Romantic Killer Vol. 1 Manga Review

Romantic Killer is a comedy romance shojo series from Wataru Momose and published by VIZ Media. Romantic Killer was first released as a full-color vertical webcomic series, and even won the Shonen Jump 2nd Vertical Scroll Manga Award. And like most independent webcomics, it retains a bit of a tongue and cheek vibe to it that I think is missing from most manga series. It’s snarky in it’s commentary and ridiculous in it’s setup, but that makes this one of the more refreshing new reads.

Manga Details

High schooler Anzu Hoshino has a great life. Every day she plays video games, pigs out on snacks, and pets her beloved cat. But this blissful existence is turned into a confusing mess when a magical creature transports her to an altered reality bereft of her favorite things. Now she’s stuck with hot guys instead! How can she possibly survive in such an awful world?!

Anzu must play along in this altered reality before she can return to her normal life, so she begrudgingly makes friends with Tsukasa Kazuki. He unfortunately happens to be one of the hottest and most popular guys at school, and what’s worse, she realizes that he might not even be that bad of a person!
Official Synopsis

Genre: Romance | Comedy | Drama
Author: Wataru Momose
Publisher: Viz Media
Price: $16.99 USD
Length: 4 volumes (Ongoing)

Romantic Killer Vol. 1 Review

When gamer Anzu gets transported to a world of hot guys, what should be the start of a romantic dream, quickly becomes a nightmare! Anzu is living her best life, eating chocolate, playing video games, and snuggling up with her cute kitty, when BAM, a magical fairy comes along to ruin it all with romance. Thanks to people prioritizing their hobbies over romance, birth rates in Japan are at an all time low. So, to combat this a group of magical love fairies came up with a plan to stir up more luv luv vibes by helping folks fall in love.

Anzu being one such unfortunate soul, has been selected for a special program to help “stimulate” her love life in hopes of saving her from the horrors of being forever single. So, with the help of the fairy, Riri, Anzu is now the heroine in her very own shojo romance and the hotties are practically throwing themselves at her feet! So what if she just has to give up a few creature comforts, like chocolate, video games, her adorable kitty–but a little sacrifice in the name of love is nothing. Right?

Stuck in a living “nightmare”, Anzu has to play along with Riri’s rules if she is ever going to go back to her normal life. Which means making friends with the hot new transfer student, Tsukasa Kazuki. And with a bit of help from Riri’s magic they find themselves stumbling through just about every shojo trope imaginable. From the ol’ “sorry I bumped into you” meet cute to the tried and true “sharing an umbrella in the rain”, and my personal favorite, a surprise typhoon that forces Kazuki to stay at her house for a month. Ya know, the usual tropes.

Though, try as she might to fight Riri’s magic, Anzu finds that maybe, just maybe, Kazuki might not be such a bad guy. But, totally in a platonic, no romance attached way! And that’s pretty much the whole schtick of the manga, Anzu duckin’ and dodging shojo romance tropes like a champ, only to inadvertently foster a cute relationship with Kazuki. A bit of the illusion is lost, because you already know that Anzu is going to eventually fall for Kazuki. But, Riri’s ridiculous hijinks are admittedly hilarious. Her parents getting shipped off to America in chapter 1 to set up for Anzu and Kazuki living together later on is still extra AF. So, there were more than a few laugh out loud moments.

This is a shojo romance that pokes fun at shojo romance, so like with most parodies your mileage may vary. But seeing Riri’s tactics progress from creating cute situations like Anzu tripping in front of Kazuki so he’ll help her up, to completely brainwashing an unsuspecting boy into believing he and Anzu are childhood friends, is peak comedy for me.

I live for over the top, corny antics and this volume is chock full of it! Also the chemistry between Kazuki and Anzu is just *chef’s kiss*! They both want nothing to do with romance. Kazuki is the most popular guy in school and spends the majority of his time ducking thirsty fangirls, so he finds Anzu’s complete disinterest in him refreshing. And after spending time with him, Anzu realizes he’s a pretty chill dude. Even if they weren’t meant to be a couple I could still see them hanging out and being besties.

Of course, not all is smooth sailing for the two, Riri’s magic shakes things up in the end with a surprise twist—a childhood friend romantic rival named Junta. Usually I am just not here for the triangles, but somehow, I know this isn’t going to go as planned and I can’t wait to see what happens next!