jmaeshawn

I purchase and follow Weekly Shounen Sunday every week, and have seen a number of series in it come and go. Those series can range from great to mediocre, but when Ponkotsu-chan Kenshouchuu first started being serialized, I knew this one was going to be good, and I was not disappointed. 

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The story starts by introducing Kaname Mito, a kind guy who simply wants to help people and have someone depend on him, but has never been able to due to him being born with a scary delinquent-like face that makes everyone scared of him. 

One day, while having an old lady run away from Mito in fear when he offers to help her cross the street, we're introduced to his classmate and title character of the series, Hirari Yumesaki, when she literally run into him and lifts him up into the air with her "ability of the day" — she's become a drone. 

It's revealed that three days prior to the start of the series, the clumsy and somewhat ditsy (ponkotsu) Yumesaki began receiving text messages from "God" describing how he's decided to destroy the world by having an enormous meteor crash into it one year's time, but that he'll give Yumesaki a chance to Armageddon by giving her a different supernatural ability each day to test and see which might have a chance to stop the meteor and save humanity. 

The series continues on from there with one new ability after another, most of which seem completely useless for stopping a meteor and leave you scratching your head wondering if "God" is just toying with the two of them, since the abilities always end up putting the two in the sort of "awkward, but funny" situations typical of a romantic comedy. 

Eventually, we're introduced to the third person in the love triangle: Rin Amesaka, a smart, academically talented girl who wants to make friends, but always has problems doing so due to her natural "perfectionist" habit of pointing out people's flaws with a stern look on her face, even though she means well and doesn't want to be critical of others. 

Because of Mito's desire to be helpful to others, he and Amesaka end up meeting and she quickly falls for him due to his inherent kindness and their shared interest in the works of a certain manga artist. 

Amesaka later discovers Yumesaki's daily changing abilities and she agrees to assist them in stopping the meteor in hopes of getting closer to Mito, but this ultimately leads to Yumesaki realizing her own feelings for Mito, resulting in the love triangle between the three of them. 

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I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but I can say that it is very satisfying and explains who "God" is, why he arranged this plan to destroy the world, and what his intention was in giving Yumesaki abilities that put her and Mito is the aforementioned awkward situations. It leaves you - the reader - with a smile on your face right up to the very last page.

The story as a whole makes you keep wanting to read on, because you never know what will happen next, and this leads to another good point: the author's creativity and humor really shines through. In an comment found in the back of one of the issues of the weekly magazine, the author describes how he wanted this series to be "a cross between Doraemon and a romantic comedy", and you can see how he definitely succeeded in doing just that. For those of you familiar with Doraemon, you can easily notice the parallels between Yumesaki's ever-changing abilities that end in humorous mishaps, and the gadgets Doraemon pulls out of his pocket and gives to Nobita to help him, but often end up making things worse. The abilities Yumesaki is given can range from anything like a talking hair clip that gives hints when you ask it a question, the ability to turn anything into pudding, being able to conjure up a children's playground-type panda bear Spring Rider and drinking fountain that makes you feel drunkenly talkative and clingy once you ride it and go back to normal when you drink the fountain's water, to having flames shoot out from your face when you become embarrassed (a literal interpretation of the Japanese metaphor kao kara hi ga deru). 

My one and only complaint about the series (and why I gave it only 9 out of 10 overall) is also described very well in the author's comment I mentioned earlier. The very premise of having a new ability each day for a year makes you expect to be able to see at least 365 different abilities, but that's not the case largely due to how hard it would be for the author to come up with another 200+ abilities that are unique enough to keep the story going without dragging it on and making it boring and repetitive. Only absolute legends like Doraemon's Fujiko F. Fujio would be able to do something like that. I think it would have been much better for the author to have had "God" say the world would be ending in 90 days so we could have seen everything play out without feeling like we're missing something. But while it's a shame that we weren't able to see a full year's worth of abilities, I think ending it where the author did keeps the story fresh, and makes it all the better in the end.

In all, I would highly recommend this series to those who like romance, just want a laugh, or those who like/liked Doraemon but see something a little more "grown-up”. Considering the series was nominated for an award, I hope that we can still see an animated version of this series, despite the fact that it’s now ended, because it really does deserve the anime treatment.