like Sailor Moon or My Barbaric Girlfriend but still softer and gentler than Negima or Bleach. I personally like it either way and really I will read anything that catches my eye. I also find that Shojo can have really interesting stories that shonen sometimes but other times they are just really girly.
We open on our hero Taiga Mutou and his friend in a restaurant with Taiga trying to decide what he wants to have. So wait he’s Yugi’s son? Well as awesome as that would be it is not the case. He is also not related to Taiga, Taiga or Taiga. Now wouldn’t that be an awesome crossover? Moving on, Taiga complains that he has to buy the cheep lunch since he has no job and as such is broke. Don’t worry about getting attached to Taiga’s friend, who we learn from a tiny piece of aside dialog is called Kouji, he doesn’t do much important beyond this scene. Taiga lists off things a job would need to be if it were to be deemed “cool”. This list is as follows: part-time, pays big, is close to college, easy, not too sweaty and has a beautiful older woman working there. This being fiction Kouji who wasn’t even listening to the list points out a place that has a help wanted sign that they were walking past that matches every part of the list including the chick who he sees threw the window.
After acing the interview off screen we see our hero introducing himself to the staff of the clothing store where he will be helping out in the warehouse. Here we find out the girl’s name is Yuiko Ameya which I have no idea how to pronounce. Unfortunately Taiga can hardly get a chance to talk to her but the old ladies that work there can’t get enough of him. His job is only temporary and by the time it’s half over he hasn’t got anywhere with Yuiko even if they have had conversations but that changes one night when the old lady from the office asks him to stay and do her a favour. Taiga is put to work taking the rings out of the display case and putting them all in individual bags. While doing this he fantasises about giving the ring to Yuiko and her falling in love with him; back in reality he accidently slipped the ring on his finger and now can’t get it off. He manages to hide this fact till the end of the work day when he finds the ring is missing.
Cue cheesy rom com coincidence! Yuiko is locking up when she finds Taiga and agrees to help him since he is determined to get it that night and she can’t leave till he does. Taiga is all giddy due to working with his crush despite them not even facing each other and keeps thinking about how perfect she is. Now if you think this is a bit over the top then I defy you; I act the same when I’m working with the girl I love. Cause she really is amazing and beautiful and kind and gentle and...yeah not the time for that right now is it? Moving on, they can’t find it until Yuiko makes the wild guess that it ended up in Taiga’s hood and we get the first hint of her real personality, except you know the title of the manga, she refuses his thanks but says she wishes she could cast ‘meteor strike’ on him right about now. So now the ice is broken the two are saying hi to each other when they pass in the halls and what not.
Cut later and they meet up in the break room as they each took lunch at the same time. Yuiko is reading the latest issue of Shounen Step (a manga mag aimed at boys) a day before it comes out because she knows a place that sells it early. The two spark up a rather on sided conversation about Sepatte Takuro; a manga based on the most. awesome. sport. Ever! Yuiko eventually snaps to Taiga to shut up and they pass the rest of the time in silence. At the end of the day Taiga finds her waiting to apologise and give him some Sepataku merch. He likes the series but is ecstatic about it because of who gave it to him. That’s lame, I mean it’s not like I have a note pinned to my notice board cause it was from my manager *nervous laugh* cause I totally don’t. Anyway, because of how excited Taiga is Yuiko invites him out for a meal. Taiga has to go straight from class to their ‘first date’ and when he sits down he knocks over his bag. Yuiko helps pick up his things and finds his glasses case and insists he puts them on. This is the first real funny scene and is about the time I went from thinking it was OK to thinking it was gonna be worth the purchase. Yuiko totally squees out at Megane Taiga as the chapter, or epi.01 as it is called, ends on a fake info page on Sepataku. So now we know more about Yuiko let me say why I wouldn’t date her; she’s me with indoor plumbing. It would be really weird. And a quick bit of Japanese for you Megane just means guy with glasses.
epi.02 opens on Taiga wondering about if he really has to wear his glasses all the time as Yuiko wants him to but he isn’t used to it. As we all know Glasses make someone look way more sexy and it gets Yuiko all hot under the collar. At college Kouji returns as our resident sarcastic source of exposition and tells Taiga about glasses fetishes before leaving the manga again. Back at work Taiga continues to worry about the glasses thing and then remembers his job is ending soon and he is still isn’t at the stage where he can ask for her email so he asks if she’s busy but Yuiko has a prior engagement. On his way out however Taiga overhears another worker asking if she has a date and it looks like it’s all over for our hero but wait what’s this? She just forgot to set her VCR properly *laugh track* No in all seriousness what makes this series is this stuff right here; Yuiko’s ever increasing geekyness and Taiga’s over the top reactions. Here is a perfect example with Taiga acting as if he just heard the worst news ever.
Yuiko agrees to go to dinner with him the next day and Taiga insist on paying despite not having much money at all. While waiting he puts on his glasses and does some reading just so she will react the same as their last ‘date’. It works incredibly well and then to improve matters Yuiko notices that he uses those little coloured flags to mark pages. Apparently she has a nerd fetish. Luckily she wants to go to a cheap restaurant and Taiga is understandably confused by her getting all wet over coloured flags of all things. While he is flustered Yuiko asks what he was doing putting it on his finger and eventually tricks him into saying he just wanted to know what it feels like to be a bride. Taiga’s denials prompt her to give the opening quote and it is gloriously funny.
So after the meal they are walking home together. Now I’m a guy but even I can admit the scene where Taiga confesses to Yuiko and they kiss in the moonlight is beautiful. It is paced perfectly and the art is perfectly suited to it. No I’m not crying I...I just have something in my eye is all. So next we have Yuiko confessing she is an otaku and Taiga is okay with that but she goes on to say she is a fujoshi. Taiga says his doesn’t give a damn because no matter what he will never stop loving her. Oh I’ve got something in my other eye, just give me a moment. Anyway it’s time for a Japanese lesson for all those out there that don’t understand the word fujoshi. Literally it means ‘rotten woman’ and is a derogatory name for a particular group of female otakus, specifically the ones that like to read yoai, now I and some of you reading this just got a shiver down our spines. If you really want to know yoai is guy on guy. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t dislike gay relationships in fiction and I can’t fault girls that find that hot since us dudes find girl on girl to be sexy. I also have nothing against gay people themselves but the thought of two guys sexing it up makes me feel a little queasy.
So epi.03 opens with a quick recap of the story so far and goes into Yuiko saying Taiga can call her by her first name with no honorific. Time for another Japanese lesson; in Japan addressing someone by their first name when you aren’t close to them just is not done and without using an honorific is, depending on context, amazingly intimate or incredibly rude. Well it is far more complex than that but it will do for this situation. Now this is something that put me off shojo at first; it tends to be so steeped in Japanese culture that without at least some knowledge of it you can easily miss a lot of the subtle changes that would be like a flashing neon sign to the Japanese audience. She also uses two more terms I should explain; she calls him Moe and says he is like a Seme. Moe, pronounced mo-eh, is kinda hard to describe but is basically something that makes you go all wibbly and squee. So for me it would be Toda-chan for example. Seme however I didn’t know and had to look up. It is the term for the dominant guy in a yaoi relationship as opposed to the Uke.
Anyway moving on to something not yaoi related Yuiko goes on to say that she ships the two main male characters of Sepataku TT^TT why can’t I escape the yaoi in this series? Taiga’s reaction is basically the same as mine but far more severe because he didn’t actually know what a fujoishi was when he said it didn’t bother him. Oh you silly, silly boy, at least he thinks to look up exactly what it means now. To the internet *Batman transition sound* wait, since this is an online blog we are already at the internet. Credit to Taiga he doesn’t actually seem to care about it once he finds out what she is like. He is weirded out sure but in a going to have to get used to it kind of way. This is one of the joys of this series for guys like me; we get weirded out by Yuiko along with him but respect him because he can deal with it where we might not be able to.
The plot of this chapter follows Yuiko finding out Taiga can write novels and asking/guilt tripping him into writing a boys love story about the leads of Sepataku. It takes him a hilarious amount of time to get what she really wants him to write; at first he is thinking just a normal story kinda like a novelisation of the series but she wants yaoi where the one character steals the others first kiss. Lesson time: in Japan your first kiss is super duper important and if someone takes it without permission don’t be surprised if the character flips their lid. This is due to kissing in Japan being seen as a lot more intimate; parents don’t kiss in front of their kids and a kiss in public is something you just don’t do. Also she mentions doujinshi which just means self published works. So the chapter ends with Taiga giving in and having a brainstorming meeting with Yuiko. Oh and Kouji has a two panel cameo just to remind us he still exists.
epi.04 deals with butlers. Yes you read that right butlers. Well if I can find maids sexy then Yuiko...you know what this just weirds me out and I don’t care how hypocritical that makes me. Now I’ll talk about it more in the summery but it is here the series takes a massive downturn for me and basically all the charm drains out almost instantly with the scene where Yuiko forces Taiga to act like a butler for her right down to only answering to mistress and calling him Sebastian (default butler name kinda like Jeeves in the western world) and is a real bitch about it and then Kouji shows up. Yuiko invites him to join them and proceeds to immediately put on her shipping goggles for the two of them. And you might have noticed that my summaries are getting shorter with each epi but that is because with each chapter less and less actually happens which annoys me greatly.
