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ホットギミック [Hot Gimmick] #1
Hot Gimmick, Vol. 1
When high school girl Hatsumi has to go buy a pregnancy test because her popular sister Akane is "late," who does she run into but her creepy bully neighbor Ryoki! And now he's blackmailing her to become his slave! How will mild-mannered Hatsumi get out of this mess? Will Hatsumi's childhood crush (and male model) Azusa be able to save her from Riyoki's clutches?
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2001
37 people are currently reading
1935 people want to read
About the author
Miki Aihara
96 books130 followersMiki Aihara (相原実貴 AIHARA Miki) is a Japanese female manga artist noted for creating the manga series Hot Gimmick and the series Tokyo Boys & Girls. She debuted with the series Lip Conscious in the manga magazine Betsucomi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
June 24, 2013
…How to start…
If I were to present this as a vlog, I would probably stare at my camera stuttering the phrase “I don’t know, I just don’t know” for a long time, going through various stages of grief, and not edit that out because it’s an important part of the reading-this-series process, and then launch into a rant heavily referencing William Faulkner and semi-contradictory takes on Japanese culture, focusing on its general acceptance of the Bastard Boyfriend trope, accepting it as an acceptable thing for the hero to be in utter acceptance by the characters and supposedly the audience, and… and… and another spoiler that I’ll go into later. Faulkner. Keep Faulkner in mind. Mind you, however I start, this will come to rage and spoilers. Also, language warning: Fuck IGN as putting this as their top choice for a top ten list of Shoujo manga. This is utterly not acceptable in the least, unless that list was a fucking troll post. Also I hate the heroine.
I’ll start on the art, to be fair. On the whole, your typical shoujo fare. Girls have big, watery eyes, guys are tall and long-limbed, children were ripped untimely from the cabbage patch’s womb, but darn are they cute. Something that bothered me is that for a lot of backgrounds, it looks like they took their reference pictures and instead of tracing or drawing from a reference, the artist or assistants in charge just put some screen transfer solution onto the photo, pressed the manuscript to it, and peeled it away to be just blurry enough to look like there’s a wet newspaper photograph jammed in the background of the artwork on the page. Stylistic choice? I can accept it. But I don’t like it. The guys look average as well, but it is nice to see a few that aren’t quite as skinny as most bishonen. So, all in all, the artwork gets about 3.5 stars, being barely above solid average, in my opinion, for good points balancing bad points within a sea of average.
…The… Nope. Can’t talk about the Faulkner thing yet. Nope. The heroine? Yes, I think I can talk about her next. Dis bitch. Girl. You don’t even.
People complain a lot about the heroines of shoujo manga, that they are weak, cry at every little thing, and never stand up for themselves. Well, that’s a perfect definition of this heroine! Her crying scenes could be a drinking game with a 65% mortality rate. It is her primary response to conflict, and good for her, because that’s usually how she gets out of it anyway—start crying, someone hugs you, the end. Nothing is actually resolved, because you are not talking about any of the sources of conflict, but that’s another problem. Getting back to the heroine: I could not think of a way to possibly make her more stereotypical. Virginal, doesn’t make the best grades, gullible, sweet, caring, shy, family-oriented, emotional, eventually has the exact same bangs that all the rest have (excuse my language, BUT IS IT A FUCKING DRESS CODE?). I submit to you that Bella Swan herself has more personal character than this bitch, and I am not even remotely joking.
Another thing that both these ladies have going for them is abusive boyfriends! Except Edward Cullen just happens to hit 10/15 points on a list of signs for an abusive relationship, and Whatshisname from this series is just plain fucking abusive. From the beginning of the series until the end, he doesn’t address the heroine but to call her some derivative of “stupid.” And she is stupid, by all means, but there is a difference between being literally not smart, and using that as an accusation when you are trying to rob someone of confidence and any will to resist you. He hits her whenever he is displeased with her, and once slaps her solidly on the face in front of a group of people (including his family and her brother), and I can’t even remember exactly why now, and I read it yesterday—look, the guy hit her a lot, it’s hard to keep track.
Please listen to me as I say: There is never a single point in this series where he considers her feelings, where he earnestly apologizes (or, I think, falsely apologizes), where he respects her boundaries, where he tries to be generous with her, or where he is even realistically reasonable with her. This is an utterly despicable man to whom it never occurs to treat a woman as something other than a possession. There is no character arc for him to even come close to think about changing. His concept of a relationship is that the girl will listen to whatever he says, never think about any other man (including brothers), never disobey him, always be completely accountable to him for everything, and even rely on him to buy things for her so she won’t need to get an outside job and leave him to worry that she is conversing with men who aren’t him for a period of time over one minute. I’m not even fucking kidding.
This. Man. Should. Not. Be.
And this is actually a really simple point. I don’t know if we’re supposed to look at him as having some character arc from cold indifference to having a position of power over her that amounts to molestation (An agreement for silence on a scandalous matter in exchange for being his “slave” does not make it any less molestation; see Scarpia Ultimatum for further reading) to such a “love” that he commands her to choose between him and her family on several occasions, withholds valuable information that is extremely important to her, and that he is somehow so preoccupied with her that he can’t bring himself to bang a willing partner who is topless beneath him. No. Just fucking no.
So, as far as characters for, we’re 0-2! Oh, Tachibana—that was the bastard’s name. And Narita for the bitch he’s after.
One character that I find marginally acceptable—by comparison to the others—is Azusa. He is a shameless bastard who would knowledgably and willfully do utterly despicable things to an innocent girl in order to hurt her father when he was reasonably sure her father was the one who had done something horrible to his mother. Planned gang rape, from the rufees to the cameras to the men ready and willing to commit the act. There is no condoning this bastard, and it bothers me that Tachibana is the only one throughout the rest of the series who really has a problem with him—and not that he was going to have Narita gang-raped, oh no! Because he’s a threat to Tachibana’s perfectly monogamous worldview of Narita. But the thing is, with Azusa there’s actually a character arc that took him to being so fucked up. There’s a beginning, a middle, and the story actually ends before it is all wrapped up his final revenge on the man who is actually responsible for screwing his mom over. Because wrapping up the actually dramatic character arc was less important than Will The Heroine End Up With The Complete Bastard? Yes, Yes She Will. Love him and/or hate him, Azusa was actually someone to be interested in. And as I write this, I remember actually being more interested in that stupid romantic conflict near the end (read: I wanted to see if the bastard would reform at all, if the… Faulkner… thing… would be a thing… and if the heroine would remain invertebrate for the rest of her life. Answer: No, sort of, yes.) Come to think of it, Azusa wasn’t really actually that interesting outside of his own arc at the beginning or his couple dramatic confrontation moments afterwards. But I’m clinging to positives here. So I will try my best to give this a character rating of pass. Even though it’s not.
1-3 on characters in Hot Gimmick.
Not gonna talk about the Faulkner thing yet. Nope. Instead, I’m going to talk about the story and wrap up the characters.
This is a story about the social politics of living in a housing complex provided by the company that the father works for. The inciting moment that kicks off the conflict is that the Narita Family’s second daughter Akane is a little junior high school slut who thinks she might be pregnant and skips school for a day because her period is late and she has to go through a list of all the boys she had recently screwed sans condom (leaving off the ones she’d actually used protection with). Don’t worry about this point, it will never come up again. So big sis, because she takes the shit for everyone in this series, goes out to buy a pregnancy test, and is found out by childhood friend and then figure of terror who had—gasp—once pushed her down a flight of stairs, leaving her scarred with a fear that will never actually come up. (I think the author confused “fear” with “really fucking unpleasant memory.”) So she hates and is terrified of this guy. Cool. But social politics are everything here, and so she needs him quiet about that pregnancy test (which isn’t even needed when Big Sis gets home anyway, making this plot point—say it with me now—UTTERLY FUCKING POINTLESS!), and agrees to be his slave to protect her family. And Tachibana, being the seventeen year old male that he is, uses this power to his advantage for one thing: BEWBS! Because what else does the completely virgin top-student with all the money and power he wants supposed to do? But not just molestation, also bastard moves like forcing her to give up her first kiss to him in a public place. I know our heroine is the one this phrase is meant for, but OUR PROTAGONIST, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
When I was researching the series, things said that you just need to stick out the first volume’s worth of chapters, because after that is when it gets good. This is actually bullshit. Because: The first few chapters, things are pretty clear. Trope filled as hell, but we get it. Then… after about that time, the story gets interesting, and you want to read more—you want to see if you can trust Azusa, you want to see when Tachibana will make the shift from “you are my slave” to “I love you, I want you to be my girlfriend,” and you want to see the heroine stick up for herself.
Instead, you get a completely unreformed bastard Tachibana using the heroine and never giving one single damn for her past a single scene where he is trying to fill a litmus test for her definition of “this is when people become boyfriend and girlfriend.” One scene is not enough to balance at least 50 of 54 chapters of utter bastardry. You get a heroine who is so wrapped up in her emotional conflicts that she never, ever, ever works towards resolution on any of them. You get a relationship founded on desire, control, tears, and some giddy attraction where there is never, ever a single serious exchange of ideas and ideals, never any kind of give-and-take, never both parties contributing and seeking the good of one another. You get Azusa attempting to commit an unforgivable crime and never suffering any consequences, and being boring when he does get time in the sun. You get some distracting chapters where Little Slut Sister is dumbed down to being flirty and popular (never a mention of her sexual partners again) with a distracting arc where she’s trying to get with this adorable, earnest nerd guy who’s extremely preoccupied with Gundam (bless).
And you get incest.
About half a series worth of IIINNNCEEEEEST~ being a major plot point. This is the thing I was using “Faulkner” as a euphemism for. But you see, The Sound and the Fury is a very smart book, and this is not a very smart series. With The Sound and the Fury, incest is the juxtaposition of sexuality, phobia of sexuality, unfitting societal and moral expectations, and illustration of kind of how fucked up Quentin is. There’s already too much written about whether Quentin actually wanted his sister sexually or if he just wanted the ideals and to remain in celibate shame, but I will let those debates die with him in the river for the purposes of right now. Incest in Faulkner is sick, it’s not condoned, but it’s used smartly, in order to cause the audience a measured discomfort as it contributes to the story.
I have no idea what the hell the author was going for with this, but that she really wanted to write an incest story and not have it be about incest.
BUT I’M SORRY, YOU CANNOT HAVE LINES LIKE “I just did it [had sex] with onii-chan [big brother]” AND HAVE IT BE OKAY. (Note: Just because she says it doesn’t make it true.)
And, I hear it now in my head, all of the people who say “But he wasn’t actually her brother! He was adopted! It’s not incest!
No. They were raised as brother and sister. A form annulling the adoption doesn’t change that. It is still incest. Romance and sex between members of close family is incest. This. Is. Incest.
We first learn about Big Bro’s feelings in a flashback panel where he’s remembering praying to God, “Forgive me, I’m in love with my own sister.” I don’t know if the writer wants us to ignore that when she later has him say “I never once looked at you as my sister.” Or y’know, that time where he was like “We were kids, and then (illustration of her in a junior high school uniform) my feelings changed…”
God, you creepy fucking incestuous bastard.
And that above is my clinical reaction. Because he’s a bang-up guy in the series! No, really! I’m not okay, okay? He… I… I appreciate and am as devoted to truly nice guys as much as stupid teenage girls are often mindlessly devoted to Byronic heroes, antiheroes, and bad boys. And this incestuous bastard is the best guy in the series. NOT FOR THE HEROINE, GOD FUCKING NO, NEVER FOR THE HEROINE. But as a guy. He’s so devoted, hardworking, nice, tolerant, caring, and giving that he’s utterly unreal. BUT YOU SICK FUCKER YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH YOUR OWN SISTER WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. NO.
