straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2025-12-13 01:20 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2025-12-13 01:20 pm
332 | shoujo manga hour
► This has accidentally become the second year in a row where I spent a good portion of my November/December doing a (re)read of a manga that I had nostalgic memories of from my teenage years. Last year was Death Note—and this year has been Kamisama Hajimemashita.
Though, unlike with Death Note, I neither read nor owned all of Kamisama Hajimemashita back then—it was actually still ongoing back when I drifted away from keeping up with manga for a while. I’m not entirely sure how much I read of the series back then—when I started collecting manga again a few years back, I already owned the first twelve volumes, but I know that while I’d read the majority of those back in the day, I hadn’t read all of them.
At some point I picked up volumes 13 and 19 as well—my favorite manga shop has very good deals on “damaged” manga, where the damage is often very minor things that don’t bother me—but I was reluctant to invest more before rereading the part of the series I already have to see if it still holds up for my adult self. Then, in November, I had a rather miserable “staying in bed sick” weekend, and I decide to (re)read the first thirteen volumes in an attempt to distract myself. It was both a great comfort and very enjoyable to return to those characters and that world, and so when my favorite manga shop had a very good Black Friday sale—up to 50% of on the volumes of many manga series, including this one—I splurged and bought all the volumes I didn’t yet own. No regrets; it was a great deal! (Or, rather, I do have one reget—that I didn't take advantage of it to collect more volumes of a different series I'm fond of as well, lol.)
After writing my last update, where I talked about how those side characters in Demon Slayer were giving me a supernatural shoujo romance craving, I decided to read the next few volumes of Kamisama Hajimemashita to satisfy it—and then I finished up the rest last night.
But I've gotten ahead of myself—I actually meant to talk about my history with the series first, before going into all of the above.
So, to go back to the start…
I love shoujo manga. I haven't ever talked about it much in fandom spaces, neither under this username or the identity I used as a teenager, mainly because the feelings shoujo induces in me are rarely fannish feelings, but I have a deep and abiding love for shoujo nonetheless. The height of my passion was during my teenaged years—understandably, since I was literally the target demographic at the time—I don’t know how many nights I spent devoted to shoujo, hunting down scanlations and reading (and rereading) them late into the next morning, overwhelmed by the feelings those series inspired in me.
My favorite scanlation group was Aerandria Scans—I loved the crisp, clean quality of their images, I tended to really like the series they picked, I remember the downloading process being pretty straightforward, and I liked their ethos towards the series that they scanlated—namely, they only scanlated unlicensed series. It was through them that I was introduced to Kamisama Hajimemashita. They’re also the reason why I refer to this series as Kamisama Hajimemashita—the official English title is actually Kamisama Kiss, which would be easier to type out, but Kamisama Hajimemashita is the name I was first introduced to it as, and it’s the name that’s been embedded in my heart.
I fell in love with Kamisama Hajimemashita pretty much instantly; it immediately became one of my favorite series. Aerandria didn’t actually scanlate much of the series—maybe one or two volumes at once, before dropping it due to the announcement that it had been licensed in English. I was absolutely thrilled. I’ve always liked physical media, and the news that I would be able to have physical copies of this series that I already adored so much—it sent me over the moon. I think the only other time I was that excited about a licensing announcement was when Seven Seas starting licensing cnovels for the first time, and specifically the licensing announcement for Scum Villain.
And from there… well, I’ve already written about that above.
► As for my actual thoughts on the series itself… I have one major criticism about the ending, which I’ll go into first, but otherwise, I very much enjoyed it! My biggest issue is that I’m just never ever going to be down for “supernatural creatures becomes human to be with their human lover” as a resolution. Truly one of my most beloathed tropes of all time. It’s made worse by the fact that Tomoe and Nanami living a mortal life together means Nanami losing all those other bonds she developed throughout the series…
It also bothers me because one of the aspects I really liked about this series was seeing how Nanami grew into her role as a human tochigami! I don’t like how much that fell to the wayside after Mikage’s return—like her having that role was only meant to pave the road for her and Tomoe getting together, rather than having a meaning for her in its own right. That she gives it up entirely in the end just doesn’t sit right with me. Nanami is already a weird halfway point between the mortal and supernatural realms due to being a human tochigami, so why not head into the other directions as a solution to their differing lifespans instead of my beloathed “mortal together” trope?