The manga also ends with the original author and girlfriends reactions to the adaptation plus a preview of the novel. So what did I think? Ok I know I’m not the intended audience for a shojo manga but I already have several on my top 50 list and more to come so I think I can adequately judge it. The first two chapters a perfect examples of the genre with some beautiful set ups, a really gripping story, great lead characters and some great humour. The art is fantastic and all the little daydream spots are really funny. Where it falls down is the third and forth chapters where Yuiko becomes a massive bitch whore towards Taiga; constantly making him visibly uncomfortable and showing no sense of remorse about the whole thing. Worst of all is the fact that Taiga puts up with the humiliation because he is under some delusion that he loves her and just wants her to be happy. With a few small changes this could be a dark story about masochism that discredits the entire idea of true love, ya know like something I would write. Oh and Kouji always seems like an afterthought when he appears.
So next time on Crank out the Volume I’ll be going back to Tena on S-String with volume 4. I will be carrying on this series till it ends or I get completely fed up with it in which case I’ll do a Press Start about it. So for now I’m Silica and don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t.
Another volume by volume review and this time we have the shojo title My Girlfriend’s a Geek. It’s also the first to use the title ‘Crank out the Volume’ Now we aren’t talking about the cool and sexy geeks like Konata from Lucky Star or Katie from No Ordinary Family but something rather different. For those out there who know some Japanese she is a fujoshi for everyone else wouldn’t it be fun if we found out along with the lead? Well I do so we are going to do it that way. Back on the 11 of august 2005 a blog appeared on the web by a man known only as Pentabu, I have no idea if that’s his real name but that’s all that’s credited for the story, this blog recounted his dealings with his new girlfriend. This was eventually compiled into a novel which I haven’t read but I have read the preview in the back and plan to get it so I’ll make a comparison later but for now let’s focus on the manga adaptation by Rize Shinba. So let’s take a look at My Girlfriend’s a Geek volume 1 shall we?
A quick note on the visuals and storytelling style. This is a shojo manga, which means it is aimed at girls, and as I have noticed shojo tends to be a lot softer and slightly blurred compared to shonen’s tendency towards sharp and clear visuals. It is not as cut and dry as this though and each has its own sub styles but it is generally true. This series is far clearer than manga like Sailor Moon or My Barbaric Girlfriend but still softer and gentler than Negima or Bleach. I personally like it either way and really I will read anything that catches my eye. I also find that Shojo can have really interesting stories that shonen sometimes but other times they are just really girly.
We open on our hero Taiga Mutou and his friend in a restaurant with Taiga trying to decide what he wants to have. So wait he’s Yugi’s son? Well as awesome as that would be it is not the case. He is also not related to Taiga, Taiga or Taiga. Now wouldn’t that be an awesome crossover? Moving on, Taiga complains that he has to buy the cheep lunch since he has no job and as such is broke. Don’t worry about getting attached to Taiga’s friend, who we learn from a tiny piece of aside dialog is called Kouji, he doesn’t do much important beyond this scene. Taiga lists off things a job would need to be if it were to be deemed “cool”. This list is as follows: part-time, pays big, is close to college, easy, not too sweaty and has a beautiful older woman working there. This being fiction Kouji who wasn’t even listening to the list points out a place that has a help wanted sign that they were walking past that matches every part of the list including the chick who he sees threw the window.
After acing the interview off screen we see our hero introducing himself to the staff of the clothing store where he will be helping out in the warehouse. Here we find out the girl’s name is Yuiko Ameya which I have no idea how to pronounce. Unfortunately Taiga can hardly get a chance to talk to her but the old ladies that work there can’t get enough of him. His job is only temporary and by the time it’s half over he hasn’t got anywhere with Yuiko even if they have had conversations but that changes one night when the old lady from the office asks him to stay and do her a favour. Taiga is put to work taking the rings out of the display case and putting them all in individual bags. While doing this he fantasises about giving the ring to Yuiko and her falling in love with him; back in reality he accidently slipped the ring on his finger and now can’t get it off. He manages to hide this fact till the end of the work day when he finds the ring is missing.
