Manga Review: Heartful Kareshi

Heartful Kareshi by Moa Hato - 16 chapters - completed

Hiyoko Tosoka is the only human in the very prestigious Saint PigeoNation Academy. The pigeons have pseudo human appearances. 

I liked the premise of being the only human in all-pigeon school which is like the play of the usual only girl in an all-boy school. But aside from that there's basically no driving plot in the story. It's more of a slice-of-bird-life than a reverse harem per se. But this is based on the otome or visual novel dating sim and it's popularity led me to reading it.

It’s confusing to track who’s who even if they have human representations and different personalities. But I have to admit they’re really cute in both in their pigeon and human forms. It also doesn't help that the heroine is in a first person shooting game mode and her only identifying attribute looks closest to a chicken drumstick.

The manga combines four panel when they’re in pigeon form and the standard manga format when in faux human form. The four-panel are generally fun but sometimes I just don’t get it. I guess too many avian inside jokes? But now every time I see pigeons in real life I feel I have special affinity with them.  It really cracked me up that the birds declared their independence in my country, the Philippines.

I think visually it works for otome but not so much for manga. I’m sorry that’s my laziness talking because it really requires effort to tell them apart. I agree with what I read before that this is meant as a complementary for the game. 

I have created 'anthropomorphism' tag. I would love to discuss this trope especially with all the weird stuff coming up recently like -- sushi and chewing gums but I realized it deserves a separate entry. Watch out for it in the future!