And here’s a real issue: The end of the series is pretty much devoted to whether she will choose to be with her Complete Bastard boyfriend who lies to her, hides things from her, berates her, constantly pressures her for sex, hits her, commands her what to do, never shows a single care for her, and is mindlessly jealous over her—or will she end up with this other guy, who is super nice, and her sick-as-fuck mother approves of her being with (Seriously, Mom, what the actual literal incestuous fuck?), who has been devoted to her for years, who makes her happiness a priority, who will take care of her and listen to her, oh and the only problem is that he’s her brother (oh, but not really, because he’s adopted!)?
There is no win in this situation. I don’t want her to get together with her brother, no matter how nice or great he is, because he is her brother. She never drops off the “brother” honorifics, not even when she is taking off her clothes and asking him to fuck her. And in the end when the other guy is commanding her to marry him as soon as he turns eighteen, nothing will ever change. He will always be a controlling, selfish asshole. The only thing he has going for him is that she feels attracted to him. She is sixteen experiencing what is her first time actually being in love. (Not counting Azusa because that lasted two or three days and ended in attempted gang rape. Bastard.) “But I love Tachibana” is not good enough, you stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid girl.
But it will be. They will get married, and he will control her, and she will cry, and things will go on as always, because he sure as hell won’t let her ever get a divorce.
Which brings us to the end of the review, and me explaining that “I don’t know, I just don’t know…” I don’t know why I read this series through to the end. I guess I needed to see if the author’s desperate “THIS TOTALLY ISN’T INCEST!” would remotely fly. I guess I wanted to see the heroine crash and burn and choose Tachibana. I wanted to see Azusa’s final reaction to knowing who really hurt his mother. I guess I just finished the series because in the middle, it was good-ish, and I really wanted to see where it went. And then when it got really, really bad, I needed to finish so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.
Don’t read this series—that’s my recommendation. I have had coffee stronger than this heroine, and black coffee sweeter than her fiancé. The author tries to pass off incest as though it isn’t (and don’t try to tell me that the Japanese public would be just dandy with this as their representation of wholesome relationships for adoptive families), and the writing is mediocre at best. Read something where all the heroes aren’t bastards, and the heroine is something other than a doormat. Don’t start, because if you start you’ll want to finish, and if you finish, you’ll be left with buckets of things you hated, and buckets of “I don’t know, I just don’t know” to make it go down easier.
Those buckets of “I don’t know” give this series two stars instead of one. I want to give it one star to balance out five-star ratings, but I can’t do that. This volume at least is better than many of the others (no it kind of isn’t), but I’m going for the whole series, and the whole thing is a stupid, misogynistic two-star.
EDIT: It is now one year later, and I am removing the second star in order to balance out the series of five star ratings which I can hold no allowance to. One star, though my above assessment is probably more accurate.
If I were to present this as a vlog, I would probably stare at my camera stuttering the phrase “I don’t know, I just don’t know” for a long time, going through various stages of grief, and not edit that out because it’s an important part of the reading-this-series process, and then launch into a rant heavily referencing William Faulkner and semi-contradictory takes on Japanese culture, focusing on its general acceptance of the Bastard Boyfriend trope, accepting it as an acceptable thing for the hero to be in utter acceptance by the characters and supposedly the audience, and… and… and another spoiler that I’ll go into later. Faulkner. Keep Faulkner in mind. Mind you, however I start, this will come to rage and spoilers. Also, language warning: Fuck IGN as putting this as their top choice for a top ten list of Shoujo manga. This is utterly not acceptable in the least, unless that list was a fucking troll post. Also I hate the heroine.
I’ll start on the art, to be fair. On the whole, your typical shoujo fare. Girls have big, watery eyes, guys are tall and long-limbed, children were ripped untimely from the cabbage patch’s womb, but darn are they cute. Something that bothered me is that for a lot of backgrounds, it looks like they took their reference pictures and instead of tracing or drawing from a reference, the artist or assistants in charge just put some screen transfer solution onto the photo, pressed the manuscript to it, and peeled it away to be just blurry enough to look like there’s a wet newspaper photograph jammed in the background of the artwork on the page. Stylistic choice? I can accept it. But I don’t like it. The guys look average as well, but it is nice to see a few that aren’t quite as skinny as most bishonen. So, all in all, the artwork gets about 3.5 stars, being barely above solid average, in my opinion, for good points balancing bad points within a sea of average.
…The… Nope. Can’t talk about the Faulkner thing yet. Nope. The heroine? Yes, I think I can talk about her next. Dis bitch. Girl. You don’t even.
People complain a lot about the heroines of shoujo manga, that they are weak, cry at every little thing, and never stand up for themselves. Well, that’s a perfect definition of this heroine! Her crying scenes could be a drinking game with a 65% mortality rate. It is her primary response to conflict, and good for her, because that’s usually how she gets out of it anyway—start crying, someone hugs you, the end. Nothing is actually resolved, because you are not talking about any of the sources of conflict, but that’s another problem. Getting back to the heroine: I could not think of a way to possibly make her more stereotypical. Virginal, doesn’t make the best grades, gullible, sweet, caring, shy, family-oriented, emotional, eventually has the exact same bangs that all the rest have (excuse my language, BUT IS IT A FUCKING DRESS CODE?). I submit to you that Bella Swan herself has more personal character than this bitch, and I am not even remotely joking.
Another thing that both these ladies have going for them is abusive boyfriends! Except Edward Cullen just happens to hit 10/15 points on a list of signs for an abusive relationship, and Whatshisname from this series is just plain fucking abusive. From the beginning of the series until the end, he doesn’t address the heroine but to call her some derivative of “stupid.” And she is stupid, by all means, but there is a difference between being literally not smart, and using that as an accusation when you are trying to rob someone of confidence and any will to resist you. He hits her whenever he is displeased with her, and once slaps her solidly on the face in front of a group of people (including his family and her brother), and I can’t even remember exactly why now, and I read it yesterday—look, the guy hit her a lot, it’s hard to keep track.
Please listen to me as I say: There is never a single point in this series where he considers her feelings, where he earnestly apologizes (or, I think, falsely apologizes), where he respects her boundaries, where he tries to be generous with her, or where he is even realistically reasonable with her. This is an utterly despicable man to whom it never occurs to treat a woman as something other than a possession. There is no character arc for him to even come close to think about changing. His concept of a relationship is that the girl will listen to whatever he says, never think about any other man (including brothers), never disobey him, always be completely accountable to him for everything, and even rely on him to buy things for her so she won’t need to get an outside job and leave him to worry that she is conversing with men who aren’t him for a period of time over one minute. I’m not even fucking kidding.
This. Man. Should. Not. Be.
And this is actually a really simple point. I don’t know if we’re supposed to look at him as having some character arc from cold indifference to having a position of power over her that amounts to molestation (An agreement for silence on a scandalous matter in exchange for being his “slave” does not make it any less molestation; see Scarpia Ultimatum for further reading) to such a “love” that he commands her to choose between him and her family on several occasions, withholds valuable information that is extremely important to her, and that he is somehow so preoccupied with her that he can’t bring himself to bang a willing partner who is topless beneath him. No. Just fucking no.
So, as far as characters for, we’re 0-2! Oh, Tachibana—that was the bastard’s name. And Narita for the bitch he’s after.
One character that I find marginally acceptable—by comparison to the others—is Azusa. He is a shameless bastard who would knowledgably and willfully do utterly despicable things to an innocent girl in order to hurt her father when he was reasonably sure her father was the one who had done something horrible to his mother. Planned gang rape, from the rufees to the cameras to the men ready and willing to commit the act. There is no condoning this bastard, and it bothers me that Tachibana is the only one throughout the rest of the series who really has a problem with him—and not that he was going to have Narita gang-raped, oh no! Because he’s a threat to Tachibana’s perfectly monogamous worldview of Narita. But the thing is, with Azusa there’s actually a character arc that took him to being so fucked up. There’s a beginning, a middle, and the story actually ends before it is all wrapped up his final revenge on the man who is actually responsible for screwing his mom over. Because wrapping up the actually dramatic character arc was less important than Will The Heroine End Up With The Complete Bastard? Yes, Yes She Will. Love him and/or hate him, Azusa was actually someone to be interested in. And as I write this, I remember actually being more interested in that stupid romantic conflict near the end (read: I wanted to see if the bastard would reform at all, if the… Faulkner… thing… would be a thing… and if the heroine would remain invertebrate for the rest of her life. Answer: No, sort of, yes.) Come to think of it, Azusa wasn’t really actually that interesting outside of his own arc at the beginning or his couple dramatic confrontation moments afterwards. But I’m clinging to positives here. So I will try my best to give this a character rating of pass. Even though it’s not.
1-3 on characters in Hot Gimmick.
Not gonna talk about the Faulkner thing yet. Nope. Instead, I’m going to talk about the story and wrap up the characters.
This is a story about the social politics of living in a housing complex provided by the company that the father works for. The inciting moment that kicks off the conflict is that the Narita Family’s second daughter Akane is a little junior high school slut who thinks she might be pregnant and skips school for a day because her period is late and she has to go through a list of all the boys she had recently screwed sans condom (leaving off the ones she’d actually used protection with). Don’t worry about this point, it will never come up again. So big sis, because she takes the shit for everyone in this series, goes out to buy a pregnancy test, and is found out by childhood friend and then figure of terror who had—gasp—once pushed her down a flight of stairs, leaving her scarred with a fear that will never actually come up. (I think the author confused “fear” with “really fucking unpleasant memory.”) So she hates and is terrified of this guy. Cool. But social politics are everything here, and so she needs him quiet about that pregnancy test (which isn’t even needed when Big Sis gets home anyway, making this plot point—say it with me now—UTTERLY FUCKING POINTLESS!), and agrees to be his slave to protect her family. And Tachibana, being the seventeen year old male that he is, uses this power to his advantage for one thing: BEWBS! Because what else does the completely virgin top-student with all the money and power he wants supposed to do? But not just molestation, also bastard moves like forcing her to give up her first kiss to him in a public place. I know our heroine is the one this phrase is meant for, but OUR PROTAGONIST, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
When I was researching the series, things said that you just need to stick out the first volume’s worth of chapters, because after that is when it gets good. This is actually bullshit. Because: The first few chapters, things are pretty clear. Trope filled as hell, but we get it. Then… after about that time, the story gets interesting, and you want to read more—you want to see if you can trust Azusa, you want to see when Tachibana will make the shift from “you are my slave” to “I love you, I want you to be my girlfriend,” and you want to see the heroine stick up for herself.
Instead, you get a completely unreformed bastard Tachibana using the heroine and never giving one single damn for her past a single scene where he is trying to fill a litmus test for her definition of “this is when people become boyfriend and girlfriend.” One scene is not enough to balance at least 50 of 54 chapters of utter bastardry. You get a heroine who is so wrapped up in her emotional conflicts that she never, ever, ever works towards resolution on any of them. You get a relationship founded on desire, control, tears, and some giddy attraction where there is never, ever a single serious exchange of ideas and ideals, never any kind of give-and-take, never both parties contributing and seeking the good of one another. You get Azusa attempting to commit an unforgivable crime and never suffering any consequences, and being boring when he does get time in the sun. You get some distracting chapters where Little Slut Sister is dumbed down to being flirty and popular (never a mention of her sexual partners again) with a distracting arc where she’s trying to get with this adorable, earnest nerd guy who’s extremely preoccupied with Gundam (bless).
And you get incest.
About half a series worth of IIINNNCEEEEEST~ being a major plot point. This is the thing I was using “Faulkner” as a euphemism for. But you see, The Sound and the Fury is a very smart book, and this is not a very smart series. With The Sound and the Fury, incest is the juxtaposition of sexuality, phobia of sexuality, unfitting societal and moral expectations, and illustration of kind of how fucked up Quentin is. There’s already too much written about whether Quentin actually wanted his sister sexually or if he just wanted the ideals and to remain in celibate shame, but I will let those debates die with him in the river for the purposes of right now. Incest in Faulkner is sick, it’s not condoned, but it’s used smartly, in order to cause the audience a measured discomfort as it contributes to the story.
I have no idea what the hell the author was going for with this, but that she really wanted to write an incest story and not have it be about incest.