My negative feelings are softened somewhat by the fact that they do return to the shrine at the end, post-timeskip, but I still don’t like it, and am merrily inventing my own version of events in my head.
Setting all that aside, I otherwise really enjoyed this series! I thought the supporting cast was very strong, and for the most part I really liked their storylines and the resolutions to their arcs. Particularly Kirihito, or Akura-oh, or however you want to name him. His dynamic and history with Tomoe was so compelling, and I loved the complicated layers to their relationship. The two of them cuddling in the snow together when Tomoe is a fox and Kirihito is a human… literally immediately after Tomoe made a failed attempt to tear his throat out… ahhhh, peak feelings. Those moments where they’re remembering their friendship, laughing and drinking together—the hugs!! And yet, Tomoe is the one who killed him in the first place—and Akura-oh is the one deliberately killing people Tomoe cared about.
I also loved the dynamic between him and the original Kirihito’s mother, and while I would’ve loved a solution that didn’t involve him dying, I actually really liked the resolution of her choosing to have him be reborn as her son, despite that being the kind of plot point that I usually dislike. But it worked for me here. Also, his face when he’s asking Yatori if he killed her… so so good.
Finally, his dynamic with Nanami was also very intriguing to me, both in the past and present, and I would’ve loved to have gotten even more of it. Not in the sense that what was there was lacking, but simply because I liked it…. on a related note, I can’t help but have OT3 thoughts. The seeds are there! They just need to be developed further! I went to look on AO3, but unfortunately, there are only four fics tagged with that ship, and none of them seem to be what I’m wanting.
With the time travel—I figured that the “twist” would be that the woman Tomoe fell in love with in the past was Nanami, not Yukiji, and had mixed feelings about it, but I ended up liking the execution?
What worked for me in particular is that, while Tomoe didn’t love Yukiji, it wasn’t just a case of mistaken identity → Yukiji dies → Tomoe grieves “her” while actually thinking about Nanami. Instead, while his initial interactions with Nanami are what made him seek out Yukiji to help her, they also spend a fair amount of time together and he ends up developing his own bond with her. He notices that she’s not quite how he remembered, and that being around her doesn’t feel the same, but he still ends up genuinely caring about her in her own right. His grief over her death, then, is also a real grief—maybe not the full extent of the grief he believed it to be, but it still matters to him that she, Yukiji, died, even if he also later learns that the person he actually fell in love with was still alive. I appreciated that added nuance.
► I was looking at what other series the mangaka, Julietta Suzuki, had made. The main one that stood out to me was Akuma to Dolce—I don’t remember much about it anymore, but I do remember that I loved that series as a teenager. I had a special “favorites” folder within the folder where I kept all my downloaded scanlations, and both that series and Kamisama Hajimemashita were in it. Apparently it’s been on hiatus since 2008… I’m a little sad to learn that, since my memories of it were so fond! (I also read at least some of Karakuri Odette, but I don’t remember anything about it.)
After that, I wandered over to take a look at the manga published by Hana to Yume, the magazine where Julietta Suzuki’s works are serialized, and was struck by how many I recognized as series I read when I was a teenager—particularly from those works serialized in the 90s and early 2000s, which checks out timeline-wise. I’m not going to list all of them, but to name a few: I was pretty obsessed with Hana to Akuma—I think I even wrote a few ficlets about it—though I suspect I’d feel… differently about the series now as an adult, to say the least, lol.
Then there’s Ludwig Kakumei, which I remain agonized about never having been licensed in English. I think I only ever read it the one time, but it's lingered with me all these years.
