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Honey Hunt #1
Honey Hunt, Vol. 1
R to L (Japanese Style)Life's not easy when you're living in the shadow of your famous parents. Can shy Yura, the daughter of an award-winning composer and a world-renowned actress, find the courage to step out on her own now that her super-celebrity parents are getting divorced?The media is abuzz when word gets out that Yura's mega-famous parents are splitting up. Already accustomed to the daily pressure of being the child of celebrities, Yura's frustration explodes in a rant against her parents--and her heated words end up being broadcasted live on national TV! When a powerful talent scout hears her impassioned declaration, he offers to represent her. The door to showbiz is now flung open for this timid wallflower--will she try to become an actress in her own right?
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 26, 2007
10 people are currently reading
1348 people want to read
About the author
Miki Aihara
97 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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December 5, 2015
For more reviews, check out my blog: The Book Goddess
Yura's a high school student with super famous parents. Her mother's an actress and her father is an award winning composer. Her's is a classic case of her parents never being around. Yet her mother won a poll naming her the best mother. Major bull shit right there.
Yura's watching TV with her friend/crush when her mother happens to come home. She tells Yura that they are getting a divorce because her father was caught with his mistress. She also says that they are selling the house the house and that Yura needs to find her own place as she doesn't want her daughter around.
Yura goes to the hotel and stays there - like her mother said - to avoid the media. She gets a text from her crush and goes back to her house, only to find him getting busy with her mother. She leaves the house and says nasty (but true) things about her parents to the press.
Her father's manager; Keiichi offers to let her stay with him as his client. She decides she will do it and become a bigger star than her mother. Only one huge problem... she's not good at public speaking, at all.
She works hard and after failing so many casting calls, she lands one. A really good role, where she'd the lead. In this role, her leading man is a mega famous J-Pop star: Harkua. She will also be working with his twin brother; Q-Ta. Who asked her to marry him when they first met so he could be her father's son. Needless to say, he's a huge fan of her father.
On the first day at her new acting gig - a photo shoot - her costume gets ruined! But by who? That's where the first volume of Honey Hunt ends, it's a huge cliff hanger to say the least. I've heard of this mangaka before. She's the creator of Hot Gimmick, a manga I have a love/hate relationship with. The art is okay, sometimes it's really pretty and over times it makes me grimace.
The story, I've been told is similar to Skip Beat, which I have never read. I didn't mind this manga, I will read the next one because I'm simply wondering who ruined her outfit. I will warn anyone who wants to read this manga, it's been on hiatus since 2009... I believe. So I doubt it will ever be completed.
Yura's a high school student with super famous parents. Her mother's an actress and her father is an award winning composer. Her's is a classic case of her parents never being around. Yet her mother won a poll naming her the best mother. Major bull shit right there.
Yura's watching TV with her friend/crush when her mother happens to come home. She tells Yura that they are getting a divorce because her father was caught with his mistress. She also says that they are selling the house the house and that Yura needs to find her own place as she doesn't want her daughter around.
Yura goes to the hotel and stays there - like her mother said - to avoid the media. She gets a text from her crush and goes back to her house, only to find him getting busy with her mother. She leaves the house and says nasty (but true) things about her parents to the press.
Her father's manager; Keiichi offers to let her stay with him as his client. She decides she will do it and become a bigger star than her mother. Only one huge problem... she's not good at public speaking, at all.
She works hard and after failing so many casting calls, she lands one. A really good role, where she'd the lead. In this role, her leading man is a mega famous J-Pop star: Harkua. She will also be working with his twin brother; Q-Ta. Who asked her to marry him when they first met so he could be her father's son. Needless to say, he's a huge fan of her father.
On the first day at her new acting gig - a photo shoot - her costume gets ruined! But by who? That's where the first volume of Honey Hunt ends, it's a huge cliff hanger to say the least. I've heard of this mangaka before. She's the creator of Hot Gimmick, a manga I have a love/hate relationship with. The art is okay, sometimes it's really pretty and over times it makes me grimace.
The story, I've been told is similar to Skip Beat, which I have never read. I didn't mind this manga, I will read the next one because I'm simply wondering who ruined her outfit. I will warn anyone who wants to read this manga, it's been on hiatus since 2009... I believe. So I doubt it will ever be completed.
July 11, 2014
Very Important Note:
According to animenewsnetwork.com in this post here: Honey Hunt Goes on Hiatus, Author Reveals New Manga Honey Hunt was officially put on hiatus by Aihara, back sometime in 2009. It's been over a year since the last complete volume (Volume 6) was published here in North America, with no news on the series continuation. This is something that should be noted if you are interested in starting this series! It is currently uncompleted and doesn't have an ending.
What happens when you have terrible parents but lack a spine?
What happens when the first time you finally speak your mind its on national TV?
What happens when you decide to take control by becoming your own person and breaking out into acting?
What happens when you're less then stellar at acting?
Honey Hunt has a lot of good things going for it. The one thing that kept dragging me back into the story was that the book reads like a Japanese TV-drama. In this case that comparison is a great thing. The storyline is good and its been set up in a way that can be taken to a lot of interesting places. BUT everything is riding on how attached you are to the main character, Yuri. She's easy to sympathise with but the story moves along so quickly that you need to hold onto that sympathy in order to keep up.
The characters that were introduced seem quite interesting and their relationships with Yuri are already starting to take shape by the end of the book. The love interests look especially promising!
Probably my favourite part of the entire volume was the mother character and her dialog with her daughter; it was perfectly written. The story is all about Yuri just trying to prove herself in the only way she thinks her parents will acknowledge.
Unfortunately one the other side of things, Honey Hunt had problems. Most of my issues have to do with flow. Whether it be the story/characters or the panel design, the one major thing that Honey Hunt lacked for me was floooooooooow.
