I don't know how to feel about this series! On one hand, Soichiro Ashida is a grade-A jerkbag who is only using Sumi as a pawn in his financial games and I keep feeling like the series is going to make me like him before too long - which I really don't want to, gah. On the other hand, Sumi is pretty darn awesome. She's feisty and headstrong and not afraid to do what is necessary to save her loved ones. This story reminds me of My Fair Lady mashed up with The Wallflower and Flower In A Storm (which is a 2-volume shoujo manga everyone should read). Naturally, I'm gonna keep reading! ( )

Very romantic and super sweet. Girl marries to save her family, guy marries to inherit the company. And she's fallen for his best friend... What will happen next? ( )

Set on Japan's Meiji Era, Sumi Kitamura is a poor girl and manages the household with his brother Eisuke. Eisuke brings a lot of orphan kids to adopt even if they can barely eat something. Their debts are up to their necks. One day, a scion named Soichiro Ashida proposes to give Sumi money if she's willing to marry him, just when she's falling in love with Soichiro's friend Nozomu Ijuin.

I like the illustrations because I like long tresses of shoujo heroine and the handsome bishounens. This is one of the styles, manga art, that I wanted to achieve when I'm drawing (but fails to do so =.="). I like the strokes, the details of the clothes and backgrounds, and the inking.

The story, however, is not quite impressive. The readers can perhaps have doki doki (heart beat) moments because of how good looking the main character is; if a reader swoons over tsundere types, that will also be a plus. It's also funny. I just don't like the stupidity of the heroine, but maybe it's part of her innocence that builds up her character.

This is the first volume of the series so it merely introduces the characters and the basic plot. More of the back stories are needed in the future. ( )

Sumi, a beautiful but poor girl, struggling to take care of a seemingly endless supply of babies, thanks to her older brother who has delusions of one day putting them to work, so he may get all the money, begins to reach her breaking point.

After a nasty fight with her landlord, she gives in to prostitution, only to get swept up by several handsome men on her first day, who manage to keep her from any bodily harm! One particularly wealthy man, Soichiro, decides to buy her outright in order to fulfill an inheritence with his dying grandfather. This is how the story starts out - a lot of humor, a lot of gorgeous art (very flowery and delicate) and fast paced storyline. A little unexpected of a plot too - so not predictable, at least in this first issue. ( )

ZERO stars

Sumi’s older brother is an irresponsible jerk who gambles what little money they have, leaving her to try to provide for the passel of little children he keeps bringing “home.” When the landlord and her brother’s bookie demand payment she is forced to “sell herself” to get the necessary money. But the handsome young man who “buys” her has something different in mind … he has to be married by tomorrow in order to inherit the massive conglomerate fortune he feels entitled to.

With apologies to the younger set, I just do not get this genre. Manga is Japanese for “comic,” and this genre of “books” has gained huge popularity, beginning in Japan. It took me a while to realize that the book is printed “backwards” … i.e. it starts on what the Western world considers the back cover and moves from right to left. That itself is disorienting. But the drawings are so exaggerated and the balloon dialogue so truncated that I felt mostly just lost. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, and would probably actively discourage my young niece and nephew from attempting it.

NOTE - read for a group reading challenge; will NEVER pick up another of these again!