Manga Recommendation : RAISE WA TANIN GA II | asuka konichi
- Where to read: K-manga app, kinokunya, amazon
- Serialized in 2017.
- Manga on hiatus.
- 1 anime season.
OVERVIEW:
17 years old Yoshino is a sheltered daughter of the yakuza group in Osaka. Against her wishes, her grandfather sends her to live in Tokyo with her would be fiancé, Kirishima, who belongs to the Tokyo group. Upon their first meeting, he seems rather standard in terms of politeness and hospitality, until she sees him coming home blood splattered one night. She shakes off her doubts until one night, he shows his true colors and threatens her back to Osaka… or so he thinks. Deciding not to back down, Yoshino gives him back twice as much crazy as he gives her, but this backfires when he develops a real attraction to her. This begins their tension filled relationship as they get caught up and deal with the yakuza drama building around them.
WHY I LOVE IT:
I don’t know where to begin with this series as I love it all. I should begin with the author, Konichi sensei, who created a romance seinen manga that I enjoy as a woman. It’s sexy, it’s got great dramatic tension (plot and romance), good plot, bad boys, and she doesn’t sugar coat anything. Our ML, Kirishima, might have a pretty face and all, but he’s not the love interest readers want for our heroine because he’s not the boyfriend material they want. Yoshino is a fighter who gets physically hurt in the manga at times (and I mean nothing like scrapes after tripping over own feet while running away or whatever) to the point of death. I’d say it’s a harem story as well, and all her love interest are unafraid of violence, sleep around and a bit unhinged. After reading this manga, I never knew I was such a sucker for yandere men or into harem – though this is my exception because I do hate harems in general, men or women.
While I’m enjoying all the characters it’s really Yoshino who won me over (though I’m now drooling over her love interests, haha). You hardly find a FL that shows common sense and thinks things through beforehand. She does get herself in trouble, but it’s not like she jumped into a situation blindly. She is weak and gets scared, but that doesn’t stop her from fighting back against yakuza punks in her own ways. She’s also funny and relatable. While she is naive when it comes to relationships, I hope she’s not a complete ‘innocent’ since she’s very well aware of her grandpa’s womanizing ways and that Kirishima sleeps around. I guess she must retain some of that innocence to appeal to the Japanese audience. I kinda hope that she gets up to speed, especially since her cousin, Tsubaki, openly talks about her sex life with her. I hope Konishi doesn’t play the innocent card all the way through on Yoshino. She also doesn’t seem to recognize her growing attraction to Kirishima despite the signs, but that I’ll excuse that for now since she cannot trust him and because she’s never dated before or seemed to have found anyone of interest until him. I think she’s leaning more into the scared feelings than the attraction feelings which is fair since Kirishima is unpredictable.
I love, love, love the men in this manga. To be honest, the tattoos – I’m just a sucker for that. However, Kirishima, Shouma and Azami are just ugh… such eye candy and their personalities in their own ways make them attractive. In the anime, I love all their voice actors and find them to be great choice. I was very partial to Azami since his VO is Levi from AOT. YAS! But Shouma’s deep voice just has me shivering over here. My sister, on the other hand, doesn’t think that deep voice suits him. They bring great romantic tension to the story, though we all know Kirishima is end goal. On that note, many readers do not like Kirishima for sleeping around even after he confessed to Yoshino and told her he wants to marry her, but well, we didn’t write the manga so deal with it, ladies! Haha.
Unfortunately the manga has been on hiatus for a while now, so I’ve been waiting sadly for its return. The anime was faithful to the manga for the most part, but the animation was not the best. It could have been smoother and of better quality, especially when it came to the fighting scenes. The art style was faithful to Konishi’s, but I hated that they put sparkles in Yoshino’s eyes, pushing a shoujo look on her. Blah.
Anyways, if you want some hot eye candy, want to see a strong FL, and enjoy romantic drama and then some, then get on for a real fun ride. If you do, please let me know who you favor. I, for one, am a sucker for Shouma…