Mugen Spiral was also very beloved by me, and also one that I considered writing fic for back then, since it ended prematurely and I very much wanted more. I’ve actually been thinking about rereading recently, since I do own it (in physical form) and it’s only two volumes long…
Though, unlike with Death Note, I neither read nor owned all of Kamisama Hajimemashita back then—it was actually still ongoing back when I drifted away from keeping up with manga for a while. I’m not entirely sure how much I read of the series back then—when I started collecting manga again a few years back, I already owned the first twelve volumes, but I know that while I’d read the majority of those back in the day, I hadn’t read all of them.
At some point I picked up volumes 13 and 19 as well—my favorite manga shop has very good deals on “damaged” manga, where the damage is often very minor things that don’t bother me—but I was reluctant to invest more before rereading the part of the series I already have to see if it still holds up for my adult self. Then, in November, I had a rather miserable “staying in bed sick” weekend, and I decide to (re)read the first thirteen volumes in an attempt to distract myself. It was both a great comfort and very enjoyable to return to those characters and that world, and so when my favorite manga shop had a very good Black Friday sale—up to 50% of on the volumes of many manga series, including this one—I splurged and bought all the volumes I didn’t yet own. No regrets; it was a great deal! (Or, rather, I do have one reget—that I didn't take advantage of it to collect more volumes of a different series I'm fond of as well, lol.)
After writing my last update, where I talked about how those side characters in Demon Slayer were giving me a supernatural shoujo romance craving, I decided to read the next few volumes of Kamisama Hajimemashita to satisfy it—and then I finished up the rest last night.
But I've gotten ahead of myself—I actually meant to talk about my history with the series first, before going into all of the above.
So, to go back to the start…
I love shoujo manga. I haven't ever talked about it much in fandom spaces, neither under this username or the identity I used as a teenager, mainly because the feelings shoujo induces in me are rarely fannish feelings, but I have a deep and abiding love for shoujo nonetheless. The height of my passion was during my teenaged years—understandably, since I was literally the target demographic at the time—I don’t know how many nights I spent devoted to shoujo, hunting down scanlations and reading (and rereading) them late into the next morning, overwhelmed by the feelings those series inspired in me.
My favorite scanlation group was Aerandria Scans—I loved the crisp, clean quality of their images, I tended to really like the series they picked, I remember the downloading process being pretty straightforward, and I liked their ethos towards the series that they scanlated—namely, they only scanlated unlicensed series. It was through them that I was introduced to Kamisama Hajimemashita. They’re also the reason why I refer to this series as Kamisama Hajimemashita—the official English title is actually Kamisama Kiss, which would be easier to type out, but Kamisama Hajimemashita is the name I was first introduced to it as, and it’s the name that’s been embedded in my heart.
I fell in love with Kamisama Hajimemashita pretty much instantly; it immediately became one of my favorite series. Aerandria didn’t actually scanlate much of the series—maybe one or two volumes at once, before dropping it due to the announcement that it had been licensed in English. I was absolutely thrilled. I’ve always liked physical media, and the news that I would be able to have physical copies of this series that I already adored so much—it sent me over the moon. I think the only other time I was that excited about a licensing announcement was when Seven Seas starting licensing cnovels for the first time, and specifically the licensing announcement for Scum Villain.
And from there… well, I’ve already written about that above.
► As for my actual thoughts on the series itself… I have one major criticism about the ending, which I’ll go into first, but otherwise, I very much enjoyed it! My biggest issue is that I’m just never ever going to be down for “supernatural creatures becomes human to be with their human lover” as a resolution. Truly one of my most beloathed tropes of all time. It’s made worse by the fact that Tomoe and Nanami living a mortal life together means Nanami losing all those other bonds she developed throughout the series…
It also bothers me because one of the aspects I really liked about this series was seeing how Nanami grew into her role as a human tochigami! I don’t like how much that fell to the wayside after Mikage’s return—like her having that role was only meant to pave the road for her and Tomoe getting together, rather than having a meaning for her in its own right. That she gives it up entirely in the end just doesn’t sit right with me. Nanami is already a weird halfway point between the mortal and supernatural realms due to being a human tochigami, so why not head into the other directions as a solution to their differing lifespans instead of my beloathed “mortal together” trope?