BUT I’M SORRY, YOU CANNOT HAVE LINES LIKE “I just did it [had sex] with onii-chan [big brother]” AND HAVE IT BE OKAY. (Note: Just because she says it doesn’t make it true.)
And, I hear it now in my head, all of the people who say “But he wasn’t actually her brother! He was adopted! It’s not incest!
No. They were raised as brother and sister. A form annulling the adoption doesn’t change that. It is still incest. Romance and sex between members of close family is incest. This. Is. Incest.
We first learn about Big Bro’s feelings in a flashback panel where he’s remembering praying to God, “Forgive me, I’m in love with my own sister.” I don’t know if the writer wants us to ignore that when she later has him say “I never once looked at you as my sister.” Or y’know, that time where he was like “We were kids, and then (illustration of her in a junior high school uniform) my feelings changed…”
God, you creepy fucking incestuous bastard.
And that above is my clinical reaction. Because he’s a bang-up guy in the series! No, really! I’m not okay, okay? He… I… I appreciate and am as devoted to truly nice guys as much as stupid teenage girls are often mindlessly devoted to Byronic heroes, antiheroes, and bad boys. And this incestuous bastard is the best guy in the series. NOT FOR THE HEROINE, GOD FUCKING NO, NEVER FOR THE HEROINE. But as a guy. He’s so devoted, hardworking, nice, tolerant, caring, and giving that he’s utterly unreal. BUT YOU SICK FUCKER YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH YOUR OWN SISTER WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. NO.
And here’s a real issue: The end of the series is pretty much devoted to whether she will choose to be with her Complete Bastard boyfriend who lies to her, hides things from her, berates her, constantly pressures her for sex, hits her, commands her what to do, never shows a single care for her, and is mindlessly jealous over her—or will she end up with this other guy, who is super nice, and her sick-as-fuck mother approves of her being with (Seriously, Mom, what the actual literal incestuous fuck?), who has been devoted to her for years, who makes her happiness a priority, who will take care of her and listen to her, oh and the only problem is that he’s her brother (oh, but not really, because he’s adopted!)?
There is no win in this situation. I don’t want her to get together with her brother, no matter how nice or great he is, because he is her brother. She never drops off the “brother” honorifics, not even when she is taking off her clothes and asking him to fuck her. And in the end when the other guy is commanding her to marry him as soon as he turns eighteen, nothing will ever change. He will always be a controlling, selfish asshole. The only thing he has going for him is that she feels attracted to him. She is sixteen experiencing what is her first time actually being in love. (Not counting Azusa because that lasted two or three days and ended in attempted gang rape. Bastard.) “But I love Tachibana” is not good enough, you stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid girl.
But it will be. They will get married, and he will control her, and she will cry, and things will go on as always, because he sure as hell won’t let her ever get a divorce.
Which brings us to the end of the review, and me explaining that “I don’t know, I just don’t know…” I don’t know why I read this series through to the end. I guess I needed to see if the author’s desperate “THIS TOTALLY ISN’T INCEST!” would remotely fly. I guess I wanted to see the heroine crash and burn and choose Tachibana. I wanted to see Azusa’s final reaction to knowing who really hurt his mother. I guess I just finished the series because in the middle, it was good-ish, and I really wanted to see where it went. And then when it got really, really bad, I needed to finish so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.
Don’t read this series—that’s my recommendation. I have had coffee stronger than this heroine, and black coffee sweeter than her fiancé. The author tries to pass off incest as though it isn’t (and don’t try to tell me that the Japanese public would be just dandy with this as their representation of wholesome relationships for adoptive families), and the writing is mediocre at best. Read something where all the heroes aren’t bastards, and the heroine is something other than a doormat. Don’t start, because if you start you’ll want to finish, and if you finish, you’ll be left with buckets of things you hated, and buckets of “I don’t know, I just don’t know” to make it go down easier.
Those buckets of “I don’t know” give this series two stars instead of one. I want to give it one star to balance out five-star ratings, but I can’t do that. This volume at least is better than many of the others (no it kind of isn’t), but I’m going for the whole series, and the whole thing is a stupid, misogynistic two-star.
EDIT: It is now one year later, and I am removing the second star in order to balance out the series of five star ratings which I can hold no allowance to. One star, though my above assessment is probably more accurate.
May 13, 2015
...I feel depraved that I loved this series.
It was like twelve pieces of meth dipped in 1,020,000 calorie chocolate. That's how addicted and damaged I felt after reading Hot Gimmick. It made me question my self-respect, my sanity and overall better judgment for men upon finishing because - frankly - I need to turn in my sociology degree for adoring this manga as much as I did.
Oh...it was a pleasure I won't soon forget or bring myself to regret.
It was like twelve pieces of meth dipped in 1,020,000 calorie chocolate. That's how addicted and damaged I felt after reading Hot Gimmick. It made me question my self-respect, my sanity and overall better judgment for men upon finishing because - frankly - I need to turn in my sociology degree for adoring this manga as much as I did.
Oh...it was a pleasure I won't soon forget or bring myself to regret.
March 27, 2016
Review for the series, volumes 1-12. Spoilers will be marked.
Oh my god.
Okay. Here's the thing. I'm a firm believer that a person can read whatever they want, even the most misogynistic piece of tripe in existence, and still be a feminist.
But this... This manga had me thinking that maybe I should turn in my feminist card.
Yes, I enjoyed this. Yes, it has numerous problems, which I'll talk about below. In fact, this manga is basically one giant problem. Because of this, I would never recommend it to my friends. I would never want my children to read this, at least not without a lengthy talk beforehand. And one afterward.
Let me just talk about the art first: I liked it except for the eyes. Mainly the female eyes. They were too huge and sometimes were drawn with no pupil and looked weird. But I liked that the characters weren't super thin, so despite Hatsumi's servile behavior, she didn't come off as frail.
Now, on to the plot!
So, you have Hatsumi, a nice but not very bright girl with a bit of a people-pleasing problem. And then there's Ryoki, a brainy jerk with control issues. These two don't like each other, but after an incident where Ryoki catches Hatsumi with a pregnancy test (which she bought for her fourteen-year-old sister), he decides blackmail is the way to go. In exchange for not telling anyone about her sister, she will be his slave. Basically, he wants to DO IT with her, and he's not taking no for an answer.
I know. I know.
Now, although I would not be down with this in real life, I love this type of story line.
But like I said, there are problems.
Hatsumi and Ryoki's relationship develops over the course of twelve volumes. Despite numerous obstacles—a vengeance-driven childhood friend, Ryoki's classist mother, and King Jerkface himself, Ryoki—they manage to stick more or less together. Which is great! Young love!
Except... no.
These two exhibit several hallmarks of a classic abusive relationship. Ryoki calls Hatsumi names, bonks her on the head, drags her along when he wants her to go somewhere with him, makes unrealistic demands of her, is insanely jealous and petty, and even slaps her once. Hatsumi is a pushover, but she does express herself quite frequently. It's just that Ryoki barely listens to her, and when he does, he goes on about how annoyed he is. He wants TOTAL CONTROL. He wants to be all she thinks about, ahead of her own family.
It doesn't matter that Ryoki does these things out of insecurity and ignorance. He hurts Hatsumi emotionally just the same. Although he yells and talks down to Hatsumi to express his affection, he talks the same to people he doesn't care about. The negative reviews of this series are not wrong. They're totally justified. And although the manga itself does acknowledge some of this behavior and point out how it's wrong, these instances are very brief and generally lost in the overall story.
I hated Ryoki's behavior, I really did. But somehow, for me, it made the sweet parts that much sweeter. Which is especially fucked up, I know. Because that's part of abusive relationships too. It's just that he really did like Hatsumi. He stood up for her on several occasions and even . He liked her protests and reluctance and being annoyed by her. They were part of the relationship, how they interacted with each other. Just like him berating her all the time...
Oh my god. I KNOW.
This romance gave me butterflies. BUTTERFLIES!!! Getting butterflies is my main goal when reading romance. So yeah, I don't know what happened here. I've ranted about books for less than what went on in these pages. And while I'm not going to rant about this (frankly, there's just way too much to cover in a single review), I do have some less than positive thoughts on the ending.
Whew, got that off my chest.
This was a quick read. I got through all twelve volumes in three days. Despite the constant verbal abuse and the drama, I really enjoyed this and I'm keeping it in my collection. I'm fully aware of the reasons I should hate this, and yet this time I really don't care.
Oh my god.
Okay. Here's the thing. I'm a firm believer that a person can read whatever they want, even the most misogynistic piece of tripe in existence, and still be a feminist.
But this... This manga had me thinking that maybe I should turn in my feminist card.
Yes, I enjoyed this. Yes, it has numerous problems, which I'll talk about below. In fact, this manga is basically one giant problem. Because of this, I would never recommend it to my friends. I would never want my children to read this, at least not without a lengthy talk beforehand. And one afterward.
Let me just talk about the art first: I liked it except for the eyes. Mainly the female eyes. They were too huge and sometimes were drawn with no pupil and looked weird. But I liked that the characters weren't super thin, so despite Hatsumi's servile behavior, she didn't come off as frail.
Now, on to the plot!
So, you have Hatsumi, a nice but not very bright girl with a bit of a people-pleasing problem. And then there's Ryoki, a brainy jerk with control issues. These two don't like each other, but after an incident where Ryoki catches Hatsumi with a pregnancy test (which she bought for her fourteen-year-old sister), he decides blackmail is the way to go. In exchange for not telling anyone about her sister, she will be his slave. Basically, he wants to DO IT with her, and he's not taking no for an answer.
I know. I know.
Now, although I would not be down with this in real life, I love this type of story line.
But like I said, there are problems.
Hatsumi and Ryoki's relationship develops over the course of twelve volumes. Despite numerous obstacles—a vengeance-driven childhood friend, Ryoki's classist mother, and King Jerkface himself, Ryoki—they manage to stick more or less together. Which is great! Young love!
Except... no.
These two exhibit several hallmarks of a classic abusive relationship. Ryoki calls Hatsumi names, bonks her on the head, drags her along when he wants her to go somewhere with him, makes unrealistic demands of her, is insanely jealous and petty, and even slaps her once. Hatsumi is a pushover, but she does express herself quite frequently. It's just that Ryoki barely listens to her, and when he does, he goes on about how annoyed he is. He wants TOTAL CONTROL. He wants to be all she thinks about, ahead of her own family.
It doesn't matter that Ryoki does these things out of insecurity and ignorance. He hurts Hatsumi emotionally just the same. Although he yells and talks down to Hatsumi to express his affection, he talks the same to people he doesn't care about. The negative reviews of this series are not wrong. They're totally justified. And although the manga itself does acknowledge some of this behavior and point out how it's wrong, these instances are very brief and generally lost in the overall story.
I hated Ryoki's behavior, I really did. But somehow, for me, it made the sweet parts that much sweeter. Which is especially fucked up, I know. Because that's part of abusive relationships too. It's just that he really did like Hatsumi. He stood up for her on several occasions and even . He liked her protests and reluctance and being annoyed by her. They were part of the relationship, how they interacted with each other. Just like him berating her all the time...
Oh my god. I KNOW.
This romance gave me butterflies. BUTTERFLIES!!! Getting butterflies is my main goal when reading romance. So yeah, I don't know what happened here. I've ranted about books for less than what went on in these pages. And while I'm not going to rant about this (frankly, there's just way too much to cover in a single review), I do have some less than positive thoughts on the ending.
Whew, got that off my chest.
This was a quick read. I got through all twelve volumes in three days. Despite the constant verbal abuse and the drama, I really enjoyed this and I'm keeping it in my collection. I'm fully aware of the reasons I should hate this, and yet this time I really don't care.
April 27, 2022
Content warnings: sexual assault, attempted rape.
My initial review of this first volume of Hot Gimmick expressed some reluctance to talk about it in depth. Now that I'm nearly four volumes in, let's try and unpack why I enjoy it enough to have read it three times, and anticipate reading it again in a few years.
A short-and-simple elevator pitch for this story is "a combination male-harem story, neighborhood story, and reality TV show."
