"Naisho x Boy" (Secret x Boy)
by SAKAI Miwa
ISBN# 4-592-15232-8
Hakusensha Lady's Comics, 2001

Ahh, I love Miwa Sakai manga! I am working hard to try to collect everything she does, but with a mangaka career that spans so many years, I am having a difficult time keeping up! There are so many different printings of her works with different covers that I get a little confused sometimes. However I knew when I bought this one that I didn't already have it. It's yet another fun student-teacher story. Miwa Sakai's art style is very delicate and feminine, and pretty. It has a very unique look to me, and I really like the slightly coss-eyed expressions she gives her characters sometimes :)

The only thing I don't like about most Miwa Sakai manga is the lack of furigana. Now this is understandable, considering the target audience for her works is usually a little bit older than that which you would find furigana with, but still, my Japanese skills need help, and I miss the furigana :) Also, because these stories are aimed at an older audience, there is some sex in this volume, but it i not graphic, and is done in a very shoujo style, with lots of flowery panels and wispy lines. Anyway, this is the story of the relationship between a cute high school boy, and the slightly older woman who is the new school administrator at his school. So I guess technically she isn't a teacher, but she is one of the high-ups at the school, with her own fancy office and everything, so the obligatory 'forbidden relationship' aspect of this stays true to traditional shoujo style.

The heroine is 27 year old Airi. She has just left a job as an office lady, and is not too happy about her previous career. One day at the beach she is yelling out her frustration at her old boss to the waves when she spots a cute guy wearing only a towel. (he's barely wearing that!) Airi thinks he is strange until she realizes he is a surfer, and is changing out of his wetsuit. She gets into her car to leave, but in a bit of clumsy driving, she manages to run into someone. Yep, she hits surfer boy! His foot is injured, and in her panic to help him, she drives him to the first place she can find where he can get cleaned up- a Love Hotel Yow! Airi doesn't realize she took him to a love hotel until they are actually in the room. YEah, Airi does not seem to be the brightest girl out there. Meanwhile cute boy, who tells her he is only 17, gets cleaned up in the shower. His foot is okay now, and he immediately starts putting the moves on Airi. I mean, they ARE in a love hotel. But Airi pushes him away, and they part. Airi can't believe she herself though, she was actually attracted to him though, and he's only 17! That's a 10 year difference! Through a suitably shoujo-manga-ish set of plot twists, Airi takes up a position as an administrator/principal at a boys school. I think she takes the position as a favor to her grandfather, but I am not sure. Anyway, guess who is a student at her school... yeah, her 17 year old surfer boy. His name is Ryuusei, and Airi finds, to her horror, that she is still attracted to him. He seems to like her a lot too, but can they really have any sort of future, given their age difference?

There is a second story in this volume that is also very fun. It's about a girl who has a complex about teh small size of her chest. She tries all sorts of things to enlarge her chest, including using a very funny padded bra. She has bad experiences when people discover she doesn't really have a big chest. Will she ever find someone who loves her, flat-chest and all?

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