The Name of the Flower 1 by Ken SAITOU
First, let’s get some minor snark out of the way — SEE! Again with the dead parents! I’m beginning to think that this is a prerequisite with shoujo manga in general. ‘Cause if you have parents, then there’s no way for you to get the angst.
This manga follows the life of Chouko Mizushima, who finds herself orphaned after her parents died in a car accident. She’s shuffled among several family friends and relatives until ends up in the care of Kei Mizushima, a distant cousin who happens to be a gifted novelist of the cranky persuasion.
I avoid using “otaku” terms when I write these posts, but I think Kei is best described as a tsuntsun, that is, one who is “aloof” or “morose.” Maybe part of that is his writer persona, or the fact that he’s been a brooding and lonely person that he doesn’t know how to properly interact with people, including Chouko.
I read the reviews of other manga bloggers prior to getting my copy of this book, so I certainly had some expectations of this series well before reading it — I think I may have done myself some injustice in doing that since those reviews focused on the same glaring things and missed the cute subtleties of this work. I was imagining Kei as a Healthcliff-type hero (fyi, I dislike Heathcliff with a deep passion) when in reality, he’s really just a shy, somewhat maladjusted man. His interactions with his editor are cute and reminiscent of the back-and-forth fake melodramatics between Shigure (another writer) and his own editor in Fruits Basket.
Kei is the kind of shoujo hero/love interest that I totally adore. I love that he has his own interesting ‘past,’ of sorts, yet he also dotes and adores the female lead in his own quiet way. I am eagerly waiting for the next volume — this is probably my favorite shoujo romance of this year so far.