The author was in one hell of a rush to set up her plot, establish every characters, and move the frick along. It was just too much information for me all at once. The narrative needed to take a breath between major plot points.
Introductions are made, then love interests, quickly flowed by the love triangle, then followed by the main story line, then the people in that one place, then that other thing and then, and then, I've forgotten most of it already. I feel like this should have been more spread out. For the tone of the story the pacing just doesn't bode well with me.
And then there is most importantly the art. I'll start off with some positive raving. The deigns were all great! Each character was an individual and there was a lot of expression in each panel. But there in lies my problem, the panels. I did not like them.
The panels are staggered, overlay, and slashed into each other. This kind of style can work great in certain situations (like fight scenes, dramatic running, great sudden impact moments) but here it was not done in a consistent way. It didn't read well for me. It lacked flow.
Not everyone will find this as big of an issue as I do, but these are the sort of thing I pay attention to when reading this type of material. Also, the little wispy line after some the speech bubbles, I didn't like that either.
Overall, because of the story has such promise I will be reading the next book. Hopefully Volume 2 will weigh more towards the positive then the negative and I'll just try to block the panel design.
What happens when you have terrible parents but lack a spine?
What happens when the first time you finally speak your mind its on national TV?
What happens when you decide to take control by becoming your own person and breaking out into acting?
What happens when you're less then stellar at acting?
Honey Hunt has a lot of good things going for it. The one thing that kept dragging me back into the story was that the book reads like a Japanese TV-drama. In this case that comparison is a great thing. The storyline is good and its been set up in a way that can be taken to a lot of interesting places. BUT everything is riding on how attached you are to the main character, Yuri. She's easy to sympathise with but the story moves along so quickly that you need to hold onto that sympathy in order to keep up.
The characters that were introduced seem quite interesting and their relationships with Yuri are already starting to take shape by the end of the book. The love interests look especially promising!
Probably my favourite part of the entire volume was the mother character and her dialog with her daughter; it was perfectly written. The story is all about Yuri just trying to prove herself in the only way she thinks her parents will acknowledge.
Unfortunately one the other side of things, Honey Hunt had problems. Most of my issues have to do with flow. Whether it be the story/characters or the panel design, the one major thing that Honey Hunt lacked for me was floooooooooow.
The author was in one hell of a rush to set up her plot, establish every characters, and move the frick along. It was just too much information for me all at once. The narrative needed to take a breath between major plot points.
Introductions are made, then love interests, quickly flowed by the love triangle, then followed by the main story line, then the people in that one place, then that other thing and then, and then, I've forgotten most of it already. I feel like this should have been more spread out. For the tone of the story the pacing just doesn't bode well with me.
And then there is most importantly the art. I'll start off with some positive raving. The deigns were all great! Each character was an individual and there was a lot of expression in each panel. But there in lies my problem, the panels. I did not like them.
The panels are staggered, overlay, and slashed into each other. This kind of style can work great in certain situations (like fight scenes, dramatic running, great sudden impact moments) but here it was not done in a consistent way. It didn't read well for me. It lacked flow.
Not everyone will find this as big of an issue as I do, but these are the sort of thing I pay attention to when reading this type of material. Also, the little wispy line after some the speech bubbles, I didn't like that either.
Overall, because of the story has such promise I will be reading the next book. Hopefully Volume 2 will weigh more towards the positive then the negative and I'll just try to block the panel design.
February 29, 2012
Shy plain Jane, with a crush on her tutor -that lives next door. Both of her parents are famous, never home, and forget about her. They lie to the media that they are great parents. Well, dad in the US of A has a mistress with a bun in the oven, and mommie dearest has come home, to plain Jane that they are getting a divorce. She ships off to a hotel, due to the press, She gets a supportive text from her tutor, and heads home-to get hugs, and etc from tutor boy. Gee, plain Jane opens the door, to find mommie dearest getting a free lesson from tutor boy. Mommie's heart is colder than absolute zero, tells poor plain jane, that tutoring sessions been going on for a couple years now. That she bought a mansion, and tutor boy is going to installed there. She tells plain to go live where-ever she wants-smoking a cig, and smiling. Plain jane runs out of the house, and to the media horde awaiting outside. The n=most honest part of the story is when she tells the reporters " I wish my parents both burn in hell"! Ah, but she eventually takes that back-disappointment.
So, she plots revenge-but not served cold. She tries to become an actress, to out due her mommie. She cannot even speak in front of her own class, at school! She gets a gig, only to find out it is because who she is related to, and that is free publicity. Also three young members of the Hottest J-pop group-just all get crushes on her--come on. Where is the reality -oh yeah it was when she said for her parents burn in hell. Also, when her agent betrayed her, by using her family scandal to get free publicity.
Her name not really Jane, but she is a plain jane person.
So, she plots revenge-but not served cold. She tries to become an actress, to out due her mommie. She cannot even speak in front of her own class, at school! She gets a gig, only to find out it is because who she is related to, and that is free publicity. Also three young members of the Hottest J-pop group-just all get crushes on her--come on. Where is the reality -oh yeah it was when she said for her parents burn in hell. Also, when her agent betrayed her, by using her family scandal to get free publicity.
Her name not really Jane, but she is a plain jane person.
January 11, 2020
2020 Read #61
Reread in 2020
Waaaaaaay back when I was a wee teen, I was honest-to-goodness trash for Miki Aihara’s most well-known series Hot Gimmick. Even though now I realize how terribly sexist and way worse than problematic it was, I have an attachment to Aihara’s characters in that series that hasn’t gone away.
