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As always, a cute cover is what prompted me to buy this manga 🙂 Look how sweet they all are! Granted, she looks a little worried, but come on, those are some hot boys right there 🙂 This turned out to be a fairly cute volume. It contains four one-shot short romantic stories. The first one is the actual ‘Animal Jungle’ story. Then at the end of the volume there is a bonus short comic that returns to the Animal Jungle characters. This volume has cute artwork, if fairly standard ‘shoujo’ style. I think I like the cover art a little bit more than the interior art, but it’s all good 🙂 My favorite stories in this are the 3rd and 4th ones.
I have read this type of plot that the first story has so many times! This is not exactly an original story. Yet, I still enjoyed it… Animal Jungle is the story of a girl named Sumi, who, thanks to her mom remarrying, suddenly finds herself part of a family with three new brothers. All older than her, the boys are absolutely beastly. This goes against their names, which are actually very girly names- Midori, Hitomi, and Amane. Poor Sumi is stuck taking care of these three monsters, who all hang over her, and treat her like a possession rather than a sister. Hitomi and Amane are particularly bad, always clinging to her and making advances on her. They don’t act brotherly at all! Meanwhile, Midori is surly and mean to her! But Sumi tries her hardest to fit in with her new family, and soon Midori’s feelings seen to be thawing towards her. In fact, Sumi and Midori may have a problem of becoming TOO close! What would happen if their parents found out?
The next story features a rather weak heroine. Well, weak in the sense that her body is frail and she has a problem with getting dizzy a lot. Her name is Aoi, and one day, during one such dizzy spell, a very scary person comes to her aid. His name is Aramaki-kun, and he is sort of a tough guy at school. Naturally, when people see him helping her, rumors start to circulate that she is his girlfriend. Aoi denies it, but soon her feelings for him start to grow for real when he continually helps her during her weak spells. His scary face and strong arms keep other people away and protect her. Why does he always help her? His friends claim she is just a nuisance to him, and a complete bother. Is this true?
Next up is an adorable story of hate turning into love ^_^ Sachika really really dislikes a popular boy in her class. He is perfect. Always friendly, always handsome, always smart, always surrounded by girls. She can’t even have a decent friendship with girls in her class because they are all carrying on over him. This perfect guy is named Mitsuki, and he likes Sachika well enough. In fact, he is very nice to her. Really, he treats her just as nicely as he treats all the other girls in the class, and perhaps that is Sachika’s true problem… I must say that this story had one of the cutest confession scenes ever 🙂 Loved it!
The final story in this volume has a supernatural twist to it! ASAHINA Misono is pretty much an average girl, if on the shy side. She is quiet, and can’t manage the carefree lively conversation that all the girls around her seem to make so easily. Things go crazy for her one day when she falls down some stairs and lands on class-hottie KIRA Ryouhei. Ryouhei is popular and often the center of attention. This crash causes some unexpected results- Ryouhei and Misono are now suddenly able to read each other’s minds! This naturally causes them both some crazy unexpected problems. Quiet on the outside, Misono is rather noisy on the inside, and Ryouhei often has to ‘think’ at her to quiet down. Eventually, being able to read thoughts brings Ryouhei and Misono close together. It’s hard to have a closer bond than that. It even comes in handy a few times! But when Misono begins to fall for Ryouhei, how can she hide her feelings from him?
I really enjoyed this volume! The stories are so cute, and hey, the Animal Jungle story allows for many pictures of the boys in leopard cat-boy outfits 🙂 Catboy cosplay is always a plus for me ^_^
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