Another recommendation and boy am I glad I picked up this series. While the plot is rather obvious in some respects, it twists just enough that it holds my interest and makes me anxious for the next volume.

The evolving relationship between Rakan, Chigusa and Shigeka is interesting to watch, and especially amusing to view the way Chigusa and Shigeka are overly protective of Rakan. Rakan's method of dealing with their protectiveness is equally amusing. Each of them needs the others and it will be interesting to see what happens to them as the story evolves. I do wonder what the conclusion of the story will bring and there is no obvious end in sight. The plot can and probably will be drawn out for several more volumes. I look forward to them. ( )

When Rakan was little, he and his mother mysteriously appeared with amnesia laying in the garden of a rich old man. Now Mary Sue-ing his way through high school by being gorgeous (particularly next to flowers, which he grows and passes out freely to the teachers and students at his school), an excellent cook, and trucking along ever so bravely even with the death of his mother and the old man, Rakan must now begin his journey to collect a harem out of the older attractive men from another world who have recently begun appearing in his garden, so that he may impress them with how much of a Mary Sue he is by cooking for them and smiling a lot, whilst they both annoy and endear themselves to him and the reader by not being familiar with modern technology.

Now, the only thing that could make this manga even better is if it were actually as much of a comedy as that makes it sound like.

Ok, ok. Honestly, the manga isn't THAT bad, but I had to write the summary that way. It just makes it way too easy, you know? This manga is a combo shounen-ai/fantasy, so we're not really going to expect great plot anyway, right? Only I'd heard this manga could actually be a pleasant surprise in that department despite the cliches, so I gave it a try.

Ultimately I'm pretty disappointed, but then again, I find the claims that this manga did better/more with the fantasy aspect than you'd expect with a shouenn-ai to actually not be unfounded. Rakan, it turns out when his first older bishie Chigusa appears and the two have to fight of a threatening other-worldly creature of some sort, is a special kind of person who can make plants grow instantly. He looks exactly like the prince of the other world, who Chigusa has apparently been trying to assassinate. Later they're joined by another character from the world who has heard of the infamous Chigusa and is apparently thrown to find the man friendly and not evil-usurper-seeming, or something. All are unsure of how or why they ended up in this world, but are charmed and intrigued by Rakan, and one wonders if and how they might decide to use the boy to their advantage.

Original? Not terribly. But more in-depth than you'd expect. But being in-depth doesn't necessarily make something interesting, especially when it's this cliché and the execution this much of a bore. But still, for a shounen-ai, this much world-building is impressive in a way, and I appreciate it. If the characters and romance had been good, it probably would have served as some nice icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, I found the characters and romance uninspiring as well. Rakan, as mentioned, is a boringly sweet Mary Sue. And yeah, I meant not to say Gary Stu. Gary Stus don't cook elaborate meals and give flowers to people at school every day. While there are hints at possibly sinister unknown intentions in the other characters, the author pumps all of them with too much niceness and likability to make it give the occasional implication any clout or cause any real tension.

The shounen-ai-ness so far mostly constitutes of Rakan occasionally noting that Chigusa is attractive in a detached sort of way, and of Chigusa occasionally noting Rakan is a “precious creature” that needs protected. Personally, such shallow interactions make it hard for me to see UST in any situation. By the end of the volume there's mention of Chigusa, because of this-or-that-insert-cool-magical-reason-here, being emotionally closed off, but a mere handful of pages later stating that he 'didn't know [he] still had any emotions like this left' when talking about his feelings for Rakan. One of my attractions to this series was the fact it was so long. Plenty of time for slow character relationship buildup. But if you're going to throw around lines like that in the first volume, why bother?

But, I suppose, authors bother because some people *do* like that sort of stuff from the get-go. The apparent plethora of good reviews for this manga must be testament to that. I guess I can see the attraction, but for me this manga just falls too short, particularly with characters and their relationships. With the world-building doing only a slight amount to alleviate this, and the plot and pacing doing nothing at all or occasionally worsening things for me, this isn't going to be one I plan to continue. Still, the decently done fantasy elements are enough to bring this up a little over average even from my skeptical perspective. ( )

Sawa Rakan is a young man living on his own after the death of his mother and grandfather. Despite his shadowy knowledge of his not quite normal past Rakan is determined to live his life and progress into the future in as predictably mundane way as possible. This plan is blown out of the water when he discovers a man lying unconscious in his flower bed. Now Rakan is discovering his affinity with plants is something more than just having a green thumb and that life cannot always be as normal as he would like it to be.

This is a very well drawn, well written manga and the start of a new fantasy series. Although the idea of traveling between worlds is not unusual in fantasy manga, the direction that this story seems to be going in is pretty unusual. There is a nice little mystery lurking behind Rakan's past and I really enjoyed his interactions with his otherworldly visitors, Chigusa, Narushige, and Koh the talking snake. It made me laugh out loud in a couple parts (especially when Koh discovered the TV!) and I'm looking forward to the next volume. ( )

http://kitsuchi.livejournal.com/184337.html ( )