As for this series, I have not read it since it was first serialized back in the long-defunct Shojo Beat magazine. Many years have gone by, but I still feel the same way I did when I first read the chapters in this volume: the heroine has been dealt a bad hand in the cosmic decision of her parents, she is pulled every which way without asserting herself (though I can understand this, given that her parents’ statures have influenced how she has been treated her whole life, as mere extensions of them), and Haruka still strikes me as the more genuine (and interesting) of the potential love interests since Q-ta is interested in Yura not for who she is but whom she is related to.
Basically — this is not going to go in a way I particularly like, especially since Aihara loves her problematic pairings. What also sticks out like a thorn is that this series has been stuck at six volumes for many years, so long on hiatus that I don’t think another chapter will ever see the light of day. Even so, I want to give my teenage self a small project and read through another Aihara series. Will my nearly-thirty self be kinder or harsher to the Aihara story dynamics? Will I be pining for more or dreading an eventual continuation? Stay tuned...
Reread in 2020
Waaaaaaay back when I was a wee teen, I was honest-to-goodness trash for Miki Aihara’s most well-known series Hot Gimmick. Even though now I realize how terribly sexist and way worse than problematic it was, I have an attachment to Aihara’s characters in that series that hasn’t gone away.
As for this series, I have not read it since it was first serialized back in the long-defunct Shojo Beat magazine. Many years have gone by, but I still feel the same way I did when I first read the chapters in this volume: the heroine has been dealt a bad hand in the cosmic decision of her parents, she is pulled every which way without asserting herself (though I can understand this, given that her parents’ statures have influenced how she has been treated her whole life, as mere extensions of them), and Haruka still strikes me as the more genuine (and interesting) of the potential love interests since Q-ta is interested in Yura not for who she is but whom she is related to.
Basically — this is not going to go in a way I particularly like, especially since Aihara loves her problematic pairings. What also sticks out like a thorn is that this series has been stuck at six volumes for many years, so long on hiatus that I don’t think another chapter will ever see the light of day. Even so, I want to give my teenage self a small project and read through another Aihara series. Will my nearly-thirty self be kinder or harsher to the Aihara story dynamics? Will I be pining for more or dreading an eventual continuation? Stay tuned...
April 11, 2011
It's rare that I get emotional while reading a manga, but my heart broke more than once for Yura in this first volume of the Honey Hunt series. I literally teared up witnessing how her celebrity parents neglected her (but were viewed by the press as perfect parents), and how the one friend she valued most betrayed her by having a sexual relationship with her mother. Essentially alone, especially after learning through an assistant that her parents are getting divorced, Yura finds the courage to commit to become an actress herself in the hopes that she'll reach a level of celebrity where even her parents will recognize her.
Overall, a similar theme to many shoujo mangas, but really well done. Yura is endearing, and the cast of characters that begins to form around her are engaging...
Overall, a similar theme to many shoujo mangas, but really well done. Yura is endearing, and the cast of characters that begins to form around her are engaging...
September 6, 2025
As always, I'm reviewing the whole series, all six volumes, which I'm only saying because it's super unlikely at this point that this on-hiatus series will ever receive a continuation, let alone an ending.
On that note, I think that's perhaps the worst crime of this series: the author abandoned it despite its potential. As such, my opinion of the series is partially based on what we got with the six volumes published and partially based on my own conjecture about what the series could have been.
Author Miki Aihara is most famous for Hot Gimmick, Vol. 1, which I reviewed here (it's pretty bad, there's a lot to unpack about it) and her series all usually lean in a pretty problematic direction. Honey Hunt was the author's attempt at story focused on the entertainment industry, which was a common enough topic (think Love Celeb 1 and Skip Beat!, Vol. 1), and managed to steer clear of many of the problematic aspects of her previous series.
I don't know why she abandoned the series, but after this many years and the fact that she quickly moved to writing another series very shortly after has me pretty certain she has no plans whatsoever to return to Honey Hunt and finish it.
My guess that she herself didn't like the series and wanted to pursue From Five to Nine, Volume 1instead. That series made it to 16 volumes, her longest to date I believe, and is more in line with the problematic relationships she favored in her previous works. It's also possible it wasn't popular in Japan; I saw some US readers say they felt Honey Hunt was a rip off of Skip Beat, so perhaps Japanese audiences felt the same. Who knows?
Honey Hunt's plot tells the story of a high school girl named Yura, who sets off on the difficult path of becoming a famous actress to get revenge on her parents after enduring a lifetime of neglect and discovering some world-shattering information.
Although her parents shine in the spotlight, Yura is a shy, quiet girl who seemingly lacks nothing of her parents talents. All her life, she's felt lonely and neglected by her parents, who have always prioritized their careers over her. One day by chance, she walks in on her mother sleeping with the guy she'd had a crush on. Her mother further adds salt to the wound by announcing she's divorcing Yura's father and that he's already abandoned Yura for his mistress and new baby overseas.
Breaking under the stress of realizing her parents have never cared about her, Yura ends up on live TV and declares that she hates them both through her tears and sets off on a mission to become more famous than her mother, intending to not only show her up, but also find the validation and acceptance she never got from her family. Aiding her in this quest is a talent manager who once worked for her father and believes in her potential to become a star.
I actually really like Yura. She's relatable and her character arc provides a great stage for her to have a lot of personal growth and development.
She's a shy, unassuming girl on the surface, but because she's been neglected and belittled and criticized her whole life, her natural charm and talents have been hidden under a layer of self-consciousness and doubt.
Her mother is a jealous, competitive, petty woman who has, since Yura's birth, seen her as a rival and has done everything in her power to make Yura as little of a threat to her place as most beautiful, most desirable, most praised, even destroying Yura's relationship with her father by denying him custody when he moved to New York for his career despite how adamantly he wanted to take her with him and then constantly planting seeds of doubt in Yura with comments like "your father doesn't want you, he got a new family, there's no place for you."
