Challengers by Hinako Takanaga
Challengers, by Hinako Takanaga
Plot: Mitsugu Kurokawa is dragging his friend home after a night of drinking when he encounters the very lost college hopeful, Tomoe Tatsumi. Despite being an intellectual super-genius in robotics, Tomoe is a complete air-head when it comes to real life. Soon, good-natured Mitsugu soon finds his desire to look after Tomoe taking a turn for the romantic. However, Mitsugu’s intentions to win Tomoe’s heart encounter an unexpected stumbling block in the form of Tomoe’s violently homophobic and over-protective older brother, Souichi Tatsumi. [Comedy, 16+]
My Opinion : An genuinely funny and enjoyable romantic comedy. This is Takanaga-sensei’s debut work, so the art style is basically 90’s era Shoujo (with the added advantage that you can actually recognize the different characters), but that’s more than made up for by the entertaining dialog and eccentric, charming characters. The humor comes entirely from the characters acting like themselves – there are no contrived “LOL he just face-planted into the other guy’s crotch ISN’T THAT FUNNY?” moments.
The biggest strength of this series — and its sequel series “The Tyrant Falls in Love” — is Takanaga-sensei’s ability to believably mix the usual Boys Love-manga conventions in new and interesting ways. Mitsugu and Tomoe’s relationship of Good-Natured Seme Meets Smart But Naïve Uke is common fare, and left by itself, this’d be your average boy-meets-boy love story. Yawn. Toss in Souichi Tatsumi (aka; Evil Incarnate) and Rick (aka; Evil Gay American Incarnate), make them viable characters, add some well-written dialog, and you’ve got a manga that’s worth more than the romance at it’s center.
Also, Souichi is one of my most favorite manga characters on the planet.
There are four volumes of Challengers all together. I’ve only read the first one so far (the other three are on their way from Drama Queen as I type this). The later volumes were done some years after the first one, so Takanaga’s art style changed significantly. Her more updated style as seen in “The Tyrant Falls in Love”, is simply a treat for the eyes.
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