Characters! All of them live in the same company housing apartment complex.
Hatsumi: our beleaguered heroine.
Ryoki: the son of Hatsumi's dad's boss. He finds out a tawdry secret about Hatsumi's sister, Akane, and decides to enslave Hatsumi as a condition of keeping the secret. Totally normal!!
Akane: Hatsumi's polar opposite in a number of ways, at least when it comes to dealing with boys. Sexually outgoing, and enacts cutesy deceits in order to draw attention to herself.
Azusa: Hatsumi's crush from quite early in her life. Because of his family history, he intends to revenge himself on Hatsumi's father by hurting her.
Shinogu: Hatsumi's older brother who is working several part-time jobs to earn enough to move out. He seems to have some inappropriate feelings for our heroine...
Subaru: boy-next-door type. A huge Gundam fan and a bit of a nerd, though his sister makes sure he is fashionable and presentable. He's a secondary character now, but becomes more important to the story later.
Mrs. Tachibana: Ryoki's mom. Mr. Tachibana has a powerful enough job that his family lives in a penthouse apartment, and Mrs. Tachibana is the queen bee of the whole complex.
Mrs. Tachibana's minions: one of the more interesting things about this story is the apartment complex, and Mrs. Tachibana and her minions, forming a kind of "evil village." While nominally acting in the interest of public morals when they snoop and pass along gossip to Mrs. T, the minions solely police the girls, and uphold patriarchy and the social hierarchy in their little fiefdom.
Just as with any harem story, the reader is encouraged to choose a favorite boy and root for them. In this case, there is nothing healthy about anything that's going on, and the reader really should root for all these characters to be in a different story instead. Author Miki Aihara treads a delicate line here between melodrama and absurdity; characters meeting each other halfway, and being boneheaded and cruel to each other. If Hatsumi had the faintest clue how any of these guys felt about her (the obvious spite and hatred aspects aside), the whole thing would fall apart immediately.
The line is crossed too far for me with the setup in volume 2, which made Azusa too mean-spirited to sympathize with (in my opinion). A very similar thing happened in Peach Girl and I wasn't a fan of it there, either. Ryoki has a nasty habit of mauling Hatsumi sexually*, but at heart he is stumbling and clueless about sex and about dealing with people in a non-dominating way, and his utterly bizarre relationship with Hatsumi helps him move a little closer to not being a complete buffoon. Shinogu is the tortured hero who keeps his forbidden emotions bottled up inside. Those of us who have read lots of shoujo will guess immediately that he is .
* it's fiction...
Akane has a super darling arc toward the end of the series which is one of my favorite parts. A kind of reverse-gender "reformed rake" thing. Too cute. :)
This manga is ridiculous, over-the-top, and often very funny. Under all the absurdity I can vividly feel the characters' emotions, how they are striving to grow up, find love and be happy... often despite their counterproductive, face palm-worthy decisions.
I've tried a couple of Aihara's other series--Tokyo Boys and Girls and Honey Hunt--and didn't get more than a volume or two in before getting bored. Whatever catnip this series has going was somehow lacking for me.
My initial review of this first volume of Hot Gimmick expressed some reluctance to talk about it in depth. Now that I'm nearly four volumes in, let's try and unpack why I enjoy it enough to have read it three times, and anticipate reading it again in a few years.
A short-and-simple elevator pitch for this story is "a combination male-harem story, neighborhood story, and reality TV show."
Characters! All of them live in the same company housing apartment complex.
Hatsumi: our beleaguered heroine.
Ryoki: the son of Hatsumi's dad's boss. He finds out a tawdry secret about Hatsumi's sister, Akane, and decides to enslave Hatsumi as a condition of keeping the secret. Totally normal!!
Akane: Hatsumi's polar opposite in a number of ways, at least when it comes to dealing with boys. Sexually outgoing, and enacts cutesy deceits in order to draw attention to herself.
Azusa: Hatsumi's crush from quite early in her life. Because of his family history, he intends to revenge himself on Hatsumi's father by hurting her.
Shinogu: Hatsumi's older brother who is working several part-time jobs to earn enough to move out. He seems to have some inappropriate feelings for our heroine...
Subaru: boy-next-door type. A huge Gundam fan and a bit of a nerd, though his sister makes sure he is fashionable and presentable. He's a secondary character now, but becomes more important to the story later.
Mrs. Tachibana: Ryoki's mom. Mr. Tachibana has a powerful enough job that his family lives in a penthouse apartment, and Mrs. Tachibana is the queen bee of the whole complex.
Mrs. Tachibana's minions: one of the more interesting things about this story is the apartment complex, and Mrs. Tachibana and her minions, forming a kind of "evil village." While nominally acting in the interest of public morals when they snoop and pass along gossip to Mrs. T, the minions solely police the girls, and uphold patriarchy and the social hierarchy in their little fiefdom.
Just as with any harem story, the reader is encouraged to choose a favorite boy and root for them. In this case, there is nothing healthy about anything that's going on, and the reader really should root for all these characters to be in a different story instead. Author Miki Aihara treads a delicate line here between melodrama and absurdity; characters meeting each other halfway, and being boneheaded and cruel to each other. If Hatsumi had the faintest clue how any of these guys felt about her (the obvious spite and hatred aspects aside), the whole thing would fall apart immediately.
The line is crossed too far for me with the setup in volume 2, which made Azusa too mean-spirited to sympathize with (in my opinion). A very similar thing happened in Peach Girl and I wasn't a fan of it there, either. Ryoki has a nasty habit of mauling Hatsumi sexually*, but at heart he is stumbling and clueless about sex and about dealing with people in a non-dominating way, and his utterly bizarre relationship with Hatsumi helps him move a little closer to not being a complete buffoon. Shinogu is the tortured hero who keeps his forbidden emotions bottled up inside. Those of us who have read lots of shoujo will guess immediately that he is .
* it's fiction...
Akane has a super darling arc toward the end of the series which is one of my favorite parts. A kind of reverse-gender "reformed rake" thing. Too cute. :)
This manga is ridiculous, over-the-top, and often very funny. Under all the absurdity I can vividly feel the characters' emotions, how they are striving to grow up, find love and be happy... often despite their counterproductive, face palm-worthy decisions.
I've tried a couple of Aihara's other series--Tokyo Boys and Girls and Honey Hunt--and didn't get more than a volume or two in before getting bored. Whatever catnip this series has going was somehow lacking for me.
October 23, 2008
Everyone is trying to rape her all the time. It's weird and her love interest is an asshole.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2013
If you think it will get better, less abusive, or more loving: You're wrong. It doesn't.
Even after a few years of coming to understand how 'submissive' characters in manga can be strong or the physical abuse metaphorical or the sacrifice is because of their great love for the dominant, this story is still unacceptable. The physical abuse is real, the girl hates it but is too terrified to speak up, and the guy never drops his pride enough to show his affection. It is horrible and I hate Viz for ever printing it.
In case you were wondering, I adore 'Itazura na Kiss' and a number of other series with a strong power imbalance because the characters still push each other to grow. That simply is not the case here. Miki Aihara loves mean, abusive bullies and that is what she writes. Save your money and go elsewhere. There is nothing redeeming about this series except its pretty cover art. And yes, I read the whole series.
Even after a few years of coming to understand how 'submissive' characters in manga can be strong or the physical abuse metaphorical or the sacrifice is because of their great love for the dominant, this story is still unacceptable. The physical abuse is real, the girl hates it but is too terrified to speak up, and the guy never drops his pride enough to show his affection. It is horrible and I hate Viz for ever printing it.
In case you were wondering, I adore 'Itazura na Kiss' and a number of other series with a strong power imbalance because the characters still push each other to grow. That simply is not the case here. Miki Aihara loves mean, abusive bullies and that is what she writes. Save your money and go elsewhere. There is nothing redeeming about this series except its pretty cover art. And yes, I read the whole series.
April 9, 2012
If I could give something negative stars, it would be this manga. I see so many positive reviews about how it's "addictive," which is all well and good, but people--think for a minute! Have you ever seen any pictures online of meth addicts? You know, the really terrible ones that make you want to throw up or wash yourself immediately after viewing them? This is that kind of addictive.
Hatsumi is no one's role model, nor should she be. When one of your so-called love interest chooses to inform you of his "affections" by declaring you his slave and you're OK WITH IT, there's something deeply wrong here. Girl needs to grow a spine, and get some restraining orders.
Read only if you have a really high pain threshold, enjoy beating your head repeatedly against a wall, like flinging books across rooms, or think that Edward and Bella's romance IS LIKE TEH GR8ST OMG EVAR!!!!!
Hatsumi is no one's role model, nor should she be. When one of your so-called love interest chooses to inform you of his "affections" by declaring you his slave and you're OK WITH IT, there's something deeply wrong here. Girl needs to grow a spine, and get some restraining orders.
Read only if you have a really high pain threshold, enjoy beating your head repeatedly against a wall, like flinging books across rooms, or think that Edward and Bella's romance IS LIKE TEH GR8ST OMG EVAR!!!!!
February 26, 2013
I hated this series, I don’t even know why I finished it.
Actually I do, I hoped I was wrong about the ending.
Fucking wrong!
Actually I do, I hoped I was wrong about the ending.
Fucking wrong!
December 31, 2016
When you glorify a love interest who forces himself on the main character you get Hot Gimmick. What a train wreck! And apparently she ends up with him (so I've heard).
October 7, 2023
As with all my reviews of manga, this will encompass the entire 12 volume series and may contain spoilers, as I wish to speak at length about the series.
Hot Gimmick (ホットギミック, literally just the Japanese phonetic spelling of the English) is a very polarizing series; I either see it adored or hated. Rarely do feelings linger in the middle. I have noticed, however, that the reason a lot of people hate this isn't for its incredibly problematic aspects, but the fact that Hatsumi is a very meek, weak-willed character.
Even if Hatsumi is a somewhat weak-willed character, if she's your biggest issue, you're overlooking some bright, flashing lights atop the red flags.
When it comes to Miki Aihara, this is probably her most famous work and is one of her lesser problematic titles alongside Honey Hunt, Vol. 1. If you compare this to 先生のお気に入り! Sensei no Okiniiri! or From Five to Nine, Volume 1 then the antics aren't quite as bad, but make no mistake: there is highly problematic content in this.
The story is often subtitled as "neighbors in love" and follows a gentle high school girl named Hatsumi who finds herself caught up between three guys: Ryoki (her childhood bully), Azusa (her childhood crush), and Shinogu (her older brother).
Each relationship has its own types of complexity as a result of everyone's family being entangled, since Hatsumi and the boys all live in housing provided by the company their fathers work for.
I could honestly write many, many pages describing the plot and picking apart everything wrong with it, but, for the sake of trying to fit my sentiments into a review adequately, let's break it down by love interest, as this story is ultimately a romance and focuses heavily on Hatsumi's interactions with each of the guys.
We'll start with the childhood crush, Azusa.
As a young boy, Azusa was sweet and mild-mannered, so Hatsumi took a liking to him, especially after he stood up to Ryoki in her defense. He moves away while they're all still kids, but returns at the start of the story, saving Hatsumi from Ryoki and reigniting her childhood infatuation.
Ultimately, what kills Azusa as a love interest and person is that he approaches Hatsumi with an incredibly malicious intent in mind: he intends to lower Hatsumi's guard by tricking her into thinking he loves her so that he can lure her to an isolated building where he is planning to film a group of men drugging and gang raping her, all for the sake of sending the video to Hatsumi's father as revenge, as he believes that he's responsible for his mother's death.
I don't think I need to say more, right?
He premeditated and was actively executing the drugging, raping, and revenge porn filming of both a minor and his childhood friend. Had Ryoki and Azusa's manager not intervened, Hatsumi would have been brutally assaulted and traumatized.
Like, no matter Azusa's past or motivations, his choice to execute this plan and nearly have it succeed purely for the sake of petty revenge against her father (who wasn't responsible for it all, Ryoki's dad was) is absolutely unforgivable. No amount of childhood trauma or bad home life or missing your mom makes that okay.