Cue cheesy rom com coincidence! Yuiko is locking up when she finds Taiga and agrees to help him since he is determined to get it that night and she can’t leave till he does. Taiga is all giddy due to working with his crush despite them not even facing each other and keeps thinking about how perfect she is. Now if you think this is a bit over the top then I defy you; I act the same when I’m working with the girl I love. Cause she really is amazing and beautiful and kind and gentle and...yeah not the time for that right now is it? Moving on, they can’t find it until Yuiko makes the wild guess that it ended up in Taiga’s hood and we get the first hint of her real personality, except you know the title of the manga, she refuses his thanks but says she wishes she could cast ‘meteor strike’ on him right about now. So now the ice is broken the two are saying hi to each other when they pass in the halls and what not.
Cut later and they meet up in the break room as they each took lunch at the same time. Yuiko is reading the latest issue of Shounen Step (a manga mag aimed at boys) a day before it comes out because she knows a place that sells it early. The two spark up a rather on sided conversation about Sepatte Takuro; a manga based on the most. awesome. sport. Ever! Yuiko eventually snaps to Taiga to shut up and they pass the rest of the time in silence. At the end of the day Taiga finds her waiting to apologise and give him some Sepataku merch. He likes the series but is ecstatic about it because of who gave it to him. That’s lame, I mean it’s not like I have a note pinned to my notice board cause it was from my manager *nervous laugh* cause I totally don’t. Anyway, because of how excited Taiga is Yuiko invites him out for a meal. Taiga has to go straight from class to their ‘first date’ and when he sits down he knocks over his bag. Yuiko helps pick up his things and finds his glasses case and insists he puts them on. This is the first real funny scene and is about the time I went from thinking it was OK to thinking it was gonna be worth the purchase. Yuiko totally squees out at Megane Taiga as the chapter, or epi.01 as it is called, ends on a fake info page on Sepataku. So now we know more about Yuiko let me say why I wouldn’t date her; she’s me with indoor plumbing. It would be really weird. And a quick bit of Japanese for you Megane just means guy with glasses.
epi.02 opens on Taiga wondering about if he really has to wear his glasses all the time as Yuiko wants him to but he isn’t used to it. As we all know Glasses make someone look way more sexy and it gets Yuiko all hot under the collar. At college Kouji returns as our resident sarcastic source of exposition and tells Taiga about glasses fetishes before leaving the manga again. Back at work Taiga continues to worry about the glasses thing and then remembers his job is ending soon and he is still isn’t at the stage where he can ask for her email so he asks if she’s busy but Yuiko has a prior engagement. On his way out however Taiga overhears another worker asking if she has a date and it looks like it’s all over for our hero but wait what’s this? She just forgot to set her VCR properly *laugh track* No in all seriousness what makes this series is this stuff right here; Yuiko’s ever increasing geekyness and Taiga’s over the top reactions. Here is a perfect example with Taiga acting as if he just heard the worst news ever.
Yuiko agrees to go to dinner with him the next day and Taiga insist on paying despite not having much money at all. While waiting he puts on his glasses and does some reading just so she will react the same as their last ‘date’. It works incredibly well and then to improve matters Yuiko notices that he uses those little coloured flags to mark pages. Apparently she has a nerd fetish. Luckily she wants to go to a cheap restaurant and Taiga is understandably confused by her getting all wet over coloured flags of all things. While he is flustered Yuiko asks what he was doing putting it on his finger and eventually tricks him into saying he just wanted to know what it feels like to be a bride. Taiga’s denials prompt her to give the opening quote and it is gloriously funny.
So after the meal they are walking home together. Now I’m a guy but even I can admit the scene where Taiga confesses to Yuiko and they kiss in the moonlight is beautiful. It is paced perfectly and the art is perfectly suited to it. No I’m not crying I...I just have something in my eye is all. So next we have Yuiko confessing she is an otaku and Taiga is okay with that but she goes on to say she is a fujoshi. Taiga says his doesn’t give a damn because no matter what he will never stop loving her. Oh I’ve got something in my other eye, just give me a moment. Anyway it’s time for a Japanese lesson for all those out there that don’t understand the word fujoshi. Literally it means ‘rotten woman’ and is a derogatory name for a particular group of female otakus, specifically the ones that like to read yoai, now I and some of you reading this just got a shiver down our spines. If you really want to know yoai is guy on guy. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t dislike gay relationships in fiction and I can’t fault girls that find that hot since us dudes find girl on girl to be sexy. I also have nothing against gay people themselves but the thought of two guys sexing it up makes me feel a little queasy.
