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Oh happy joy! It’s a manga by Hisaya NAKAJO! Once again I must say that I really like her artwork! The lines are very crisp, clean, and dark, and the clothing design for her characters is cool! The guys, when not in school uniform often have very hip, almost j-rock-star type clothing 🙂 I also like the way she draws eyes- with dark eyelashes and not so huge they take up the whole face 🙂 This book is a stand-alone volume consisting of four distinct stories. However the volume is dominated by the title story, ‘Yume Miru Happa’ which takes up a good 92 pages, or half of the book. The rest of the stories are short one-shot pieces. Their titles are: ’17 Romance’, ‘Futari no housoku’, and ‘Heart no Kajitsu’
The main story, ‘Yume Miru Happa’ revolves around a high school girl named Futaba, who has moved from the countryside to a large city to go to high school. Apparently her parents are dead, but it was one of their wishes that she go to a city for schooling later. Futaba is fortunate- she finds a place to live quickly, and at a great price- free! She ends up moving into a household run by a guy named Zakuru. Also living there is his little sister Shuuna-chan. They take in Futaba for free room and board in exchange for her cooking meals and packing lunches for them.
This is the beginning of a strange adventure of Futaba, as she learns that Zakuru makes a living as a fortune teller (the house they live in is actually like an office building, with a shop on the first floor). She also starts a new school, and meets a guy named AMEYA Masato, who is also closely connected to Zakuru in a way that Futaba is slowly let in on. Masato is very popular at school (he has his own fan club) but Futaba thinks he has a sharp-tongue. Yet for some reason she find her heart pounding when she is around him… but what does he feel? Why is he so nice to her? And what is his relationship with Zakuru? ^_^ ’17-romance’ Is about a 17 year old tomboy named Natsume who realizes she has feelings for a childhood friend of hers. But the fact that she has always been a tomboy seems to make up a lot of her worries. The last 2 stories are also great high school romances 🙂 I can’t recommend this volume enough! 🙂
I also need to mention that Zakuru, from the first story in this manga, also shows up later in Hisaya NAKAJO’s other popular series, Hanazakari no Kimitachi E, and that as an omake in one of those tankoubon, there is a picture of Futaba and Masato several years later. Zakuru has a connection to HanaKimi’s Umeda-sensei. Cool!