Manga Review: Mel Kano

Title: Mel Kano
Author: Towa Oshima
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Romance, Comedy
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is about a couple of teenagers who find each other as online lovers through an online social service. However, as people have young kids over and over again, they discover that the other is not who they imagined it to be. Seems a bit like a cliche but when you add the fact that they're both Tsunderes and not exactly the most sociable people, you get what seems to be a love comedy whose main driving force is the comedy between two. It might have remained as a love comedy but as the story develops we learn more about the world behind the social site and the problems that the public relations group have to deal with. The regular love drama stuff happens too but both the ideas and the characters are good enough to keep readers interested in what's going to happen. It doesn't really do anything new in the field of romance manga but at least it doesn't employ the same tired old cliches that many many shoujo manga fall victim to. I still can't understand why Special A had the need to keep reminding readers of the concept and main characters even though it had been serialized for over a year.