Dad shows up and slams the brakes hard on the relationship between his 17-year-old daughter, Momoko, and the 29-year-old professional wrestler, Kuga, on whom she has been crushing for quite a while. (And based on the similarities between Kuga's and her father's physiques, Momoko has some serious daddy issues.) But Kuga comes back with a charm offensive that keeps hope alive for the couple.

One chapter is a flashback to Kuga at age 23, and the only thing I could think the whole time I was reading about his training for his job and drinking alchohol with his friend was that 11-year-old Momoko was probably in her elementary school class working on her reading comprehension or studying fractions and decimals. Eeeeeewwwwwww.

I have another volume on hand that I'm going to read tomorrow, but it's going to have to work pretty hard to get me willing to move past that image. ( )

Eh, well, Momoka’s parents react realistically about the age gap/Kuga’s impromptu proposal. Her daddy surely doesn’t approve and thinks Kuga is taking advantage of her innocence/youth. I enjoyed that Momoka’s dad gave him a hard time; he was not budging. But Kuga basically bribes his way into her parents’ good graces. Perhaps, Kuga’s down bad enough, but he’s too invested in Momoka who he just met. The dad’s verdict is Kuga has to be chaperoned or monitored to date Momoka, and, once Momoka reaches 20, if he still feels the same, he can propose again then.

My library’s buying volume 3, but I don’t know how I feel about this series. Momoka being in hs is a no-no, but I like how the manga addresses it seriously. But the overall tone is ditsy and makes me think the series will be repetitive. There isn’t really anything making me want to continue this story.

Vol 1 review ( )

At the end of the first volume, Momoka's parents caught her and Kuga in a loving moment, after Kuga asked Momoka to marry him one day. Momoka's father is understandably displeased with what he views as an adult pro wrestler toying with his starstruck teenage daughter. Kuga becomes determined to win him over and show how serious he is about Momoka.

And that's the bulk of this volume. We get a flashback to Kuga's past, early in his career as a pro wrestler, and Kuga and Momoka go on a date (or at least attempt to), but the largest portion of the volume was devoted to Momoka's dad sternly staring at Kuga and Kuga bringing gifts and doing anything else he could think of to win him over.

"Overprotective dad" storylines can be annoying sometimes, but I was fully on board with this one, mostly because I didn't view Momoka's dad's behavior as overprotective. A wrestler several years older than his teenage daughter basically just proposed to her after they'd met maybe three times face-to-face and chatted a bit online and over the phone. Yeah, I thought it was perfectly fine for Momoka's dad to step in. I felt he handled things pretty well, too.

However, because that took up so much of the volume, there was less time to continue building up and growing Kuga and Momoka's relationship. Which, let's face, it, is still very much in its infancy despite Kuga's proposal. Like I said earlier, they've barely spent any time together in person. I don't recall Kuga ever figuring out a solution to the whole "if people find out I'm in a relationship with a high schooler, my career will be over" problem, and the end of this volume made it clear that neither Kuga nor Momoka had ever considered the realities of trying to make their relationship work despite Kuga being a fairly recognizable minor celebrity.

Nothing in this series has impressed me much so far. Characters' facial expressions and proportions still seem a bit off, and Momoka and Kuga's relationship is bland and not terribly interesting. While the flashback to Kuga's past was nice enough, nothing in Volume 2 added much to Kuga and Momoka that we didn't learn in Volume 1, and I'm already getting a bit bored with them. So I think I'll be stopping this series here. Honestly, if I hadn't ordered the first two volumes together (Right Stuf surprised me by sending me Volume 1 much earlier than I expected), I'd probably have stopped after the first volume.

Extras:

A 1-page afterword by the author, plus a teaser page for volume 3.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )