A successful career woman yearning to be wed falls for a gorgeous newscaster repulsed by the idea of marriage.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Izumi Miyazono
Translation/Adaptation: Katherine Schilling
What They Say
Successful career woman Asuka Takanashi has an old-fashioned dream of getting married and becoming a housewife. After her long-term boyfriend breaks up with her to pursue his own career goals, she encounters popular newscaster Ryu Nanami. Asuka and Ryu get along well, but the last thing he wants is to ever get married. This levelheaded pair who want the opposite things in life should never get involved, except…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Everyone’s Getting Married is a bit different than most Shojo Beat titles because it’s more josei than shojo. The character designs would suit a high school group, but the cast members are in their mid-20s, have well-established careers, and have had prior romantic relationships. And while shojo manga occasionally ends with a wedding, the heroine rarely thinks of marriage at the start. Here, however, marriage is the goal from the get-go.
It even opens with a wedding. Main character Asuka Takanashi is at that stage of life where her peers are getting married, and she thinks her own wedding is fast approaching–until her 30-year-old live-in boyfriend abruptly ends their five year relationship. As such, she’s thrust back into the world of couples mixers and matchmaking events.
Being back on the dating market isn’t horrible, but it is frustrating. Asuka wants not only a husband but one who will let her be a full-time housewife, and most of her prospects want a working wife. As such, her coworker’s roommate Ryu Nanami doesn’t even make the list. While the handsome newscaster respects Asuka’s reasons for wanting to be a homemaker, he declares in no uncertain terms that he’d “rather die than get married.”
The story reads like a contemporary Harlequin romance. The cast is small, and the plot focuses almost exclusively on Asuka and Ryu’s developing relationship. When the story does diverge from them, it usually shifts to their mutual friends Ono and Rio who are in the opposite situation (he wants to get married, she doesn’t). Other than being very good at her real estate career, Asuka’s a rather ordinary person. Ryu, on the other hand, has near celebrity status and a sexual reputation to go with it. But even though they are polar opposites in their views on marriage, they, of course, fall in love. The things that draw them together are kind of weak, but Miyazono’s illustrations do a fine job conveying their conflicting emotions and depicting the sparks that ultimately fly.
By the way, the series rating is “Mature,” but even though Ryu sleeps around and has a habit of kissing people when he’s waking up, there’s nothing graphic in the bedroom scenes (at least for now).
In Summary
Everyone’s Getting Married is a romance with an oft-used theme. Our heroine wants commitment; the guy she’s fallen for doesn’t believe in marriage. Aside from Asuka’s old-fashioned dream of becoming a housewife and mother, the story doesn’t have much originality, although that may change as we learn more about Ryu’s past relationships.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: June 7th, 2016
MSRP: $9.99