If the story had continued, Yura's relationship with her parents could've been really interesting because on one hand she has this conniving mother who has done everything to crush her daughter, yet who is hurt when her daughter turns her back her and on the other, we have this father who, from the moment of her conception, was thrilled to have a daughter and longs to spend time with her, yet doesn't seem to fight for her.
At the end of the day, Yura is seeking such basic things from people. She wants to be seen for who she is and what she can do, not who her parents are. She wants someone to pay attention to her, to love her, to need her. Her whole life she's been compared to other people, criticized for not being like others, and has felt neglected and unwanted by everyone around her, especially her parents. It's actually kind of an emotional character arc because you can see where Yura's heart is and how much it means to her to have anyone acknowledge her for being herself, to like her for her, to want her for her.
I think if the manga had continued we probably would've seen Yura's desire for acknowledgement and revenge and her blossoming acting career contend and her shift more for wanting to succeed for her own sake, rather than just to have someone else tell her she's worthwhile, but that's also giving Aihara Miki a little too much credit since her work tends to not be very deep or like... emotionally healthy.
Outside of Yura contending with her mom and trying to get into acting, the bulk of the plot involves a love square she's in with a pair of twins who are in the entertainment business and her own manager.
First love interest is Q-ta, whom Yura likes best because he coddles and comforts her, but I don't think he was going to be Yura's ultimate choice.
He's a pretty selfish guy and it's hard to believe that he sincerely cares about Yura because he doesn't care about her career--in fact, he constantly urges her to abandon it so she can be with him all the time--and when they first met, he basically said I'm a huge fan of your father, marry me so I can be his son-in-law and get closer to him. I got the vibe that he's a manipulative person who exploits Yura's weaknesses for his own gain. It's clear that part of the reason why he doesn't want her to pursue a career is because he prefers her to be meek and full of self-doubt and her career was helping her become confident.
Second love interest is Q-ta's twin, Haruka, who is both a musician in a boy band and an actor, ends up falling for Yura while they're working on a drama together.
He's honestly the best love interest in the series because his feelings for her develop out of respect and genuine fondness of her. There's no ulterior motive for his affections, he supports her unconditionally, and then also isn't manipulative or way too old for her. Haruka's main issue is that he comes off as a very rude and harsh in the way he speaks, so he struggles to convey how he feels, straining his relationship with Yura. I hope so much that eventually he would've gotten the girl because Q-ta sucks.
Third and final love interest is, regreatably, her talent agent who is way too old for her.
Like... he was managing her father's career when Yura was still a child, so this guy is definitely like in his 30s at minimum and Yura is 17. He also is like... pretty controlling of Yura, making her hyper fixtate on her career, and it's shown to be his way of keeping Yura close because he is harboring romantic feelings towards her. The man even goes so far as to lie to her on numerous occasions and tries to sabotage her romantic relationships under the guise of protecting her career, but it's really because he's jealous and wants to maintain the status quo of Yura always being together with him, working hard to become a famous actress and relying on him.
It's kind of ironic, he pushes Yura so hard into acting that it backfires and drives her harder into Q-ta's arms. For such a successful agent it seems like he'd realize that the way to really get to Yura is to appeal to her emotionally and seek common ground with her but you know, controlling behaviors and possessiveness is always an option.
For what it's worth, I do think there was a pretty good story in the ideas here.
This idea of a girl living in her parents shadows rising to a positon of fame and meeting people who care about her and discovering what she truly wants for herself as she's torn between fame and revenge and love had the potential be to really riveting and have a solid emotional core. I probably would've kept on reading this series if it'd continued.
I could see there being some great development between Yura and her mother; would her mother have doubled down and become a horrendous, tragic villain, or would she have finally been able to cast aside her own insecurities to finally atone for how she's treated her child so she can salvage a relationship? Would Yura have realized abandoning her career for someone like Q-ta was stupid and recongize that someone like Haruka for a partner would allow her to have both the emotional support she's always wanted and the promising career she's worked hard to claim for herself?
Since the series was abandoned I'll never know if this manga was going to be great or suck because I can't say where the plot was going. Six volumes, I suppose, is still a lot, but this story felt a lot more complex than say, Hot Gimmick, which really only had the major plot of "which boy will she end up with?" and so was able to fit into 12 volumes with ease. I don't know if this one would've been longer, but it feels like it could have been.
So, take my stars with a grain of salt because while the idea gives me hope and I really like it and I found this base the 6 volumes set to be worthwhile with potential, I don't hold out any substantial expectations that this series would've met with the image I have in my head.
The most sincere praise I can bestow, however, is that the art in Honey Hunt is a lot more polished and worthwhile compared to Hot Gimmick, where you can see the author improving with time and making changes to her style. Honey Hunt is pretty consistent and overall nicely stylized.
On that note, I think that's perhaps the worst crime of this series: the author abandoned it despite its potential. As such, my opinion of the series is partially based on what we got with the six volumes published and partially based on my own conjecture about what the series could have been.
Author Miki Aihara is most famous for Hot Gimmick, Vol. 1, which I reviewed here (it's pretty bad, there's a lot to unpack about it) and her series all usually lean in a pretty problematic direction. Honey Hunt was the author's attempt at story focused on the entertainment industry, which was a common enough topic (think Love Celeb 1 and Skip Beat!, Vol. 1), and managed to steer clear of many of the problematic aspects of her previous series.
I don't know why she abandoned the series, but after this many years and the fact that she quickly moved to writing another series very shortly after has me pretty certain she has no plans whatsoever to return to Honey Hunt and finish it.
My guess that she herself didn't like the series and wanted to pursue From Five to Nine, Volume 1instead. That series made it to 16 volumes, her longest to date I believe, and is more in line with the problematic relationships she favored in her previous works. It's also possible it wasn't popular in Japan; I saw some US readers say they felt Honey Hunt was a rip off of Skip Beat, so perhaps Japanese audiences felt the same. Who knows?
