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Back in August, jothra, who knows well my irrational love for crossdressing girls, presented me with the first four volumes of Hana-Kimi. Which is a manga about an American-Japanese girl who cross-dresses and goes to a boy's school in Japan so she can stalk express her pure admiration for stalk her favorite high-jump athlete Izumi Sano. Of course they become roommates! Sano basically figures out Ashiya is a girl in the first chapter; the rest of the school is much slower to catch on.

My favorite parts about the whole setup are a.) EVERYONE except the guys at the school just automatically assumes Ashiya is a girl (best disguise ever, Ashiya!) and b.) how Izumi Sano is the most hilariously mushy tall-brooding-stoic-romantic-lead ever. You get a lot of interactions like this:

ASHIYA: Oh no, I think I'm falling for Sano, but he doesn't know I'm a guy! But if I just give him a hug, that's . . . suitably manly, right?
SANO: Ashiya doesn't know that I know she's a girl! But if I just give her a hug, she'll . . . never suspect I know . . . right? oh god boobs I forgot about those
(READER: Sano, why don't you just tell Ashiya that you know she's a girl?
SANO: Because . . . . that would basically end the manga right there?
READER: That is kind of a lame excuse, Sano.
SANO: Because . . . I sort of don't mind having a girly roommate I can cuddle with in a totally manly fashion without feeling insecure about my stoic masculinity?
READER: Better, I guess.)
ASHIYA: So, want another hug? That's . . . how we express manly affection in America!
SANO: I mean, if that's an American custom, who am I to say no.

Then there is the rest of the cast, who are pretty easy to sum up.

NAKATSU: Is totally not gay! Just wants to take Ashiya home and cuddle him and dress him up in girl's clothes and punch out any guy he spends time with and oh god WHAT IF HE'S GAY. @_@
SCHOOL DOCTOR UMEDA: Is gay.
NANBA: Umeda's nephew and the RA! Extremely pretty. His special RA techniques include a lot of flirting. But mostly he's a ladies' man. Probably.
SCHOOL DOCTOR UMEDA: Still gay.
NAKAO: Other than Ashiya, the prettiest boy in school. After some initial one-sided rivalry, they become BFF and talk about boys and clothes together and it's adorable (although it does not make up for the fact that the manga has yet to pass the Bechdel Test.)
NAKATSU'S ROOMMATE: Sees dead people. This is mentioned every time he appears and has yet to be elaborated on, but I AM EXCITED.
SCHOOL DOCTOR UMEDA: Did I mention he is gay? Because I still have not mentioned it as many times as it is mentioned in an average chapter of the manga.

All this, for the record, is basically just background for a whole bunch of relatively standard shojo high school rom-com chapters about school festivals and sports competitions and summer vacations and so forth. What's weird is that half the time it seems to play the shojo tropes totally straight, half the time it hints at subverting them, and half the time it just goes for utter crack. So I am constantly a little off-balance, especially coming straight off Ouran, which is 100% subversive all the time. (Which is why Ouran is still absolutely my favorite, but it would be difficult for anything to equal the brilliance of Ouran.) I am also constantly laughing at the amount of ignorance that is attributed to Ashiya because she grew up in America. In the future, I predict: a girl crushing on Ashiya and Ashiya having to pass herself-in-a-dress off as an identical twin sister. I would predict more cross-dressing guys, but . . . four volumes in, every guy in the cast has already cross-dressed for a beauty pageant, so I'm not sure how much further it can go!

I also need to briefly mention that the extra stories that have been included at the ends of some of the volumes invariably fill me with WTF. Volume 4 had one about a forbidden love between an engaged doctor's daughter and a street orphan that took a turn for the surprise incest and then ended with a tragic death from heart disease, all in the space of twenty pages!