Daily Butterflies

Konnichiwa~

On this lovely evening, I’ll be reviewing Hibi Chouchou by Morishita Suu, a refreshing love story with two very shy and quite main characters. It is an ongoing series with currently 3 volumes in Japan and 27 chapters scanlated online. Alright let’s begin:

Suiren Shibazeki is an extremely cute girl who hates the attention she receives because of her beauty. When she was in elementary school, she was bullied by the immature boys who liked her; because of this she isn’t sure how to deal with boys and decided to go to an all girl school for middle school. But oddly enough she had a huge fan base there, girls being in love with her cuteness and getting annoyingly excited whenever she talked and smiled. Because of them, she began talking less and less and her expressions slowly disappeared. So the 16 year old Suiren that enters high school is a quiet, shy, and stoic beauty that quickly becomes the center of attention among the boys, gaining the nickname Takane no Hana, or “Flower on a High Peak”, since many boys see her as something beautiful and delicate that can only be admired from a far. But among the boys that stare at her, Suiren notices one that never looks: Kouha Kawasumi. He’s a karate junkie and an extremely talented one at that, being able to easily defeat 3 attackers at the same time. He’s childhood friend and best friend Ryosuke says that since he spends some much time training, he isn’t really good with girls and average immature teenage boy stuff. He’s very quiet, mature, and rather noble: his first encounter with Suiren was when he saved her and her belongings from an upperclassman that was trying to hit on her. He’s also seen standing up for others on several other occasions. He can also be very brusque, best shown through his interactions with Ryosuke.

Anyway, after their first meeting these two develop an interest in each other. Slowly and shyly, these two are getting closer and their feelings for each are growing.

I was worried that this since both of these two are so quiet, it be a very slow romance, which I have low tolerance for, but despite there shyness this pair makes progress. The author does a great job of developing

their relationship, despite the lack of words that pass between them. Her art is also quite lovely, especially her blush-expressions. I also love the fact that even though expression-wise Suiren is stoic, she’s actually quite emotional on the inside and the author is able to expression the depth of those emotions without having Suiren change her expression too much.  Anyway, despite both of them being quiet, their interactions are adorable, both of them nervous and flustered, wondering what they should do and what the other thinks of them. A charming story of a blossoming love between a quiet girl and a quiet boy.

~Nadeshiko-chan