By Chaco Abeno
Yen Press
Rating: Older Teen

The end of Welcome to Wakaba-soh feels like a different manga than what we started with, which is not a bad thing unless you flip through the first few pages, read the initial vignettes about how a youth’s love is repeatedly thwarted by fate, and want more of the same. Instead, author Chaco Abeno seemingly adjusts tactics midway through, so the second half of this volume more closely resembles a harem manga. The change doesn’t necessarily feel organic, and may have had something to do with the long hiatus Abeno took, but I personally found it to be an improvement. Perhaps the best compliment I can give Welcome to Wakaba-soh is that I’m interested in reading the next installment, which wouldn’t have been the case if the second half had stayed the course set by the first.

The main plot revolves around a first-year high school student, Kentarou Sawai, who has a secret crush on another first-year, and enrolls in the same school to be near her. Initially, the book toys with whether they’re fated to be together: on the first day, it turns out his love interest, the astonishingly girly-looking Karen Toguin, has opted to take a leave of absence. Then she ends up as the new caretaker of Wakaba-soh, the dusty old house Kentarou shares with three female students and his lecherous uncle!

Kentarou frequently attempts to confess his feelings, only it never works out as planned, resulting in embarrassment and bodily harm. The pattern goes on for a while, threatening to become repetitive, but then Abeno starts expanding the story to include the other housemates, and even introduces an arch-nemesis, which gives certain characters a reason for being less antagonistic to each another. Prior to that, the female boarders at Wakaba-soh mainly served as a source of titillation or annoyance, panty-flashing Kentarou, tossing their underwear onto his head, et cetera.

As previously stated, the change makes a big difference. Kentarou had started out seeming like a wishy-washy character, and a whole book about him getting picked on by the universe—and subsequently crying over it—might have proven intolerable. Luckily, as we get to know his roommates better, Kentarou starts evolving into a reliable, albeit dense “everyman,” and Welcome to Wakaba-soh eventually reaches a good balance. Better to focus on several characters, most of whom are losers in some way, than a single sad sack. Misery loves company, after all!

The aforementioned “panty-flashing” aside, there are definitely fan service elements, but at least the female protagonists turn out to be more than just sex objects. One assumes they represent various “types” readers would be familiar with, but as we get to know them better, they exceed our expectations: for example, there is an aspiring manga artist Lolita whose popularity derives from her cute looks, but who longs to be recognized for her actual skill. Then there’s Karen, who looks like a princess and fights like one, too—provided Princess Mononoke is who we’re talking about!

The overall tone lies somewhere between the cute and hysterical; expect lots of chibis having emotional tantrums. But the book is also charming, and most of that comes from something most of us can relate to: the frustration of not being able to express our feelings to someone. Besides Kentarou, there is also a studious girl miserable that a certain character hasn’t realized she’s his first love. Will he eventually figure it out? Given what a wacky sense of humor fate shows itself to have in Welcome to Wakaba-soh, she might not want to get her hopes up.

Volume one of Welcome to Wakaba-soh will be available on June 9, 2009.