Honey Hunt's plot tells the story of a high school girl named Yura, who sets off on the difficult path of becoming a famous actress to get revenge on her parents after enduring a lifetime of neglect and discovering some world-shattering information.
Although her parents shine in the spotlight, Yura is a shy, quiet girl who seemingly lacks nothing of her parents talents. All her life, she's felt lonely and neglected by her parents, who have always prioritized their careers over her. One day by chance, she walks in on her mother sleeping with the guy she'd had a crush on. Her mother further adds salt to the wound by announcing she's divorcing Yura's father and that he's already abandoned Yura for his mistress and new baby overseas.
Breaking under the stress of realizing her parents have never cared about her, Yura ends up on live TV and declares that she hates them both through her tears and sets off on a mission to become more famous than her mother, intending to not only show her up, but also find the validation and acceptance she never got from her family. Aiding her in this quest is a talent manager who once worked for her father and believes in her potential to become a star.
I actually really like Yura. She's relatable and her character arc provides a great stage for her to have a lot of personal growth and development.
She's a shy, unassuming girl on the surface, but because she's been neglected and belittled and criticized her whole life, her natural charm and talents have been hidden under a layer of self-consciousness and doubt.
Her mother is a jealous, competitive, petty woman who has, since Yura's birth, seen her as a rival and has done everything in her power to make Yura as little of a threat to her place as most beautiful, most desirable, most praised, even destroying Yura's relationship with her father by denying him custody when he moved to New York for his career despite how adamantly he wanted to take her with him and then constantly planting seeds of doubt in Yura with comments like "your father doesn't want you, he got a new family, there's no place for you."
If the story had continued, Yura's relationship with her parents could've been really interesting because on one hand she has this conniving mother who has done everything to crush her daughter, yet who is hurt when her daughter turns her back her and on the other, we have this father who, from the moment of her conception, was thrilled to have a daughter and longs to spend time with her, yet doesn't seem to fight for her.
At the end of the day, Yura is seeking such basic things from people. She wants to be seen for who she is and what she can do, not who her parents are. She wants someone to pay attention to her, to love her, to need her. Her whole life she's been compared to other people, criticized for not being like others, and has felt neglected and unwanted by everyone around her, especially her parents. It's actually kind of an emotional character arc because you can see where Yura's heart is and how much it means to her to have anyone acknowledge her for being herself, to like her for her, to want her for her.
I think if the manga had continued we probably would've seen Yura's desire for acknowledgement and revenge and her blossoming acting career contend and her shift more for wanting to succeed for her own sake, rather than just to have someone else tell her she's worthwhile, but that's also giving Aihara Miki a little too much credit since her work tends to not be very deep or like... emotionally healthy.
Outside of Yura contending with her mom and trying to get into acting, the bulk of the plot involves a love square she's in with a pair of twins who are in the entertainment business and her own manager.
First love interest is Q-ta, whom Yura likes best because he coddles and comforts her, but I don't think he was going to be Yura's ultimate choice.
He's a pretty selfish guy and it's hard to believe that he sincerely cares about Yura because he doesn't care about her career--in fact, he constantly urges her to abandon it so she can be with him all the time--and when they first met, he basically said I'm a huge fan of your father, marry me so I can be his son-in-law and get closer to him. I got the vibe that he's a manipulative person who exploits Yura's weaknesses for his own gain. It's clear that part of the reason why he doesn't want her to pursue a career is because he prefers her to be meek and full of self-doubt and her career was helping her become confident.
Second love interest is Q-ta's twin, Haruka, who is both a musician in a boy band and an actor, ends up falling for Yura while they're working on a drama together.
He's honestly the best love interest in the series because his feelings for her develop out of respect and genuine fondness of her. There's no ulterior motive for his affections, he supports her unconditionally, and then also isn't manipulative or way too old for her. Haruka's main issue is that he comes off as a very rude and harsh in the way he speaks, so he struggles to convey how he feels, straining his relationship with Yura. I hope so much that eventually he would've gotten the girl because Q-ta sucks.
Third and final love interest is, regreatably, her talent agent who is way too old for her.
Like... he was managing her father's career when Yura was still a child, so this guy is definitely like in his 30s at minimum and Yura is 17. He also is like... pretty controlling of Yura, making her hyper fixtate on her career, and it's shown to be his way of keeping Yura close because he is harboring romantic feelings towards her. The man even goes so far as to lie to her on numerous occasions and tries to sabotage her romantic relationships under the guise of protecting her career, but it's really because he's jealous and wants to maintain the status quo of Yura always being together with him, working hard to become a famous actress and relying on him.
It's kind of ironic, he pushes Yura so hard into acting that it backfires and drives her harder into Q-ta's arms. For such a successful agent it seems like he'd realize that the way to really get to Yura is to appeal to her emotionally and seek common ground with her but you know, controlling behaviors and possessiveness is always an option.
For what it's worth, I do think there was a pretty good story in the ideas here.
This idea of a girl living in her parents shadows rising to a positon of fame and meeting people who care about her and discovering what she truly wants for herself as she's torn between fame and revenge and love had the potential be to really riveting and have a solid emotional core. I probably would've kept on reading this series if it'd continued.
I could see there being some great development between Yura and her mother; would her mother have doubled down and become a horrendous, tragic villain, or would she have finally been able to cast aside her own insecurities to finally atone for how she's treated her child so she can salvage a relationship? Would Yura have realized abandoning her career for someone like Q-ta was stupid and recongize that someone like Haruka for a partner would allow her to have both the emotional support she's always wanted and the promising career she's worked hard to claim for herself?
