Pearl Pink by Tanaka Meca is a cute, short, four volume shoujo manga series that focuses on a young girl Momono Tamako who, after about ten years, meets with her childhood friend who had promised to marry her if she became stronger. Of course, there must be a bit of a twist, so her friend, Inui Kanji, ends up forgetting about her and his promise...
I very much enjoyed this short series. I had originally picked it up because I saw it on my public library's shelf, the library had all four volumes, so I was able to read the complete story and I loved it! The story was so cute and the art is fantastic! This was the first series I've read by Tanaka Meca and I definitely recommend another title by her, Meteor Prince, but that will be another post coming up. Moving on to the story at hand...
(SPOILER WARNING! START)
In the beginning we're introduced to Inui Kanji, who is picking up some books his dad ordered, and on his way home on his scooter, like a Vespa scooter, sees two boys picking on a younger kid and he pulls over to stop them, but in doing so his scooter was stolen by the two dudes. Wanting to help Kanji, the kid, with their little monkey, chases after the two on an extremely slow and broken scooter to try and get it back. So, Kanji ends up walking home with his dad's books, where his dad is introduced along with the top idol at the talent agency they own, Momono Shinju.
Soon after, the kid comes back with no scooter in hand and Kanji is confused on how the kid knew where he lived, then the kid is introduced as Shinju's daughter, Tomoko! Kanji is shocked and angry with this since it would ruin the public's image of Shinju, he is to inherit the agency someday...but that's not all why he's angry, he had originally thought that Tomoko was a young boy, since she dresses like one, and is surprised she's a girl. In the end, they decide to keep the existence of Tomoko a secret so she moves in with Kanji and his father instead of staying with her mom. Tomoko then talks about how Kanji promised to marry her, when they were younger. Tomoko is currently in elementary school, I believe, and Kanji is in high school, I can't really remember all too well and he doesn't remember the promise at all and is very confused.
As the story moves on, various characters are introduced and a lot of chaos ensues. A guy from a boy band, Rain, named Raizo becomes a main character, and at first, doesn't like Tomoko, but starts to warm up to her and encourages her in her pursuit of marrying Kanji. As well as being a cute shoujo story, it's very funny and comedic. Continuing on, the characters start to develop and grow as their roles kinda change but not really, somewhere within this time period Tomoko's grandma comes to Tokyo and drags her back to the mountains where she grew up because her mom couldn't take care of her when she was younger.
Shinju comes out to the media that she has a daughter and things get even more chaotic than before for Tomoko as her life takes a very different direction. Tomoko auditions for the role of the partner of the main character of a detective TV show, her mom is the one who plays the main character, who is an idol that's secretly a detective. She doesn't get the part but she does get to star in a movie later on with Raizo, the movie goes so well it gets a sequel! As all of this is going on, Kanji begins to have romantic feelings for Tomoko, despite the fact that he only saw her as a kid before. Love, changing hearts and opening minds.
Later, at a company party, Tomoko meets a man that has her questioning what happened to her father and why her mom hates the strange man that she had just met. It is revealed that the man Tomoko met was her father's identical twin brother and that her father died, he had a really weak immune system, without even knowing Shinju was pregnant. And her uncle, the strange man, hates her mom and vice versa and wouldn't even tell her mom where her dad was buried. I thought this was unnecessarily cruel, I mean Tomoko’s uncle shouldn't have been so unreasonable. Anyways, her uncle, Ican't remember his name for the life of me, steals Tomoko from Dog Run, I think that was the name of Kanji's talent agency, to work at his agency by sabotaging Dog Run. Kanji confesses to Tomoko, I think this is where this happened, and then follows her to the other agency, working as a janitor to try and get some blackmail to trade for Tomoko. Later, an accident happens that injures Kanji because he was protecting Tomoko and her uncle lets her go back to Dog Run.
In the end, Tomoko was able to get the location of her father's grave to let her mom go visit it. She still talks to her uncle and such, her life is still chaotic, especially with Raizo, Kanji's dad, and her mom still in it, with new acting jobs cropping up and she gets her happily ever after with Kanji.
(SPOILER WARNING! END)
Trying to condense the story of four volumes into one little post without leaving out too many monumental details was a little difficult. Overall, this was a really amazing, semi realistic, love story that I really wished happened in real life, but then again, all epic love stories are yearned for. This story is one of the main reasons why I love to read shoujo manga, because you can sort of experience romance and the life of a teenage girl in love in Japan. I mean, come on, I live in America, and it's not as great as that shoujo manga life. Moving on, have you guys read this series? If so, comment below and tell me what you thought of it, did you hate or love it? What was your favorite moment? And please, give me some feedback on my posts, I'd really like to know how I'm doing so far with these reviews of mine. Until next week!
If you still love this series so many years later, give a shoutout to ShojoBeat, maybe they can rescue these oldies and give them new life.
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