So epi.03 opens with a quick recap of the story so far and goes into Yuiko saying Taiga can call her by her first name with no honorific. Time for another Japanese lesson; in Japan addressing someone by their first name when you aren’t close to them just is not done and without using an honorific is, depending on context, amazingly intimate or incredibly rude. Well it is far more complex than that but it will do for this situation. Now this is something that put me off shojo at first; it tends to be so steeped in Japanese culture that without at least some knowledge of it you can easily miss a lot of the subtle changes that would be like a flashing neon sign to the Japanese audience. She also uses two more terms I should explain; she calls him Moe and says he is like a Seme. Moe, pronounced mo-eh, is kinda hard to describe but is basically something that makes you go all wibbly and squee. So for me it would be Toda-chan for example. Seme however I didn’t know and had to look up. It is the term for the dominant guy in a yaoi relationship as opposed to the Uke.
Anyway moving on to something not yaoi related Yuiko goes on to say that she ships the two main male characters of Sepataku TT^TT why can’t I escape the yaoi in this series? Taiga’s reaction is basically the same as mine but far more severe because he didn’t actually know what a fujoishi was when he said it didn’t bother him. Oh you silly, silly boy, at least he thinks to look up exactly what it means now. To the internet *Batman transition sound* wait, since this is an online blog we are already at the internet. Credit to Taiga he doesn’t actually seem to care about it once he finds out what she is like. He is weirded out sure but in a going to have to get used to it kind of way. This is one of the joys of this series for guys like me; we get weirded out by Yuiko along with him but respect him because he can deal with it where we might not be able to.
The plot of this chapter follows Yuiko finding out Taiga can write novels and asking/guilt tripping him into writing a boys love story about the leads of Sepataku. It takes him a hilarious amount of time to get what she really wants him to write; at first he is thinking just a normal story kinda like a novelisation of the series but she wants yaoi where the one character steals the others first kiss. Lesson time: in Japan your first kiss is super duper important and if someone takes it without permission don’t be surprised if the character flips their lid. This is due to kissing in Japan being seen as a lot more intimate; parents don’t kiss in front of their kids and a kiss in public is something you just don’t do. Also she mentions doujinshi which just means self published works. So the chapter ends with Taiga giving in and having a brainstorming meeting with Yuiko. Oh and Kouji has a two panel cameo just to remind us he still exists.
epi.04 deals with butlers. Yes you read that right butlers. Well if I can find maids sexy then Yuiko...you know what this just weirds me out and I don’t care how hypocritical that makes me. Now I’ll talk about it more in the summery but it is here the series takes a massive downturn for me and basically all the charm drains out almost instantly with the scene where Yuiko forces Taiga to act like a butler for her right down to only answering to mistress and calling him Sebastian (default butler name kinda like Jeeves in the western world) and is a real bitch about it and then Kouji shows up. Yuiko invites him to join them and proceeds to immediately put on her shipping goggles for the two of them. And you might have noticed that my summaries are getting shorter with each epi but that is because with each chapter less and less actually happens which annoys me greatly.
The manga also ends with the original author and girlfriends reactions to the adaptation plus a preview of the novel. So what did I think? Ok I know I’m not the intended audience for a shojo manga but I already have several on my top 50 list and more to come so I think I can adequately judge it. The first two chapters a perfect examples of the genre with some beautiful set ups, a really gripping story, great lead characters and some great humour. The art is fantastic and all the little daydream spots are really funny. Where it falls down is the third and forth chapters where Yuiko becomes a massive bitch whore towards Taiga; constantly making him visibly uncomfortable and showing no sense of remorse about the whole thing. Worst of all is the fact that Taiga puts up with the humiliation because he is under some delusion that he loves her and just wants her to be happy. With a few small changes this could be a dark story about masochism that discredits the entire idea of true love, ya know like something I would write. Oh and Kouji always seems like an afterthought when he appears.
So next time on Crank out the Volume I’ll be going back to Tena on S-String with volume 4. I will be carrying on this series till it ends or I get completely fed up with it in which case I’ll do a Press Start about it. So for now I’m Silica and don’t go doing anything I wouldn’t.