Since the series was abandoned I'll never know if this manga was going to be great or suck because I can't say where the plot was going. Six volumes, I suppose, is still a lot, but this story felt a lot more complex than say, Hot Gimmick, which really only had the major plot of "which boy will she end up with?" and so was able to fit into 12 volumes with ease. I don't know if this one would've been longer, but it feels like it could have been.
So, take my stars with a grain of salt because while the idea gives me hope and I really like it and I found this base the 6 volumes set to be worthwhile with potential, I don't hold out any substantial expectations that this series would've met with the image I have in my head.
The most sincere praise I can bestow, however, is that the art in Honey Hunt is a lot more polished and worthwhile compared to Hot Gimmick, where you can see the author improving with time and making changes to her style. Honey Hunt is pretty consistent and overall nicely stylized.
September 28, 2015
Honey Hunt is admittedly an odd name for a series. Yet this shojo manga series is quite good. Shojo is the catch-all term for series that are very popular with teenage females, making it the opposite counterpart to shonen which is the term for works that are popular with teenage males. Both genres contain examples of fiction that are good enough to have periphery demographics from the other than intended groups, i.e., males for shojo and females for shonen. In the case of the shonen work, Rurouni Kenshin, for instance, it is an extremely large female fan base.
Volume One of Honey Hunt begins the story of Yura Onozuka, a young Japanese girl whose parents are a world-famous composer father and actress mother. One day, her mother arrives home to announce she and Yura's father are divorcing, she doesn't care what Yura does for herself, and generally dismisses her daughter. Oh, and she is also sleeping with, and has been for some time, the boy Yura has been in love with for literally years.
Yura is crushed by the abusiveness and cruelty of her parents, especially her mother, Yukari, who puts on a false public persona of being a loving mother. Because of this, Yura lashes out at Yukari, and her father, telling them to "go to hell" in an emotional statement to reporters and paparazzi. A talent agent who does some business for her father sees this display and likes her passion. He offers her a chance to get out from under her parents' shadow and be her own person, by offering to give her a place to live and his professional help in becoming an actress. Yura accepts, and the story begins.
This was fun, but also painful, to read. It's a sweet series so far, that focuses on this shy, but kind and sensitive young girl. Yura has more to contribute to the world than she knows, and to see her rise up and start to assert herself is really heartwarming. On the other hand, the reason the girl has to learn to be assertive and that she has value in this world, is because of how often she has been treated by her absent, and in the case of her mother, emotionally abusive, parents. The treatment Yukari gave her daughter in this story elicited from me, as a reader, the same anger I felt when reading of the bad treatment of Jane or Fanny in Jane Eyre and Mansfield Park, respectively.
I loved the artwork. Right away, the artwork makes clear to the reader exactly how Yukari will be. While her style is not any different in how she is drawn than the other characters, she still comes across very differently. The author/artist of the manga, Miki Aihara, draws Yukari as an extremely beautiful woman, but one who just exudes this sense of coldness and selfishness. Very well done.
One thing I liked about this was how it shows that divorce is not just an "easy" thing to deal with, as too many media attempt to portray it as. It can be quite difficult for the children involved, as it is for Yura. Even though, I hope, most children of divorce in real-life do not have the absolute wench for a mother or jerk (we assume from what we hear of his antics, as we haven't seen him yet in volume one) for a father, it can still be hard. This series communicates that nicely.
I know that some guys will see the covers, or that this is a shojo series, and dismiss it as just for girls. It really isn't, and that would be unfortunate assumption to make. Honey Hunt is a touching, funny, yet poignant series with a heroine we can cheer for.
Definitely Highly Recommended.
Volume One of Honey Hunt begins the story of Yura Onozuka, a young Japanese girl whose parents are a world-famous composer father and actress mother. One day, her mother arrives home to announce she and Yura's father are divorcing, she doesn't care what Yura does for herself, and generally dismisses her daughter. Oh, and she is also sleeping with, and has been for some time, the boy Yura has been in love with for literally years.
Yura is crushed by the abusiveness and cruelty of her parents, especially her mother, Yukari, who puts on a false public persona of being a loving mother. Because of this, Yura lashes out at Yukari, and her father, telling them to "go to hell" in an emotional statement to reporters and paparazzi. A talent agent who does some business for her father sees this display and likes her passion. He offers her a chance to get out from under her parents' shadow and be her own person, by offering to give her a place to live and his professional help in becoming an actress. Yura accepts, and the story begins.
This was fun, but also painful, to read. It's a sweet series so far, that focuses on this shy, but kind and sensitive young girl. Yura has more to contribute to the world than she knows, and to see her rise up and start to assert herself is really heartwarming. On the other hand, the reason the girl has to learn to be assertive and that she has value in this world, is because of how often she has been treated by her absent, and in the case of her mother, emotionally abusive, parents. The treatment Yukari gave her daughter in this story elicited from me, as a reader, the same anger I felt when reading of the bad treatment of Jane or Fanny in Jane Eyre and Mansfield Park, respectively.
I loved the artwork. Right away, the artwork makes clear to the reader exactly how Yukari will be. While her style is not any different in how she is drawn than the other characters, she still comes across very differently. The author/artist of the manga, Miki Aihara, draws Yukari as an extremely beautiful woman, but one who just exudes this sense of coldness and selfishness. Very well done.
One thing I liked about this was how it shows that divorce is not just an "easy" thing to deal with, as too many media attempt to portray it as. It can be quite difficult for the children involved, as it is for Yura. Even though, I hope, most children of divorce in real-life do not have the absolute wench for a mother or jerk (we assume from what we hear of his antics, as we haven't seen him yet in volume one) for a father, it can still be hard. This series communicates that nicely.