This is even worse than Arata in 萌えカレ!! 1 planning to rape Hikaru himself to get revenge on his twin brother until he realized that Hikaru was a good person whom he cared for--Arata realized it was a horrible thing to consider doing and never even made the attempt after he got closer to Hikaru, but Azusa, who already knew Hatsumi and knew she was a good person, still decided his revenge was more important and proceeded with the plan to hurt Hatsumi for revenge against another (also, sidenote: it's weird that twice now "rape girl to get revenge on someone else" has been a plot point in manga).
I'm with Ryoki on the Azusa hate: Hatsumi should completely cut him off and never speak to him. In fact, she should have called the police and pressed charges.
This is also why his manager is such a horrible character; she excuses Azusa's behavior. She even approaches Hatsumi to be like "oh, don't be mad, he actually looked so hurt and upset after he failed to have you raped on film." She also doesn't call the police to get Azusa and the attempted rapists arrested. Like, what adult woman is letting men go who were about to brutally gang rape a minor they drugged?? A disgusting one. I hope Rina fucking chokes and dies alongside Azusa.
Next up we have the older brother, Shinogu.
Ah, Japan, you can't leave the forbidden taboo of incest romance alone, can you? I find you everywhere and I'm incredibly disturbed that so many Japanese people are interested in siblings being romantic. Like, are y'all good or...?
Shinogu is, for all intents and purposes, Hatsumi's older brother.
They have lived practically their whole lives as siblings, even though Shinogu is actually an adopted son of the Narita family. So while Shinogu and Hatsumi aren't biological siblings, they are family, especially from the perspective of Hatsumi, who grew up believing Shinogu was her biological sibling and has always seen him as a sibling.
It's revealed that Shinogu initially was uninterested in the Narita family, even trying to run away after his adoption, but came to accept them because of Hatsumi's love and kindness . He was adopted at an age where he still remembered his biological family, so Shinogu is the one who develops and harbors romantic feelings for Hatsumi that he feels are shameful and can't share. He even tries to leave the Narita family after he becomes a legal adult because he wants to distance himself from Hatsumi and his suppressed desire for her.
Ultimately, it's Ryoki's involvement with Hatsumi incurring jealously and a sense of protectiveness that pushes Shinogu to take action towards pursing a romantic relationship with Hatsumi, who eventually comes to know of his feelings and the fact that he's adopted, making her life more complicated.
At some point, when Ryoki and Hatsumi aren't doing well in their relationship, Hatsumi attempts to accept Shinogu's feelings because she recognizes that Shinogu is a good guy who would treat her well--even her mom approves of the match, which is really gross, by the way--but she is ultimately unable to, as she loves Ryoki and only sees Shinogu as her older brother.
The fact that Shinogu had to be a "actually I'm not your brother and I've wanted to be with you romantically for years" type of love interest as a foil against Ryoki and Azusa is ultimately very disappointing because outside of the incest angle, he is a kind, responsible, respectful person who treats Hatsumi very well. Had he not been her older brother, he would have been the best choice of the three. The only other kind of hm quality about it is that he's also older, being a university student while Hatsumi is a 16 year old still in high school.
Finally, we come to the main love interest, Ryoki, who is Hatsumi's childhood bully.
I understand what the author was attempting with Ryoki. I really do.
From the outside, Ryoki is a handsome, affluent, intelligent young man who would seemingly have everything a guy could want, but in reality, he has a strange personality and struggles to socialize with others. His home life isn't nurturing and he very quickly repels others with his unfiltered, harsh way of talking that's often very condescending and patronizing. As a result, Ryoki finds that he's quite lonely because he can't simply get what he wants like he usually does: by demanding it be given to him.
There was something here: I like the idea of a male lead looking like he has everything, but is actually lonely and unable to connect with people in meaningful ways, so he has to grow and change how he thinks and acts in order to both obtain and be worthy of receiving the companionship and love that he craves deep down.
Sadly, the way we approach demonstrating that Ryoki has flaws and needs to undergo some serious character development leaves a bad taste in my mouth, setting him up to be pretty unsympathetic and difficult to want redemption for.
When Hatsumi runs into Ryoki again after several years of not seeing him much (due to him attending a school that kept him away from the apartments most of the time), he accidentally finds out she purchased a pregnancy test for her younger sister and that she doesn't want anyone else to find out, giving him the perfect ammunition to blackmail her into being his "slave."
His motivation for doing this isn't some misguided attempt to spend time with the girl he likes or have someone do his chores or something inane like that: it's because he's a virgin that needs sex practice so he can show up his tutor, an older girl he's interested in sexually who made fun of him for being inexperienced. He intends to force Hatsumi to agree to be his living sex doll for sex practice so he can "master" it.
So, uh, we're starting off hot with problems: main male lead blackmails girl into being a "slave" for the purposes of forcing her to participate in him practicing sex/sexual acts so he can retaliate against his older tutor for making fun of him.
A key element as to why their relationship is so fraught with toxicity is that Ryoki rarely considers Hatsumi's feelings and wishes. He doesn't ask for consent, nor does he listen to her and adjust his behavior when she expresses clearly negative feelings about what's happening. Rather than ask for consent, rather than try to understand Hatsumi, Ryoki only ever acts to force his will upon Hatsumi until she relents by any means necessary.
Sadly, this mentality never leaves Ryoki, even after he realizes that he has genuine attraction and affection for Hatsumi and wishes to solely pursue and be with her romantically, not just sexually.
In nearly every situation, he is domineering and operates with a clear: "I'm in charge, I give the order, you obey" sort of attitude. Throughout the series, he often forces kisses on Hatsumi and he likes to grope her. He thankfully never goes farther than that because Hatsumi strongly resists and he does ultimately see the benefit of consent when Hatsumi kisses him for the first time, but their relationship is undoubtedly so dogged by problems in nearly every other category that he didn't even need to actually rape her in order to be a bad love interest.
As I said earlier, the idea with Ryoki being this all-knowing guy who is actually pretty naive and romantic deep down could have worked great, but it ultimately was a sad rehashing of lots of toxic tropes. While I think bully romance can work (think of Boys Over Flowers: Hana Yori Dango, Vol. 1) the bullying can't go too far and the bully needs to go through a lot of growth and atonement.
Ryoki, sadly, doesn't really grow or atone. Instead, he just kind of goes from "I'm blackmailing you into being my sex slave" to "I only want you, so don't look at other guys or I'm going to be upset and punish you for it, just give in and be with me." whilst still emotionally battering and manipulating Hatsumi whenever she doesn't respond the way he wants. His motivations are still very selfish, they just change from her being a means to an end to her being the end he means to achieve.
His paltry attempts at being a better boyfriend never accomplish much. As a result, their relationship just falls into that classic toxic trope of "boys are mean to the girls they like" which socializes girls to believe that men express affection through things that hurt them physically and emotionally, so they need to forgive them for the abuse because underneath that abuse is love.
I cannot state it enough: love doesn't feel like that. Abuse is not love. Do not stay with abusers. Their alleged feelings of love and affection do not excuse their abuse and their choice to abuse!
Had the author made some different choices with Ryouki, this would have been a way better manga about a rich boy with lacking social skills learning to be open and honest with his feelings and learning how to be a good boyfriend who listens to his partner and respects their boundaries in order to have love and companionship.
Plus, had that been the case, it would have been so easy for the author to work in Hatsumi having some great growth too; it would have been great to see her come into her own, learn to say no, stand up for herself, and find the ability to forgive Ryoki for how he treated her after he demonstrates how much he has changed.
Instead, it's just a story of how Hatsumi learns to bend and pretzel herself to appease Ryouki's demanding, domineering way of being because he happens to like her and has shown himself to not be totally evil.
In all honesty, what we're given with this series is pretty sad.
Hatsumi is such a sweet girl, but she's written to be a doormat who endures extreme emotional burden and does ten times as much emotional labor as those who she has relationships with; the only person who doesn't emotionally burden Hatsumi is Subaru, her friend. Her own mother, sister, brother, childhood crush, and mixed-feelings love interest just pile on the stress for this poor girl at every given moment without taking on nearly as much for her sake. This poor girl has no one in her corner who cares about her half as much as she cares about them.
Her entire relationship with Ryoki is characterized by her enduring all the emotional burden with little to no change in Ryoki. If their relationship has problems, Ryoki makes her into the bad guy and she's the one doing all the apologies and appeasement, even when he was the one very clearly in the wrong.
Ryoki only has a few fleeting moments where he seems to see and acknowledge Hatsumi's feelings and wants to rectify things; like when she cries and he tries to comfort her or she says that it's important that they talk about things if they're going to date and he makes the effort to find time for them to talk. But these moments are really rare and tend to be framed as these super big character growth moments that are there to say "See? He's not a total prick" when the reality is that these instances are actually very small and unremarkable because they're basic things you do when you love and respect someone.
It also doesn't help that in some situations where he sort of tries to comfort her or be a good boyfriend, he ultimately makes SHIT choices.
For example:
After Ryoki saves her from being gang raped, he gets very upset that she's crying and feeling heartbroken about Azusa betraying her. She's just gone through some serious trauma--she was almost raped and has been betrayed by someone she loved and trusted. Obviously, she is emotionally fragile and should be comforted and made to feel safe and validated.
Ryoki, however, is so selfish and jealous that he tells her to stop crying over Azusa and then, I shit you not, he forces a kiss on her and then says that now that she knows he's the best choice and that Azusa is terrible, they'll be going back to his room to have sex at last.
Hatsumi responds with "You're not any different from those guys who were about to rape me; you don't care about how I feel or what I want." and Ryoki has the nerve to get angry at her, even though he's been blackmailing, threatening, and trying to coerce Hatsumi into a sexual relationship against her wishes and without her consent for weeks all because he thinks that him liking and wanting only her makes his intentions better than those of the would-be rapists.
How Hatsumi saying that didn't make him pull back and go "oh god, what am I doing?" and have some self reflection over his actions is incredible. What person is likened to a rapist and doesn't immediately look at their behavior and try to correct their actions, especially if the person they claim to love is the one telling them that they're as dismissive of their consent and feelings as a rapist would be???
Yikes. Big, huge, massive YIKES.
There were definitely ways to make Ryoki's character work, but the author just completely and utterly failed walk that line for her character. She made him a complete mess and kind of awful person at every opportunity.
In spite of all the problems, Hot Gimmick is strangely engaging for me as a read and I think that perhaps because Ryoki wasn't as god awful as he could have been that that softens my feelings a little, but I wouldn't really say that the romance in this is especially healthy or good. I think perhaps if Ryoki and Hatsumi had gotten their "happy ending" a little sooner and we'd seen their relationship grow with Hatsumi showing more of a spine and Ryoki being more affectionate, empathethic, and respectful that we could have left the series off on a more satisfying note.
I'm not sure if the dynamic of the relationship was played up for a more comedic effect because ultimately the tone is more light and funny than dark and serious in spite of the nature of the topics covered or if the author just legitimately thought that there wasn't anything wrong with her characters actions, but either way, this story suffers and could use a heavy rewrite.
As for the art, I think Hot Gimmick was written at a transition period for Aihara Miki because you see her drawings get prettier from volume 1 to volume 12. Her style is pretty unique and has a very distinct style. I sometimes found it to be ugly but other times it had this simplified semi-realism (especially in the profiles of characters) that made it stand out. I don't love it, but it has its charms amidst the odd looking panels.
Hot Gimmick (ホットギミック, literally just the Japanese phonetic spelling of the English) is a very polarizing series; I either see it adored or hated. Rarely do feelings linger in the middle. I have noticed, however, that the reason a lot of people hate this isn't for its incredibly problematic aspects, but the fact that Hatsumi is a very meek, weak-willed character.
Even if Hatsumi is a somewhat weak-willed character, if she's your biggest issue, you're overlooking some bright, flashing lights atop the red flags.
When it comes to Miki Aihara, this is probably her most famous work and is one of her lesser problematic titles alongside Honey Hunt, Vol. 1. If you compare this to 先生のお気に入り! Sensei no Okiniiri! or From Five to Nine, Volume 1 then the antics aren't quite as bad, but make no mistake: there is highly problematic content in this.
The story is often subtitled as "neighbors in love" and follows a gentle high school girl named Hatsumi who finds herself caught up between three guys: Ryoki (her childhood bully), Azusa (her childhood crush), and Shinogu (her older brother).
Each relationship has its own types of complexity as a result of everyone's family being entangled, since Hatsumi and the boys all live in housing provided by the company their fathers work for.
I could honestly write many, many pages describing the plot and picking apart everything wrong with it, but, for the sake of trying to fit my sentiments into a review adequately, let's break it down by love interest, as this story is ultimately a romance and focuses heavily on Hatsumi's interactions with each of the guys.
We'll start with the childhood crush, Azusa.
As a young boy, Azusa was sweet and mild-mannered, so Hatsumi took a liking to him, especially after he stood up to Ryoki in her defense. He moves away while they're all still kids, but returns at the start of the story, saving Hatsumi from Ryoki and reigniting her childhood infatuation.
Ultimately, what kills Azusa as a love interest and person is that he approaches Hatsumi with an incredibly malicious intent in mind: he intends to lower Hatsumi's guard by tricking her into thinking he loves her so that he can lure her to an isolated building where he is planning to film a group of men drugging and gang raping her, all for the sake of sending the video to Hatsumi's father as revenge, as he believes that he's responsible for his mother's death.
I don't think I need to say more, right?
He premeditated and was actively executing the drugging, raping, and revenge porn filming of both a minor and his childhood friend. Had Ryoki and Azusa's manager not intervened, Hatsumi would have been brutally assaulted and traumatized.
Like, no matter Azusa's past or motivations, his choice to execute this plan and nearly have it succeed purely for the sake of petty revenge against her father (who wasn't responsible for it all, Ryoki's dad was) is absolutely unforgivable. No amount of childhood trauma or bad home life or missing your mom makes that okay.
This is even worse than Arata in 萌えカレ!! 1 planning to rape Hikaru himself to get revenge on his twin brother until he realized that Hikaru was a good person whom he cared for--Arata realized it was a horrible thing to consider doing and never even made the attempt after he got closer to Hikaru, but Azusa, who already knew Hatsumi and knew she was a good person, still decided his revenge was more important and proceeded with the plan to hurt Hatsumi for revenge against another (also, sidenote: it's weird that twice now "rape girl to get revenge on someone else" has been a plot point in manga).
I'm with Ryoki on the Azusa hate: Hatsumi should completely cut him off and never speak to him. In fact, she should have called the police and pressed charges.
This is also why his manager is such a horrible character; she excuses Azusa's behavior. She even approaches Hatsumi to be like "oh, don't be mad, he actually looked so hurt and upset after he failed to have you raped on film." She also doesn't call the police to get Azusa and the attempted rapists arrested. Like, what adult woman is letting men go who were about to brutally gang rape a minor they drugged?? A disgusting one. I hope Rina fucking chokes and dies alongside Azusa.
Next up we have the older brother, Shinogu.
Ah, Japan, you can't leave the forbidden taboo of incest romance alone, can you? I find you everywhere and I'm incredibly disturbed that so many Japanese people are interested in siblings being romantic. Like, are y'all good or...?
Shinogu is, for all intents and purposes, Hatsumi's older brother.
They have lived practically their whole lives as siblings, even though Shinogu is actually an adopted son of the Narita family. So while Shinogu and Hatsumi aren't biological siblings, they are family, especially from the perspective of Hatsumi, who grew up believing Shinogu was her biological sibling and has always seen him as a sibling.
It's revealed that Shinogu initially was uninterested in the Narita family, even trying to run away after his adoption, but came to accept them because of Hatsumi's love and kindness . He was adopted at an age where he still remembered his biological family, so Shinogu is the one who develops and harbors romantic feelings for Hatsumi that he feels are shameful and can't share. He even tries to leave the Narita family after he becomes a legal adult because he wants to distance himself from Hatsumi and his suppressed desire for her.
Ultimately, it's Ryoki's involvement with Hatsumi incurring jealously and a sense of protectiveness that pushes Shinogu to take action towards pursing a romantic relationship with Hatsumi, who eventually comes to know of his feelings and the fact that he's adopted, making her life more complicated.
At some point, when Ryoki and Hatsumi aren't doing well in their relationship, Hatsumi attempts to accept Shinogu's feelings because she recognizes that Shinogu is a good guy who would treat her well--even her mom approves of the match, which is really gross, by the way--but she is ultimately unable to, as she loves Ryoki and only sees Shinogu as her older brother.
The fact that Shinogu had to be a "actually I'm not your brother and I've wanted to be with you romantically for years" type of love interest as a foil against Ryoki and Azusa is ultimately very disappointing because outside of the incest angle, he is a kind, responsible, respectful person who treats Hatsumi very well. Had he not been her older brother, he would have been the best choice of the three. The only other kind of hm quality about it is that he's also older, being a university student while Hatsumi is a 16 year old still in high school.
Finally, we come to the main love interest, Ryoki, who is Hatsumi's childhood bully.
I understand what the author was attempting with Ryoki. I really do.
From the outside, Ryoki is a handsome, affluent, intelligent young man who would seemingly have everything a guy could want, but in reality, he has a strange personality and struggles to socialize with others. His home life isn't nurturing and he very quickly repels others with his unfiltered, harsh way of talking that's often very condescending and patronizing. As a result, Ryoki finds that he's quite lonely because he can't simply get what he wants like he usually does: by demanding it be given to him.
There was something here: I like the idea of a male lead looking like he has everything, but is actually lonely and unable to connect with people in meaningful ways, so he has to grow and change how he thinks and acts in order to both obtain and be worthy of receiving the companionship and love that he craves deep down.
Sadly, the way we approach demonstrating that Ryoki has flaws and needs to undergo some serious character development leaves a bad taste in my mouth, setting him up to be pretty unsympathetic and difficult to want redemption for.
When Hatsumi runs into Ryoki again after several years of not seeing him much (due to him attending a school that kept him away from the apartments most of the time), he accidentally finds out she purchased a pregnancy test for her younger sister and that she doesn't want anyone else to find out, giving him the perfect ammunition to blackmail her into being his "slave."
His motivation for doing this isn't some misguided attempt to spend time with the girl he likes or have someone do his chores or something inane like that: it's because he's a virgin that needs sex practice so he can show up his tutor, an older girl he's interested in sexually who made fun of him for being inexperienced. He intends to force Hatsumi to agree to be his living sex doll for sex practice so he can "master" it.
So, uh, we're starting off hot with problems: main male lead blackmails girl into being a "slave" for the purposes of forcing her to participate in him practicing sex/sexual acts so he can retaliate against his older tutor for making fun of him.
A key element as to why their relationship is so fraught with toxicity is that Ryoki rarely considers Hatsumi's feelings and wishes. He doesn't ask for consent, nor does he listen to her and adjust his behavior when she expresses clearly negative feelings about what's happening. Rather than ask for consent, rather than try to understand Hatsumi, Ryoki only ever acts to force his will upon Hatsumi until she relents by any means necessary.
Sadly, this mentality never leaves Ryoki, even after he realizes that he has genuine attraction and affection for Hatsumi and wishes to solely pursue and be with her romantically, not just sexually.
In nearly every situation, he is domineering and operates with a clear: "I'm in charge, I give the order, you obey" sort of attitude. Throughout the series, he often forces kisses on Hatsumi and he likes to grope her. He thankfully never goes farther than that because Hatsumi strongly resists and he does ultimately see the benefit of consent when Hatsumi kisses him for the first time, but their relationship is undoubtedly so dogged by problems in nearly every other category that he didn't even need to actually rape her in order to be a bad love interest.
As I said earlier, the idea with Ryoki being this all-knowing guy who is actually pretty naive and romantic deep down could have worked great, but it ultimately was a sad rehashing of lots of toxic tropes. While I think bully romance can work (think of Boys Over Flowers: Hana Yori Dango, Vol. 1) the bullying can't go too far and the bully needs to go through a lot of growth and atonement.
Ryoki, sadly, doesn't really grow or atone. Instead, he just kind of goes from "I'm blackmailing you into being my sex slave" to "I only want you, so don't look at other guys or I'm going to be upset and punish you for it, just give in and be with me." whilst still emotionally battering and manipulating Hatsumi whenever she doesn't respond the way he wants. His motivations are still very selfish, they just change from her being a means to an end to her being the end he means to achieve.
His paltry attempts at being a better boyfriend never accomplish much. As a result, their relationship just falls into that classic toxic trope of "boys are mean to the girls they like" which socializes girls to believe that men express affection through things that hurt them physically and emotionally, so they need to forgive them for the abuse because underneath that abuse is love.
I cannot state it enough: love doesn't feel like that. Abuse is not love. Do not stay with abusers. Their alleged feelings of love and affection do not excuse their abuse and their choice to abuse!
Had the author made some different choices with Ryouki, this would have been a way better manga about a rich boy with lacking social skills learning to be open and honest with his feelings and learning how to be a good boyfriend who listens to his partner and respects their boundaries in order to have love and companionship.
Plus, had that been the case, it would have been so easy for the author to work in Hatsumi having some great growth too; it would have been great to see her come into her own, learn to say no, stand up for herself, and find the ability to forgive Ryoki for how he treated her after he demonstrates how much he has changed.
Instead, it's just a story of how Hatsumi learns to bend and pretzel herself to appease Ryouki's demanding, domineering way of being because he happens to like her and has shown himself to not be totally evil.
In all honesty, what we're given with this series is pretty sad.
Hatsumi is such a sweet girl, but she's written to be a doormat who endures extreme emotional burden and does ten times as much emotional labor as those who she has relationships with; the only person who doesn't emotionally burden Hatsumi is Subaru, her friend. Her own mother, sister, brother, childhood crush, and mixed-feelings love interest just pile on the stress for this poor girl at every given moment without taking on nearly as much for her sake. This poor girl has no one in her corner who cares about her half as much as she cares about them.
Her entire relationship with Ryoki is characterized by her enduring all the emotional burden with little to no change in Ryoki. If their relationship has problems, Ryoki makes her into the bad guy and she's the one doing all the apologies and appeasement, even when he was the one very clearly in the wrong.
Ryoki only has a few fleeting moments where he seems to see and acknowledge Hatsumi's feelings and wants to rectify things; like when she cries and he tries to comfort her or she says that it's important that they talk about things if they're going to date and he makes the effort to find time for them to talk. But these moments are really rare and tend to be framed as these super big character growth moments that are there to say "See? He's not a total prick" when the reality is that these instances are actually very small and unremarkable because they're basic things you do when you love and respect someone.
It also doesn't help that in some situations where he sort of tries to comfort her or be a good boyfriend, he ultimately makes SHIT choices.
For example:
After Ryoki saves her from being gang raped, he gets very upset that she's crying and feeling heartbroken about Azusa betraying her. She's just gone through some serious trauma--she was almost raped and has been betrayed by someone she loved and trusted. Obviously, she is emotionally fragile and should be comforted and made to feel safe and validated.
Ryoki, however, is so selfish and jealous that he tells her to stop crying over Azusa and then, I shit you not, he forces a kiss on her and then says that now that she knows he's the best choice and that Azusa is terrible, they'll be going back to his room to have sex at last.
Hatsumi responds with "You're not any different from those guys who were about to rape me; you don't care about how I feel or what I want." and Ryoki has the nerve to get angry at her, even though he's been blackmailing, threatening, and trying to coerce Hatsumi into a sexual relationship against her wishes and without her consent for weeks all because he thinks that him liking and wanting only her makes his intentions better than those of the would-be rapists.
How Hatsumi saying that didn't make him pull back and go "oh god, what am I doing?" and have some self reflection over his actions is incredible. What person is likened to a rapist and doesn't immediately look at their behavior and try to correct their actions, especially if the person they claim to love is the one telling them that they're as dismissive of their consent and feelings as a rapist would be???
Yikes. Big, huge, massive YIKES.
There were definitely ways to make Ryoki's character work, but the author just completely and utterly failed walk that line for her character. She made him a complete mess and kind of awful person at every opportunity.
In spite of all the problems, Hot Gimmick is strangely engaging for me as a read and I think that perhaps because Ryoki wasn't as god awful as he could have been that that softens my feelings a little, but I wouldn't really say that the romance in this is especially healthy or good. I think perhaps if Ryoki and Hatsumi had gotten their "happy ending" a little sooner and we'd seen their relationship grow with Hatsumi showing more of a spine and Ryoki being more affectionate, empathethic, and respectful that we could have left the series off on a more satisfying note.
I'm not sure if the dynamic of the relationship was played up for a more comedic effect because ultimately the tone is more light and funny than dark and serious in spite of the nature of the topics covered or if the author just legitimately thought that there wasn't anything wrong with her characters actions, but either way, this story suffers and could use a heavy rewrite.
As for the art, I think Hot Gimmick was written at a transition period for Aihara Miki because you see her drawings get prettier from volume 1 to volume 12. Her style is pretty unique and has a very distinct style. I sometimes found it to be ugly but other times it had this simplified semi-realism (especially in the profiles of characters) that made it stand out. I don't love it, but it has its charms amidst the odd looking panels.
October 30, 2008
This one's been talked about a lot, so I gave it a try. It's rated "older teen" because of some adult matters (like her younger sister needing her to buy a pregnancy test for her), but that's not really my issue here. It developed almost immediately into the standard love-triangle "who will she choose??" storyline, which can still be quite entertaining even though it's so frequently used. But in vol. 1, I got the idea of who she was going to end up with, and didn't like it.
Basically, guy tries to rape you? He is out of the running FOREVER. THE END. I will NOT eventually fall in love with him. I will NOT ever forgive him and think "he will make a good boyfriend for her!!" Not only was she starting to like him near the end of the FIRST volume (!!!) but I got the feeling that he might be the end choice. I went through and read the summaries of future volumes and now I'm fairly certain. The other reviews I saw of the entire series were also poor; people who enjoyed it at first, thinking she'd end up with nice-guy Azusa, then apparently all three guys who fight over Hatsumi turn into monsters who try to ruin her life because they're jealous of the other two and she's a doormat and lets them walk all over her. Not recommended.
Basically, guy tries to rape you? He is out of the running FOREVER. THE END. I will NOT eventually fall in love with him. I will NOT ever forgive him and think "he will make a good boyfriend for her!!" Not only was she starting to like him near the end of the FIRST volume (!!!) but I got the feeling that he might be the end choice. I went through and read the summaries of future volumes and now I'm fairly certain. The other reviews I saw of the entire series were also poor; people who enjoyed it at first, thinking she'd end up with nice-guy Azusa, then apparently all three guys who fight over Hatsumi turn into monsters who try to ruin her life because they're jealous of the other two and she's a doormat and lets them walk all over her. Not recommended.
June 23, 2014
I read the first few volumes of this series recently, I'm surprised to find the story isn't as foolish as I'd feared, and the main characters aren't as hateful as I'd feared neither. But...I still hope the heroine would finally grow a backbone and stop being a doormat and let everyone step on her, for goodness' sake!
December 29, 2020
Re-read :3 Love this series! The memories are coming back :P
May 26, 2021
5/5 for this "OMG INCREDIBLE ENEMIES TO LOVERS, CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND, LOVE TRIANGLE ROMANCE MANGA THAT HAS MY HEART RACING".
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Okay, so this is going to be a quick review as this is a pretty short manga. However, since this is the first volume in a series, which means I've been put into a new world, I have a lot of thoughts!!
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This book is the actual definition of "AHHHH"! I haven't read manga in a very long time as my primary focus has been regular novels. BOY HAVE I MISSED MANGA! What a ride this first novel was. It did not waste ONE second getting into the conflicts and main storyline. I'm not even joking, after about 15-20 pages (which isn't a lot when it's in manga form) of meeting Hatsumi and her sister Akane we get our main conflict, aka Hatsumi having to buy a pregnancy test for her sister and having her childhood bully (who has a crush on her, yet he's denying it) see her. This gives him a power of secrecy over her where in return Hatsumi must do whatever he says. Then BOOM, two days later her childhood savior/best friend who she happens to fall in love with moves back to Japan, oh he's a model too! Wow, what a secret yet very public love triangle!
I LOVED how to face-paced this book was, it wasn't too fast for my liking it was perfect for a T. We learned our conflict, met our characters, and they got right into the relationship's troubles and whatnot. Volume one excellently sets up the main storyline for the rest of the series relationship-wise. Our main character, Hatsumi, is a people pleaser and has SO MUCH she wants to say yet she just cannot find the courage to do it. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of character growth for her as the series progresses, hopefully, she'll finally be able to speak her mind. As for our two main guy characters who are a part of this love triangle..........I LOVE THEM. Oh my god, complete and utter opposites that entertain me both exceptionally well. I died at the one scene where Ryoki stopped to go over the magazine during his meeting with Hatsumi, it showed his true self there a bit more. (if you read this you'll get it ;). I have no guesses as to who she'll choose (if any), but I know no matter who she ends up with I'll still long for her to choose the other. That's how incredible the characters are!
Is this book complete and utter smut? Yes. But, is it absolutely fantastic at what it's doing? YES! I think this would be a great first volume for people who want to get into manga, enjoy romance, and enjoy the "love-triangle" tropes, "childhood best-friend turned to lover" trope, and "my childhood bully has a crush on me" trope.
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**Also, this is such an easy read I read it in about 30-45 minutes!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so this is going to be a quick review as this is a pretty short manga. However, since this is the first volume in a series, which means I've been put into a new world, I have a lot of thoughts!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book is the actual definition of "AHHHH"! I haven't read manga in a very long time as my primary focus has been regular novels. BOY HAVE I MISSED MANGA! What a ride this first novel was. It did not waste ONE second getting into the conflicts and main storyline. I'm not even joking, after about 15-20 pages (which isn't a lot when it's in manga form) of meeting Hatsumi and her sister Akane we get our main conflict, aka Hatsumi having to buy a pregnancy test for her sister and having her childhood bully (who has a crush on her, yet he's denying it) see her. This gives him a power of secrecy over her where in return Hatsumi must do whatever he says. Then BOOM, two days later her childhood savior/best friend who she happens to fall in love with moves back to Japan, oh he's a model too! Wow, what a secret yet very public love triangle!
I LOVED how to face-paced this book was, it wasn't too fast for my liking it was perfect for a T. We learned our conflict, met our characters, and they got right into the relationship's troubles and whatnot. Volume one excellently sets up the main storyline for the rest of the series relationship-wise. Our main character, Hatsumi, is a people pleaser and has SO MUCH she wants to say yet she just cannot find the courage to do it. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of character growth for her as the series progresses, hopefully, she'll finally be able to speak her mind. As for our two main guy characters who are a part of this love triangle..........I LOVE THEM. Oh my god, complete and utter opposites that entertain me both exceptionally well. I died at the one scene where Ryoki stopped to go over the magazine during his meeting with Hatsumi, it showed his true self there a bit more. (if you read this you'll get it ;). I have no guesses as to who she'll choose (if any), but I know no matter who she ends up with I'll still long for her to choose the other. That's how incredible the characters are!
Is this book complete and utter smut? Yes. But, is it absolutely fantastic at what it's doing? YES! I think this would be a great first volume for people who want to get into manga, enjoy romance, and enjoy the "love-triangle" tropes, "childhood best-friend turned to lover" trope, and "my childhood bully has a crush on me" trope.
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**Also, this is such an easy read I read it in about 30-45 minutes!
March 31, 2012
Hot Gimmick is a series I have read before, and, though I didn't like it, I really wanted to review it, thus the rereading. Anyway, pretty much the whole thing pisses me off, because the series is pretty much entirely about Hatsumi being taken advantage of by every single guy in her life. Hatsumi herself seems to have no ability to see through dishonesty, willpower to resist romantic attacks or strength. This series is where feminism goes to die.
Guy #1: Ryouki. At the outset, we are introduced to Hatsumi, who is the slave to the stern, bullying, sexually harassing, glasses-wearing guy who lives in her building. Why? Because he caught her buying a pregnancy test for her younger sister. If he tells his mother, who controls the housing complex, her family would get kicked out. So, of course, this gives him the right to try to force her to have sex with him. I think we're supposed to like him, because it's obvious that he's really into her and is only treating her like shit because he doesn't know how to handle his emotions. Yeah, not feeling that AT ALL.
Guy #2: Azusa. He's Hatsumi's childhood friend, who would try to protect her from Ryouki's bullying. His family just moved back to town and he's supporting her again. They quickly start dating, because he's so sweet and hot (model), and she's had enough of putting up with Ryouki (only she still lets him do whatever he wants). Except, le shock!, Azusa is actually just dating her to piss off someone to get vengeance for something. Awesome.
Guy #3: Shinogu. Presenting the only nice guy in the series. Surprise! He's her brother. Okay, so they're not actually siblings by blood, but they have been raised that way. He knows they're not related and has been in love with her forever, but she doesn't know, so sees him just as her brother. Clearly, he would be her best choice despite the super awkwardness that would be involved, however, he also has no shot because he's been raised as her brother. Isn't it lovely that dating her brother is what you have to root for, because everyone else is just trying to rape her or seduce her to their own ends?
When it comes down to it, though, this series is very readable, in the same way that a lot of very frustrating books are (think Twilight or maybe this Fifty Shades of Grey I've heard about). Clearly, women are useless, stupid clumsy creatures to be fought over and/or won by studly males. Ugh! As much as I hated that, the story moves along at a swift pace and I do like the art. Thus the 2.5, which I kind of hate myself for.
If you like strong heroines and respectful menfolk, do not read this. However, if you want to read something to prepare you for a feminist rant, this will definitely get you fighting mad.
Guy #1: Ryouki. At the outset, we are introduced to Hatsumi, who is the slave to the stern, bullying, sexually harassing, glasses-wearing guy who lives in her building. Why? Because he caught her buying a pregnancy test for her younger sister. If he tells his mother, who controls the housing complex, her family would get kicked out. So, of course, this gives him the right to try to force her to have sex with him. I think we're supposed to like him, because it's obvious that he's really into her and is only treating her like shit because he doesn't know how to handle his emotions. Yeah, not feeling that AT ALL.
Guy #2: Azusa. He's Hatsumi's childhood friend, who would try to protect her from Ryouki's bullying. His family just moved back to town and he's supporting her again. They quickly start dating, because he's so sweet and hot (model), and she's had enough of putting up with Ryouki (only she still lets him do whatever he wants). Except, le shock!, Azusa is actually just dating her to piss off someone to get vengeance for something. Awesome.
Guy #3: Shinogu. Presenting the only nice guy in the series. Surprise! He's her brother. Okay, so they're not actually siblings by blood, but they have been raised that way. He knows they're not related and has been in love with her forever, but she doesn't know, so sees him just as her brother. Clearly, he would be her best choice despite the super awkwardness that would be involved, however, he also has no shot because he's been raised as her brother. Isn't it lovely that dating her brother is what you have to root for, because everyone else is just trying to rape her or seduce her to their own ends?
When it comes down to it, though, this series is very readable, in the same way that a lot of very frustrating books are (think Twilight or maybe this Fifty Shades of Grey I've heard about). Clearly, women are useless, stupid clumsy creatures to be fought over and/or won by studly males. Ugh! As much as I hated that, the story moves along at a swift pace and I do like the art. Thus the 2.5, which I kind of hate myself for.
If you like strong heroines and respectful menfolk, do not read this. However, if you want to read something to prepare you for a feminist rant, this will definitely get you fighting mad.
