So I’m reviewing a squee-ful shoujo one-shot and a shounen one-shot-turned-series made of win: Nante Bakana Koi Nanda and Medaka Box. I won’t blog the series, but I’ll keep up because I love the protagonists. ;D

Nante Bakana Koi Nanda

SUMMARY:
He hates girls that cry all the time. The reason why he’s my friend is because I don’t cry. If I’m his friend, I can stay be his side. Therefore, I absolutely can’t cry in front of him. Scanlated by Intercross.

(Part of a one-shot anthology, Sayonara no Jikan by Yamanaka Riko.)

Is it shallow to say the main reason I'm reviewing this is because I love the cover? xD

First off, I love this colour page. It gave me the “childhood love” vibe, even though it isn’t. xD I’m not sure why I like this– you know, the typical girl-likes-guy and vice versa, but she’s too scared to break up their friendship, etc.?

But I love their relationship; especially since Yukimura is the too-shy-to-talk-to-any-other-girl-except-her kind and Ritsu is the typical protagonist, ever so supportive of her friend.

Ouch, elbow to the face. At least he compensated, though.

Aha, their first meeting makes me lol. Though when he brought her some ice, it was such an aww-worthy moment~ <3 I can totally see why she fell in love with him. ^^

asdfjkl; he's so cute! -^^-

Blah. So they go to a ramen restaurant with another friend, who suggests that Yukimura to try hanging out with this girl who’s interested in him. Ritsu gets pressured into supporting him. =__=

The nice part though, is how hesitant Yukimura looks~ he’s so cute! And it’s so obvious he likes her, but not in the ’same old, same old’ way. >w<

She’s jealous, and gets angry and runs off. But what he says to her (”To think you said that kind of joke to a girl…”) is so indicative of their friendship.

Aww, he made her cry (albeit indirectly).

Ritsu doesn’t cry because he can’t stand cry girls (since he feels helpless, haha), but she can’t help it when she sees him with the other girl. >__<

Then she runs away into a ladder and gets hurt, where she confesses to him while he’s comforting her. And she runs away again. ^^v

He’s waiting for her, of course~ with some ice! I love repetitions like this. <3 And then they get their happily ever after. (:

I guess what I loved most about this one-shot was Yukimura, especially his expressions. As much as I love Ritsu’s personality, it’s more or less typical of a shoujo manga, while Yukimura is slightly different. Or maybe I’m biased because of the pretty cover, but nevertheless, the story makes me squee whenever I re-read it. ^^

Medaka Box

SUMMARY
Kurokami Medaka, a first year, is elected as Student Council President, and the first thing she does is establish a suggestion box. Since she was just elected as Student Council President, she’s holding all the Student Council’s responsibilities, and wearing their armbands. So, she asks for her childhood friend, Hitoyoshi Zenkichi, for help. Scanlated by CxC Scans.

This cover is from when it got serialised; I didn't like the one-shot cover as much. x)

To be honest, the summary grabbed me. If I had known it was ecchi, I might not have read it. xD Though if you can get past her uniform and occasional pantsu shots, it’s a good read.

It’s serialised in Weekly Shounen Jump, and I’ve been missing the slight romance that I find sometimes in shounen manga (visibly, I’m still quite upset about the cancellation of Double Arts ;_;).

Anyways, the new Student Council President–Kurokami Medaka–establishes a suggestion box, and it’s already overflowing on the first day.

She's pretty~ the photograph of them as children is total win. He's crying, and you can see her dominating attitude even so long ago. And they're holding hands!

Medaka recruits the help of her childhood friend, Zenkichi (even though he said he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, but he did help her with the election ;D), since she decided to take on every position in the Student Council, hence she’s the only member. He agrees, for more than one reason. ^^

Her "I-am-Queen-of-the-World!" personality is so adorable in chibi form.

The first request is from the Judo Club; they have four members, but they need five. So in her commanding way, she “lends [them] [her] childhood friend” so they can compete.

Her plan is for them to win a gold medal at the Olympics, then they can attract new members. She is total win, right? xD

(In the flashback, she was ‘helping’ the Track Club and her advice was for them to “Run faster!”, lol.)

According to Zenkichi, she doesn’t know the meaning of suffering or losing (rich, smart, perfect; and adorably ignorant <3).

Haha, she's so used to having (only) him by her side.

The whole Judo Club, and Zenkichi, get beat up since Medaka’s some prodigy at judo. Eventually, they all resign from the club (though Medaka still wants to train Zenkichi?! See what I mean by adorably ignorant? =P)

Pwn'd? o_o

Regardless, the competition goes on even with one impromptu member. Some Kenpachi-lookalike (from Bleach) thrashes Zenkichi, though right before, Medaka tells him that his purpose isn’t to win. Hm?

"There's a teeny little reason why Zenkichi is doing this for me. Since he was two years old, he's been in love with me." AHAHA FTW.

Medaka is so blunt. <3

At this point, I had half a thought that Zenkichi got beat up by Medaka so much when they were younger that nothing could bring him down. You know, abusive children? xD

Though it seems to be because he’s also been doing judo since the age of two, so he pwns the guy and wins. It doesn’t really count though, since he’s not part of the judo club and the other guy was a stand-in or something.

Meh, I was trying to avoid anything even remotely ecchi. But this was cute...

While she’s bandaging his wounds, she slips the “Vice-President” armband on. Awww~ and of course he agrees (in the “Just this once!” denial way).

The series is slightly different; they deal with one request at a time, and I think she isn’t as much into judo (but she’s good at everything, so I don’t really know xD), and Zenkichi is promoted the General Affairs Manager instead so he’s going to need to work his way up. Also, Shiranui, Zenkichi’s kid-cute but kind of strange classmate, has a bigger role (Medaka gets a bit jealous in the third chapter, I think ;D).

And whenever she appears, Medaka more or less mocks the person she’s standing behind. xD

I recommend this for anyone who likes this kind of humour, and can stand her random undergarment scenes (causing no end of embarrassment to Zenkichi, incidentally). I tend to just skip over them, since they’re not usually significant otherwise. -w-

Oh right, what did I like about it? Just about everything except the ecchi-ness. The two protagonists are so strong, and especially in the series, we see that there’s more to them than meets the eye. I think that if we get to find out more about their respective characters (and a bigger plot than just saving the school, I guess), I’d pretty much love this series. (: