Anata ni Hana o Sasagemasho, by Tomu Ohmi

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I have a soft spot for Tomu Ohmi's 1970s-Harlequin-novel-meets-Twilight manga Midnight Secretary, so I was happy to hear a rumor that another of Ohmi's works, Anata ni Hana o Sasagemashō, will soon be licensed. Nobody seems to have confirmed this, but I decided to read and review the series anyway, just in case. (If it never becomes available, the author's fans will have no trouble finding fan-translated versions online.)

Anata ni Hana o Sasagemashō is a josei manga* featuring ghosts, curses, and an arranged marriage. Seri is a pretty, cheerful, modern young woman, who is none too pleased about her parents' decision to marry her off to her quiet, reserved childhood friend, Yuzuki Furumidou. Yuzuki claims to sincerely want the marriage, but Seri suspects that he's mostly concerned with his family's curse: for generations, all of the Furumidou males have died young, so Yuzuki needs to marry and father a child as soon as possible. He assures Seri that his feelings for her have nothing to do with the curse, but how can she trust the word of a man in such a desperate situation?

Anata ni Hana o Sasagemashō is only four volumes long, and it needed to be at least eight. It's prettily drawn, briskly paced, and I enjoyed the creepy curse scenes, but the romance falls sadly flat. Ohmi plunges straight into the horror/fantasy storyline, which doesn't give readers enough time to get invested in the non-supernatural aspects of Seri and Yuzuki's opposites-attract relationship. Sure, there are some smoldering glances and flowery, sanitized sex scenes, but the central love story isn't even half as memorable as the one in Midnight Secretary—which, for all its cheesiness, never skimped on the romantic chemistry front.

*A story aimed at young adult women, generally featuring a sexual relationship—the equivalent of “New Adult” fiction.
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Posted by: Julianka

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