September 18, 2013
This was....different. The whole 'you're my slave' bit between Hatsumi and Ryoki was slightly, well mostly, disturbing. It would be one thing if it was 'hey you have to do whatever I say. Get me some Sprite' or 'carry my books to class', but this was a teenager telling another teenager to take her clothes off and that he didn't want to be a virgin anymore so he was going to practice on her whether she liked it or not because she was his slave. And why is she his slave? Because he has information about her that could jeopardize her father's job and their living situation.
It's huge on the ick factor. Still, she finds herself defending him to others even though he also pushed her down stairs as a child.
Weird.
It's huge on the ick factor. Still, she finds herself defending him to others even though he also pushed her down stairs as a child.
Weird.
December 10, 2013
i had to read this because my friend called it one of her favourite guilty pleasure mangas outside of the GANG RAPE AND BLACKMAIL, which promptly caught my attention and makes me laugh every time i think on it.
so.. first volume down and i'm intrigued, though as usual i'm being too literal with these sort of things. i feel like all she has to do is tell her sister she was seen buying a pregnancy test for her and that she's really sorry, and then just lie lie lie through any fall out. because she is NOT pregnant, so there's nothing that could come of it.
PLOT DONE. SOLVED.
but there is no gang rape and i need to understand what would make my friend, who caused me SHOCK when she made a 69 joke, read a manga about gang rape.
gang rape.
so.. first volume down and i'm intrigued, though as usual i'm being too literal with these sort of things. i feel like all she has to do is tell her sister she was seen buying a pregnancy test for her and that she's really sorry, and then just lie lie lie through any fall out. because she is NOT pregnant, so there's nothing that could come of it.
PLOT DONE. SOLVED.
but there is no gang rape and i need to understand what would make my friend, who caused me SHOCK when she made a 69 joke, read a manga about gang rape.
gang rape.
April 9, 2016
DNF at 99 pages.
Some of my friends seemed to like this, so I figured I'd give it a shot despite the... "iffy" description.
All I can say is...
Sex slaves, attempted rape, more attempted rape, molestation, more attempted rape...
Nope.
Nope nope nope.
Nope.
Some of my friends seemed to like this, so I figured I'd give it a shot despite the... "iffy" description.
All I can say is...
Sex slaves, attempted rape, more attempted rape, molestation, more attempted rape...
Nope.
Nope nope nope.
Nope.
October 2, 2016
Wow, my friend has some horrible taste in manga. The same friend who gave me Love Hina gave me this to read because she's in love with this series also. What is wrong with her?
Making someone a slave because he knows a dumb secret! No thanks! Trying to rape someone is not how the world works. Disgusting!!!
Making someone a slave because he knows a dumb secret! No thanks! Trying to rape someone is not how the world works. Disgusting!!!
Read
January 25, 2023this movie is so weird will be staying away from the books !
June 30, 2022
Hatsumi has to purchase a pregnancy test for her sister. When she is found out by the rich guy in the. Implied she becomes his slave. Meanwhile her childhood friend, who is now a model, has moved back to school. She is juggling keeping her sisters secret, and hanging with her childhood friend.
January 15, 2013
Out of the frying pan and into the fire!
This is just what Hatsumi’s day has been like. She goes from trying to buy a pregnancy test for her sister without anyone seeing her to becoming the slave of the person she hates most in the world. The story itself is pretty fast paced with a lot of surprises thrown in. It was definitely a book with a lot of emotions both for the characters and the readers themselves. There were many times where I wanted to stop reading because I was so angry at certain people in the book, but I always came back for more. All in all it was a fun and intense read that will put you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but it also gets you thinking and can really pull at your heartstrings.
Hatsumi is a sweet girl and I really empathized with her a lot. She has a big heart, but sometimes it can get her into a little trouble. All in all I really liked her character and will continue to root for her as the series progresses. She is one of those characters that really steal your heart and I can’t wait to find out how the rest of her story goes.
The other main character is Ryoki who is not one of my favorites. He is a very interesting character in his own right though. He can be a bit overbearing at times, but he also has a sweet side to him that shows through at just the right moments. It is plain to see for me anyway that he really does care for Hatsumi in his own way. I’m not quite sure where things will go in this series, but I hope I get to see a little more about him and his back story in later volumes.
Overall this is a fun read that Shojo fans should definitely pick up!
This is just what Hatsumi’s day has been like. She goes from trying to buy a pregnancy test for her sister without anyone seeing her to becoming the slave of the person she hates most in the world. The story itself is pretty fast paced with a lot of surprises thrown in. It was definitely a book with a lot of emotions both for the characters and the readers themselves. There were many times where I wanted to stop reading because I was so angry at certain people in the book, but I always came back for more. All in all it was a fun and intense read that will put you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but it also gets you thinking and can really pull at your heartstrings.
Hatsumi is a sweet girl and I really empathized with her a lot. She has a big heart, but sometimes it can get her into a little trouble. All in all I really liked her character and will continue to root for her as the series progresses. She is one of those characters that really steal your heart and I can’t wait to find out how the rest of her story goes.
The other main character is Ryoki who is not one of my favorites. He is a very interesting character in his own right though. He can be a bit overbearing at times, but he also has a sweet side to him that shows through at just the right moments. It is plain to see for me anyway that he really does care for Hatsumi in his own way. I’m not quite sure where things will go in this series, but I hope I get to see a little more about him and his back story in later volumes.
Overall this is a fun read that Shojo fans should definitely pick up!
July 29, 2009
Hot Gimmick is about a girl named Hatsimi. She has a sister who thinks she might be pregnant, so she asks Hatsimi is she will get her a pregnancy test. But right after buying it, Hatsimi runs into her creepy neighbor who is now blackmailing her to be his sex slave or else he will tell everyone about her slut sister.Hatsimi's main external conflict is her creepy neighbor who is blackmailing her, her main internal conflict is if she should be his sex slave, of is she should let him sellout her sister.
I can connect this book to the world. In the world there are people in the same situation as Hatsimi, they are being blackmailed into doing something that they don't want to do. All of their reasons are different, but they are all being forced to do the same thing. Hatsimi is not alone.
I give this book four stares because it has a real life charm that makes it completely interesting. All kinds of readers can read this book. It has something for everyone.
I can connect this book to the world. In the world there are people in the same situation as Hatsimi, they are being blackmailed into doing something that they don't want to do. All of their reasons are different, but they are all being forced to do the same thing. Hatsimi is not alone.
I give this book four stares because it has a real life charm that makes it completely interesting. All kinds of readers can read this book. It has something for everyone.
May 17, 2012
I often see this manga around and though the synopsis seems interesting, I never felt the urge to buy it since: 1.) I didn't like the cover art so I assumed I wouldn't like the art inside the book either and 2.) the only volumes available are the omnibus editions which are quite expensive. However, when I came upon a copy of volume 1 in Booksale I decided to give it a try out of curiosity. (Besides, it was also cheap.)
What a surprise - the art style inside is rather pretty. Not out and out pretty by CLAMP's or Tanemura's standards but subtly so. The story is engaging but some elements of it remind me of other manga (namely Hana Yori Dango) though I'll definitely want to read more of this series if only to see where it's headed.
What a surprise - the art style inside is rather pretty. Not out and out pretty by CLAMP's or Tanemura's standards but subtly so. The story is engaging but some elements of it remind me of other manga (namely Hana Yori Dango) though I'll definitely want to read more of this series if only to see where it's headed.
September 2, 2013
man i'm really wondering how i read this manga back in high school. because bb!me? bb!me had a clean mouth. and this manga is the kind of read that can only be processed by a person with a copious swearing vocabulary. let me demonstrate with a brief glimpse into how i read this volume
[zoom in to girl sitting in bed room. in her hands is a copy of hot gimmick volume one. as she flips the pages an expression of disgust is glued to her face. she remains silent but for the occasional outburst]
girl: this motherfucker
[flips pages]
girl: this motherfucker
[flips pages]
girl: what the fuuuuuuuuck
[more flipping]
girl: THIS MOTHERFUCKER
in conclusion: fuck this motherfucker, where's my au where hatsumi curbstomps him to ash and dust. 1 star
[zoom in to girl sitting in bed room. in her hands is a copy of hot gimmick volume one. as she flips the pages an expression of disgust is glued to her face. she remains silent but for the occasional outburst]
girl: this motherfucker
[flips pages]
girl: this motherfucker
[flips pages]
girl: what the fuuuuuuuuck
[more flipping]
girl: THIS MOTHERFUCKER
in conclusion: fuck this motherfucker, where's my au where hatsumi curbstomps him to ash and dust. 1 star
July 1, 2017
[Reseña Global 12/12]
Hot gimmick es un manga que me ha entretenido lo suyo pero únicamente porque me lo he tomado como una historia de ficción, porque los culebrones, quieras que no, enganchan y por una parejita secundaria que me gustaba, porque por lo demás deja bastante que desear, hablando en plata, especialmente sus personajes, cuyos comportamientos reflejan un machismo preocupantemente normalizado.
Sólo lo recomiendo para la gente amante de los culebrones y que, ante todo, sean capaces de leerlo como algo ficticio, porque miedo me da que alguna adolescente influenciable lo lea y tome a "especímenes" como Ryoki como ideal romántico...
Reseña completa: http://elesconditedelaspalabrasperdid...
Hot gimmick es un manga que me ha entretenido lo suyo pero únicamente porque me lo he tomado como una historia de ficción, porque los culebrones, quieras que no, enganchan y por una parejita secundaria que me gustaba, porque por lo demás deja bastante que desear, hablando en plata, especialmente sus personajes, cuyos comportamientos reflejan un machismo preocupantemente normalizado.
Sólo lo recomiendo para la gente amante de los culebrones y que, ante todo, sean capaces de leerlo como algo ficticio, porque miedo me da que alguna adolescente influenciable lo lea y tome a "especímenes" como Ryoki como ideal romántico...
Reseña completa: http://elesconditedelaspalabrasperdid...
August 7, 2018
This review addresses all 12 volumes of the manga, bundled into 4 compilations. I would label this a guilty pleasure -- the story is nothing more than soap opera, but is done well enough to have held my interest and evoked visceral reactions from me (it regularly pissed me off!).
I hated the ending and also hated that an alternate light novel could be had that provided my preferred ending. I'm sorry, but once I've read that Romeo and Juliet are dead, I'm not interested in another version where they live happily ever after (this is not a spoiler).
The drawing is excellent and the characters emerge as much from the drawing as from the plot.
There were also moments of delight for me in the subplot on Akane and Subaru.
I hated the ending and also hated that an alternate light novel could be had that provided my preferred ending. I'm sorry, but once I've read that Romeo and Juliet are dead, I'm not interested in another version where they live happily ever after (this is not a spoiler).
The drawing is excellent and the characters emerge as much from the drawing as from the plot.
There were also moments of delight for me in the subplot on Akane and Subaru.
November 14, 2012
Klasik çocuk senden nefret ediyorsa, sana eziyet ediyor, senin zayıf yönünü (paraya ihtiyaç vb) sana karşı kullanıp seni kendine köle ediyor ise, olur olmaz yerde seni sıkıştırıp taciz ediyorsa aslında sana delice aşıktır inancının hakim olduğu seri, elbette kızımıza pekçok erkek aşıktır, elbette kıskançlıklar vb. olacaktır. Shoujo manga zaten adı, beklenen de bu ama bu tarzın zayıf örneklerinden bence, lakin çizimler güzel.
August 15, 2007
This is one of my favourite manga series. I was seriously devastated when it ended.
Story starts when lead character Hatsumi's sister thinks she might be pregnant so she runs out to the drug store to get her a test. She runs into her evil neighbour Ryoki who makes her be his slave in return for his secrecy about the test. Chaos ensues.
Story starts when lead character Hatsumi's sister thinks she might be pregnant so she runs out to the drug store to get her a test. She runs into her evil neighbour Ryoki who makes her be his slave in return for his secrecy about the test. Chaos ensues.
May 29, 2008
Retarded. This book is about a girl who is blackmailed into being her enemy's slave - who just wants to use her as a prostitute. After reading Tokyo Boys and Girls, I had hoped this book would be just as good - I was wrong.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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