Chelciejo Anime Collection: My Handsome Butler

Shopping list ~~only this week. Can't be helped.~~ Update: And recommendations And took out Canvas ~ Rainbow Sketch vol 2 (moved to 2012.04.18)

Bishounen Moraimashita © Shiiba Nana/Shogakukan
[First serialized in Betsucomi]
Published in Indonesia as My Handsome Butler by Gramedia/m&c!

Who, pray tell, gets a BUTLER for a birthday present?

16y.o. Yoshino, that's who. For as long as she can remember, she's been engaged to the scion of a rich family, and for as equally long, he's been giving her weird birthday gifts. But an air-freighted butler is the weirdest one yet! What on earth is commoner Yoshino supposed to do with a bishie butler/bodyguard?

Shiiba Nana's My Handsome Butler, originally Bishounen Moraimashita, first serialized in Betsucomi. The bishie-themed antho—does Nana-chan-sensei produce any other type?—contains six shorts including the title story. Aside from My Handsome Butler, there's My Handsome Butler Background Story, Love Love Gang, It Becomes a Habit, Prince's Salon and Continue! Love Love Gang.

I rate Bishounen Moraimashita 7.5 of 10 and its follow-up Ura Bishounen Moraimashita background story, a 6; Love Love Gang receives a 7.75 (yes, higher), but the Zoku! Love Love Gang continuation drops to 7/10. Oujisama no Salon merits a 7.25. My favorite, the image transformation, revenge-troped It Becomes a Habit or Kuse ni Nacchau! clocks in at 8 of 10♥. So with a 7.25/10 average, I recommend My Handsome Butler as a GET! if not a Must Borrow!

☞ m&c! has published quite a few of Shiiba Nana's shoujo manga, most recently My Gentle Wolves (Ookamitachi no Shiikuhou). If interested in other Shiiba Nana titles m&c! has released (and which were reviewed by other manga critics), go »here.

I preview and rate the other m&c! debut—the ex-Sho-Comi 1/2 Love by Kayoru (I've Loved You Since So Long manga-ka)—after the release list. Previews of ongoing series DO WANT! there, too.

Mangazines: Cherry March 2012 Edition
The March edition of Cherry, the Indonesian mangazine that serializes shoujo titles off Ciao, (now defunct) ChuChu, Sho-Comi, Flowers and Betsucomi, highlights Nakajima Yuka's Heart Curtain and features the Ciao manga on the cover. We're up to episode 3 from one-volume Kokoro Curtain tankou here. [Continued...]