A Cinderella comedy featuring a princely-looking celebrity—who has a very un-princely fetish.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Rin Mikimoto
Translation/Adaptation: Melissa Goldberg
What They Say
STARSTRUCK At school, Hinana is an honors student, respected by all her classmates. She’s totally above things as juvenile as crushes and dating. Secretly, though, she has but one wish: To have a fairy-tale romance. One day, a super-hot celebrity named Kaede shows up at Hinana’s high school to shoot a movie, and it becomes difficult to keep up her act. By pure chance — or y’know, fate! — Kaede reveals his own ridiculous personality to Hinana, and her ordinary life turns breathtakingly romantic! Or just really, really… weird?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This is my first time reading Mikimoto-sensei’s work, and I found Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight somewhat reminiscent of the Goong manhwa by So Hee Park. This partly because it is also a romance that incorporates crude humor, and partly because the character designs go from sparkly-eyed shojo-style to goofy caricatures when things get bawdy. And like Goong, it is a Cinderella story. However, instead of an actual prince and a poor girl, the lead couple is a handsome celebrity and a straitlaced honor student.
That honor student being Hinana Hanazawa. Unlike many other Cinderella-type heroines, her family is not in debt, and she doesn’t have to work part-time to make ends meet. If anything, she’s the embodiment of the perfect high school girl with good grades, a seat on the student council, and a serious demeanor. Secretly, however, she fantasizes about having a fairy-tale romance with a hot guy—not that she thinks it could ever happen.
Enter super-star Kaede Ayase. He shows up at Hinana’s school to shoot a film, and Hinana and her classmates can’t even speak to him because he’s so glamorous. But by pure chance, Hinana discovers that Kaede is a “butt alien” (panty freak), and suddenly, the celebrity prince doesn’t seem so unapproachable to her any more.
This title is rated for “Older Teen,” but I’m still troubled by the fact that our heroine falls for such an unabashed pervert. This is shojo, after all, not hentai. It’s one thing for Kaede to catch a glimpse of her panties because she (oopsies!) trips at the wrong time. It’s another thing for him to ogle the whole high school tennis team and to offer to let Hinana feel up the panty flash figurine he wins at an arcade. Plus, he’s 24–an adult, and at least seven years older than Hinana. He takes special interest in Hinana because she doesn’t condemn him for his butt fetish and keeps it a secret. However, his special interest in her doesn’t stop him from ogling other women, girls, and inanimate objects. Kaede is portrayed as a carefree bubblehead so his fetish doesn’t come across as predatory, but I do wish Hinana had higher standards.
If Kaede had a less perverted quirk, this would be an otherwise entertaining romantic comedy. I liked its twist on Cinderella’s shoes, and because Hinana’s not a Cinderella that needs to be rescued from her circumstances, the mood stays fun even as she ponders the chemistry brewing between her and Kaede. As mentioned in the author notes, this story tries to capture the nature of celebrity crushes as well as the fact that celebrities are human, too, and it does a good job of showing the comic awkwardness of a budding relationship complicated by the burdens of stardom.
Extras include the first five pages printed in color, author’s notes and afterword, and translation notes.
In Summary
Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight is yet another Cinderella-type manga with an ordinary high school heroine and a gorgeous celebrity. However, unlike most stories that fall into this trope, neither character is in desperate or extreme circumstances so there’s not a lot of high stakes drama. There are, however, quite a lot of panty shots for a shojo title. So if you’re interested in a Cinderella romantic comedy and don’t mind raunchy humor, you can give this title a try.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: September 19th, 2017
MSRP: $10.99