I know that some guys will see the covers, or that this is a shojo series, and dismiss it as just for girls. It really isn't, and that would be unfortunate assumption to make. Honey Hunt is a touching, funny, yet poignant series with a heroine we can cheer for.
Definitely Highly Recommended.
February 5, 2013
Well, I had read the first chapter of this manga online to see if it could interest my sister, and I was fairly pleased with it. It reminded me of the plot of Skip Beat!, Vol. 1, where the main character is wronged by somebody famous in her life and she wishes to beat them in the game of Show business. I bought the book for my sister for Christmas, and she was enamoured by it. I finally got around to borrowing Honey Hunt from my sister, and sadly, the plot of Skip Beat was much more interesting.
The only thing to redeem this manga is the artwork, which is of pretty good quality. Even though I gave this manga 3 stars, I will probably read more when my sister buys more volumes. She tends to love these kinds of Romance mangas, and fell in love with this manga because of its similarities to Skip Beat. But unfortunately, Honey Hunt doesn't borrow some of Skip Beat's main character's drive and fearlessness.
The only thing to redeem this manga is the artwork, which is of pretty good quality. Even though I gave this manga 3 stars, I will probably read more when my sister buys more volumes. She tends to love these kinds of Romance mangas, and fell in love with this manga because of its similarities to Skip Beat. But unfortunately, Honey Hunt doesn't borrow some of Skip Beat's main character's drive and fearlessness.
December 30, 2012
This is surprisingly better than the author's other book, Hot Gimmick. I couldn't bring myself to read that one over the accounts of how ridiculous the main character is.
Anyway, Honey Hunt is about this normal girl, Yura, who cannot get out of the shadows of her famous parents. She doesn't have a talent for acting, like her mother. Or a talent for music, like her father. Apart from that, she has always felt alone and uncared for because her parents are too busy to act like parents. Because of this, Yura cannot wait for the day she goes to college and abandons them.
Little does she know, her parents are getting a divorce and they're going to abandon her first.
Yura is distraught and angered, so when her mothers manager offers her a chance to get into the acting business, she accepts. But she accepts to get revenge.
Now, I completely love this story. It's interesting and unpredictable to me. I thought she was exaggerating at first about her parents, but after reading a bit about them, I can conclude her mom is a self obsessed jerk.
Though, what irks me to no end, is the fact I can't tell who the love interest is. -_-
Anyway, Honey Hunt is about this normal girl, Yura, who cannot get out of the shadows of her famous parents. She doesn't have a talent for acting, like her mother. Or a talent for music, like her father. Apart from that, she has always felt alone and uncared for because her parents are too busy to act like parents. Because of this, Yura cannot wait for the day she goes to college and abandons them.
Little does she know, her parents are getting a divorce and they're going to abandon her first.
Yura is distraught and angered, so when her mothers manager offers her a chance to get into the acting business, she accepts. But she accepts to get revenge.
Now, I completely love this story. It's interesting and unpredictable to me. I thought she was exaggerating at first about her parents, but after reading a bit about them, I can conclude her mom is a self obsessed jerk.
Though, what irks me to no end, is the fact I can't tell who the love interest is. -_-
May 25, 2015
Loved this manga! I couldn't believe how much either because I never expected to like a star search manga. I could relate to the girl and the situation with her parents. She's really rather needy and you understand and sympathize with her motives.
I really like Keiichi who becomes her agent. And we are shown Q-ta is rather well informed about her before they even meet. Haruka obviously had history with his brother and it muddied the waters with Yura.
The highlight for me was the girl's unexpected choices and the dialogue which was stellar many times. I liked how character oriented it was.
BOTTOM LINE: A great introduction.
I really like Keiichi who becomes her agent. And we are shown Q-ta is rather well informed about her before they even meet. Haruka obviously had history with his brother and it muddied the waters with Yura.
The highlight for me was the girl's unexpected choices and the dialogue which was stellar many times. I liked how character oriented it was.
BOTTOM LINE: A great introduction.
May 9, 2009
This is totally not normally to my taste but I read a chapter in shojo beat and decided I really liked it and wanted to know what happens. Yura lives in the shadow of her parents,she finds out they are getting a divorce because her dad was cheating on her mom and then finds her mom sleeping with her best friend. She has never felt like anyone but Shin (the friend) really liked her for herself, so this is particularly painful. Now she is trying to make her own life (and get revenge on her mother) by becoming an actress without using her parents names.
March 11, 2010
Don't let my "ok" rating sway you from reading this manga. I'm just not a manga fan and I had to read a graphic for a course I'm taking readers advisory. That being said, Honey Hunt was a pretty quick read and I can see how someone who enjoys this type of book would want to go back for more. If you like teen drama and relationships, this one is for you.
May 9, 2009
I'm really enjoying this title so far, but I really hope it doesn't turn out like Hot Gimmick. Please don't let it turn out like HG!
February 17, 2025
A story that feels part K-drama and part Wattpad fiction with oodles of drama as a girl goes against her celeb parents and breaks into acting all while having a love triangle with two hot twin idols in different bands. It sounds trashy and it is a bit. It does try to create an emotional core and it sort of works but also partially in that Wattpad “My parents sold me for drug money” way where it's all just a bit excessive especially with her friend cheating on her with her Mom.
The story is alright but pretty promising and Miki Aihara does a good job of having you care about Yura though I do feel she is a bit blank and I would prefer a different personality for the lead. But a lucid story of making it in stardom always tickles my fancy so this was naturally a decently enjoyable experience.
The art is hit and miss. It works at some times and other times it really doesn't. Hands are big and heads are small creating an extremely offputting effect at times. Faces can look bad especially when there is no nose or the eyes feel stickered on. And Miki does the time-saving trick of just taking a real-life photo and lazily Photoshopping it into six or seven grayscale colors which looks cheap, lazy, and ugly.
Depending on how this series goes I can see myself enjoying it or finding it just “eh” schlock.
The story is alright but pretty promising and Miki Aihara does a good job of having you care about Yura though I do feel she is a bit blank and I would prefer a different personality for the lead. But a lucid story of making it in stardom always tickles my fancy so this was naturally a decently enjoyable experience.
The art is hit and miss. It works at some times and other times it really doesn't. Hands are big and heads are small creating an extremely offputting effect at times. Faces can look bad especially when there is no nose or the eyes feel stickered on. And Miki does the time-saving trick of just taking a real-life photo and lazily Photoshopping it into six or seven grayscale colors which looks cheap, lazy, and ugly.
Depending on how this series goes I can see myself enjoying it or finding it just “eh” schlock.
February 6, 2017
What do I do when I need my manga fix in physical form? I head over to my local public library. I was roaming all the manga available and having read probably 80% of what's on the shelves, I spotted this one.
Having read many of the Skip Beat volumes (still catching up), it's like many say; it's too similar and a bit off a rip off.
A girl that wants to be a famous actress as a sort of 'revenge' plan?
Two guys wanting this main characters affections? (one with genuine feelings, the other is just using her)
You get my drift?
I finished what was available to me just to see how this would continue. However, I was unaware of the hiatus that it's been on since 2009.
The story is a little lacking and the characters aren't really memorable. I read this a couple of days ago and have already forgotten the characters and their names.
Having read many of the Skip Beat volumes (still catching up), it's like many say; it's too similar and a bit off a rip off.
A girl that wants to be a famous actress as a sort of 'revenge' plan?
Two guys wanting this main characters affections? (one with genuine feelings, the other is just using her)
You get my drift?
I finished what was available to me just to see how this would continue. However, I was unaware of the hiatus that it's been on since 2009.
The story is a little lacking and the characters aren't really memorable. I read this a couple of days ago and have already forgotten the characters and their names.
February 24, 2022
This story is a typical love triangle with a teenage girl who has an embarrassment of riches in the man department. I'm not really into romance and the characters in this volume are not very sympathetic or likable in my opinion. I read this in my quest to find good, appropriate manga to add to a middle school library. This one seems to be an unfinished series and there is one scene where two characters are shown "making out" on a couch with a bit of butt showing on the male and bosomy bra-covered cleavage on his partner. It's not terribly graphic and the language is not terrible, but it doesn't have enough merit for me to overlook that.
July 15, 2022
This was all right, but reading it I remembered why I have disliked Aihara's other work -- everyone in the story is out for themselves, they are acting out of greed or spite or at best an ambition that doesn't have compassion for anyone else. It is a very bleak view of the world and I do not much enjoy marinating in it, so while I am a little curious how the story goes, I will probably not read any further.
May 9, 2017
Same premise as Skip Beat! (girl becomes actress for revenge) but without the comedic elements and supportive secondaries (everyone is essentially helping her for their own selfish reasons) which depresses the tone of the story. Somewhat interesting but definitely recommend Skip Beat! instead.
August 7, 2021
Wow what the fuck is this gossip girl shit? Like ten pages in, her mom is a bitch and her parentsa re divorcing, fifteen pages in and her mom is FUCKING THE GUY SHE HAS A CRUSH ON and twenty pages in she goes on national television to tell her parents that they're horrible. I'm hooked, I am absolutely into it.
July 4, 2017
This series is unfinished, with no ending. If I had know I probably wouldn't have started. Honestly the only reason I continued was b/c I already had all 6 from the library. Don't really care for the main character or for the basic premise of the plot.
July 20, 2017
Was a very charming story and hit me in the good feels. I connected with the main character and how she grew up. Hope they will come out of Hiatus to finish the story but it is unlikely with the amount of time that has passed. Left it on quite the cliff hanger.
June 14, 2018
This felt so strongly like a duplicate of Skip Beat even with the nuances of how the protagonist got there. Except from what I can tell (hard to say from only the first volume) is Skip Beat does this "go into showbiz for revenge" plot better.
January 21, 2019
While I like the artwork in this manga compared to Miki Aihara's Hot Gimmick, the story isn't very riveting. It might have to do with the typical main character with a mental switch that turns her from flustered little girl to head-strong little girl.
August 21, 2019
Yura's mom is rude af. Like damn. I did enjoy volume one though. Reminds me a little of Skip Beat but not in a bad way or a way that's copying it. Just got some Skip Beat vibes. Also hot guy helps the story lol
September 25, 2020
4.5 stars. I really loved this first volume! It did feel a bit rushed, hence my knocking off half a star. I'm really sad this series never got an ending but I will definitely be reading all of the volumes that have been released. And there's always Skip Beat!
August 17, 2022
A friend recommended this manga to me after a conversation about webtoon. It's a fun read with entertaining moments. I'll try to read through the rest but the book didn't leave me with an urgency to keep reading.
September 25, 2022
I usually don't like comparing books to one another, but I just need to to mention that this has all the good parts of "Hot Gimmick" without the sexual harassment and terrible people. Can't wait to read more!
November 29, 2022
Okay
I liked everything about this except the romance. We've already got a love triangle setup with one leg haughty and aggressive, brothers, and drama between them. Considering vol 1's are generally lower on romance, I don't think it's a series I'd continue.
I liked everything about this except the romance. We've already got a love triangle setup with one leg haughty and aggressive, brothers, and drama between them. Considering vol 1's are generally lower on romance, I don't think it's a series I'd continue.
November 27, 2017
Q-ta is so ugly I like his brother
January 2, 2018
I really like this. It reminds me of Skip Beat! and Hot Gimmick! I know it’s on hiatus probably forever but I will enjoy what is out.
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