Buy Wild Ones, Vol. 1
by Kiyo Fujiwara. Published by Viz Media. 200 pages. 2007. $8.99
Sachie Wakamura never imagined that she would lose her beloved mother, but she did. Since she was a minor, she was sent to live with her maternal grandfather who she has never met. Her grandfather is revealed to be the head of a yakuza gang. So you can imagine Sachie’s dismay as she was assigned a bodyguard, and forced to conceal her family’s business. There are more adventures for Sachie, as she goes through high school, foremost is considering her feelings for Rakuto Igarashi, her bodyguard/caretaker, and any other plot development or character interaction the mangaka writes in.
This is a fairly normal shoujo title variety, with beautiful girls/boys, love triangles, and happy endings for all. Why am I even thinking about recommending this series, for several reasons… some superficial and some profound.
- I have been on a slight shoujo kick, so getting to read this entire series was courtesy of Teen Central at New York Public Library.
- Hard boiled looking male supporting characters. I love the romantic image of Yakuza… reminds me of specific characters. Quite cute to read through.
- Sadistic yet pretty boy male lead, with a clumsy yet sincere female. Plenty of romantic imagery is in the series.
- I loved the covers for a majority of this manga series – all with red backgrounds, and nice pose. There are some spoofs with the covers, that warrants a chuckle or so.
- This is definitely a female/teen comparison for the more shonen/Great Teacher Onizuka comparison type for Gokusen, of which there are 15 volumes of manga, 13 episode of anime, and about three seasons of live action. Both series has female heiress to a yakuza group, loving grandfathers, a need to conceal existence of group, and all the while trying to see if there is going to be a love story for themselves. (I saw this in the live action, whereas the manga is on my to be read list.)
If you are attracted by this entry, do check out this ten volume series by Kiyo Fujiwara and released as part of Shojo Beat’s line of manga. There’s a preview of the actual manga on the Shojo Beat site.