Baby, Kokoro no Mama ni!

nathandouglasdavis Mar 1, 2019

8

When I started reading, I noted that the art style was reminiscent of shojo manga and the premise of the story seemed to be a socially awkward guy trying to interact with feir crush, so I assumed I was in for a romantic shojo manga. That was page one. By page two, a baby popped out of nowhere and I quickly realized that this story was primarily a comedy and secondarily a romance. And by chapter two, this opinion was further adjusted: it is secondarily a feel-good child-rearing manga and tertiarily a romance. In fact, the romantic element of the manga seems to be nothing more than the plate upon which the actual entree is placed. Each chapter is a standalone story, with stories sometimes carrying over to the next chapter or two. Such sitcom-style setups only work when there are strong characters you'd consistently want to watch interact with each other and this manga definitely has appealing characters. There's the self-defacing, misanthropic, lovefool Roji Shizuru. Fe is often unpredictable and overly dramatic and draws others to fem even though fe doesn't recognize fe's doing so (and often doesn't even wish to do so). Then there's the adorable baby Maida Kokoro, who has grown attached to Roji and generally just does cutesy baby things. And then there's other people. Manga doesn't cause me to laugh out loud very often. I'll generally remain quietly amused or at most crack a smile. But this manga induced a handful of chuckles and many a titter. As such, I can say with the utmost confidence that this is the most humorous manga the universe has ever produced. [Reviewed at chapter 22]