By Dustin Cabeal

Manga and anime as a result have popular themes that run through them. You cannot compare it to American television because there’s always genres that succeed. You can count on their being a place for dramas and half hour comedies because they are always successful. The same is true of manga and anime, but you can peak at generations of work and figure out exactly what was popular in any given time. Currently there is a rising wave of singularly focused romcoms. No longer do we have the love story infused harem comedies in which one obvious character is pursued by every beautiful woman in the school. Instead, we have two characters simply unfamiliar with each other developing a realistic relationship while facing whatever quirky adventure into which they are thrust.

In many ways Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms is reminiscent of things like Komi Can’t Communicate and My Dress Up Darling, but there are two key differences. The first being that Medaka opts for a lot more cheesecake and the second being that the motivation for our main character Mona-chan is quite weak.

Monas goal is to make the titular character of Medaka Kuroiwa fall for her, so that she can be beloved by everyone, but had by no one. Aside from being incredibly shallow, it is a paper-thin motivation. Medaka is resistant to her charms because he is a monk and is not letting himself fall to her charms… which seems to be common knowledge to everyone in the class aside from Mona-chan.

Mona ends up going beyond normal flirtation planning a panty shot, mounting him in the nurse’s office and even showing her bra. He rejects her and asks her to only show those parts of herself to the person she loves. Which in turn makes her think she is falling in love with him. The struggle for Mona is for her to decide if she is in love or still just pursuing Medaka to reclaim her crown of most beloved in all the land. There are a lot of cute moments, but the always come after Mona after some cheesecake. Things like spraying water on herself and then realizing that she went to far only to have Medaka give her his shirt and walk away flashing his abs while she takes a deep inhale of his musk.

Because Mona’s motivation is weak and there is no uniting hobby or goal between our characters, what tends to happen is that one or both of them end up being unlikable at times. For Mona, when she is putting on a show for Medaka in front of others, she is shallow and a bit annoying. You could easily understand why someone would not be interested in her. At the same time though, Medaka could just communicate anything… ever… at all to her, but instead gives scowling looks and chants loudly. They are at their best when they are alone together, but they end up feeling like completely different characters.

Medaka ends up being successful with its story because of the influences upon which it is built. So many other stories have paved the way for Medaka to be easily accepted due to the familiarity of the story. There is no sense of their true characters by the end of this volume. Mona is goal driven and beautiful, but that is the start of a character at best. Medaka is going to be a monk and seems to be a nice person, but that is again not a full-fledged character. Even still, the first volume is easy to read and sucks you in to read more. Is it the sameness of the genre right now that finds Medaka filling a void during the wait for other stories or is it a story that plays on the strengths of the genre? Time will tell, but I will say that originally, I was going to review this chapter by chapter to try out a new review format but ended up finishing the volume instead.

A great deal of the success of Medaka is the artwork. Mona is beautiful, but often just cute to look at. The extra attention to the fabric on the edge of her shirt makes the uniform memorable without being unrealistic. The gym clothes are unflattering, and Mona knows that when she lifts her shirt up ever so slightly to reveal her belly button. There is cheesecake and sex appeal all throughout the art, but there is also a grounded sense of realism to it as well. If there was a toned-down version of cheesecake it might be something like “cute-cake” which is to say that there are a ton of great, simple, and cute character positioning in this story. Mona’s cuteness is only every outdone by the cheesecake, but otherwise the artwork is consistent and beautiful.

In the long term, for Medaka to be successful the characters need to be developed. The thinly veiled storyline of her not knowing he is a monk and him never saying it when she is around will only work for so long and at that point, we need to see a real moment between these two characters to believe that they are in love. For a first volume, it does a fine job of introducing the premise, but Mona’s shallowness and Medaka’s resistance is not going to be enough of a reason to keep returning to the story. Hopefully the second volume beings flushing that out more, but in the meantime this first volume has the start of something entertaining, but time will tell if it is interesting or has longevity.

Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms vol. 1
Ran Kuze
Kodansha
Anh Kiet Pham Ngo
Arbash Muhal
Thalia Sutton

3/5