My negative feelings are softened somewhat by the fact that they do return to the shrine at the end, post-timeskip, but I still don’t like it, and am merrily inventing my own version of events in my head.
Setting all that aside, I otherwise really enjoyed this series! I thought the supporting cast was very strong, and for the most part I really liked their storylines and the resolutions to their arcs. Particularly Kirihito, or Akura-oh, or however you want to name him. His dynamic and history with Tomoe was so compelling, and I loved the complicated layers to their relationship. The two of them cuddling in the snow together when Tomoe is a fox and Kirihito is a human… literally immediately after Tomoe made a failed attempt to tear his throat out… ahhhh, peak feelings. Those moments where they’re remembering their friendship, laughing and drinking together—the hugs!! And yet, Tomoe is the one who killed him in the first place—and Akura-oh is the one deliberately killing people Tomoe cared about.
I also loved the dynamic between him and the original Kirihito’s mother, and while I would’ve loved a solution that didn’t involve him dying, I actually really liked the resolution of her choosing to have him be reborn as her son, despite that being the kind of plot point that I usually dislike. But it worked for me here. Also, his face when he’s asking Yatori if he killed her… so so good.
Finally, his dynamic with Nanami was also very intriguing to me, both in the past and present, and I would’ve loved to have gotten even more of it. Not in the sense that what was there was lacking, but simply because I liked it…. on a related note, I can’t help but have OT3 thoughts. The seeds are there! They just need to be developed further! I went to look on AO3, but unfortunately, there are only four fics tagged with that ship, and none of them seem to be what I’m wanting.
With the time travel—I figured that the “twist” would be that the woman Tomoe fell in love with in the past was Nanami, not Yukiji, and had mixed feelings about it, but I ended up liking the execution?
What worked for me in particular is that, while Tomoe didn’t love Yukiji, it wasn’t just a case of mistaken identity → Yukiji dies → Tomoe grieves “her” while actually thinking about Nanami. Instead, while his initial interactions with Nanami are what made him seek out Yukiji to help her, they also spend a fair amount of time together and he ends up developing his own bond with her. He notices that she’s not quite how he remembered, and that being around her doesn’t feel the same, but he still ends up genuinely caring about her in her own right. His grief over her death, then, is also a real grief—maybe not the full extent of the grief he believed it to be, but it still matters to him that she, Yukiji, died, even if he also later learns that the person he actually fell in love with was still alive. I appreciated that added nuance.
► I was looking at what other series the mangaka, Julietta Suzuki, had made. The main one that stood out to me was Akuma to Dolce—I don’t remember much about it anymore, but I do remember that I loved that series as a teenager. I had a special “favorites” folder within the folder where I kept all my downloaded scanlations, and both that series and Kamisama Hajimemashita were in it. Apparently it’s been on hiatus since 2008… I’m a little sad to learn that, since my memories of it were so fond! (I also read at least some of Karakuri Odette, but I don’t remember anything about it.)
After that, I wandered over to take a look at the manga published by Hana to Yume, the magazine where Julietta Suzuki’s works are serialized, and was struck by how many I recognized as series I read when I was a teenager—particularly from those works serialized in the 90s and early 2000s, which checks out timeline-wise. I’m not going to list all of them, but to name a few: I was pretty obsessed with Hana to Akuma—I think I even wrote a few ficlets about it—though I suspect I’d feel… differently about the series now as an adult, to say the least, lol.
Then there’s Ludwig Kakumei, which I remain agonized about never having been licensed in English. I think I only ever read it the one time, but it's lingered with me all these years.
Mugen Spiral was also very beloved by me, and also one that I considered writing fic for back then, since it ended prematurely and I very much wanted more. I’ve actually been thinking about rereading recently, since I do own it (in physical form) and it’s only two volumes long…