Lovely Complex

Name: Lovely★Complex, Love★Com, ラブ★コン ,Rabu★Kon
Mangaka: Nakahara Aya
Genres: Shoujo, Romance, Comedy, School Life
Rating: 9.7/10

Before I start my review on Lovely Complex, let me write about a chapter in my life that nobody knows about: my brief stint with OchibiChan Scans. I have been an avid reader of Lovely Complex since about...the dawn of time. There has always been something that's been tugging me in a corner of my mind. What can I do to contribute? I don't want to always be a silent reader - reading a chapter, and then spamming the scanlation group for a month until they update again.

Maybe there was something deeper than that. Something that would put this mental harassment to an end. And there it was: the answer to everything. I can, I shall, I WILL become a scanlator. I was pretty handy with Photoshop and I think I could read my fair share of Chinese. So I emailed them and after dinner, they replied saying that they'd love to have a potential translator/typesetter on board. They emailed me two tests to do, a translator one and a typesetter one.

There's a reason why it's called a "brief" stint with OchibiChan Scans. That night, I got to work on the Translator test (they kept hinting at the vacancies in their translator posts...). Unluckily, my mom (with her psycho-Asian mom powers) managed to come into my room at the same time I was in the middle of a quite finicky Traditional Chinese character. Outraged at my association with these "abhorrent Japanese trash", she banned me from doing anymore of this "useless" thing. I managed to email Ochibichan that due to circumstances I was unwilling to say, I couldn't go through with my application.

That's my sad, short (not really) story. Now onto the actual review section.

Lovely Complex rates high on my list of good mangas. There are only a few mangakas who draw don't always make their characters look as pretty and composed as [we expect them to be]. One is Nakahara Aya-san. Another one I can think of is the mangaka of Goong (I actually can't remember her name!).

Lovely Complex is the hearwarming story of two people: Koizumi Risa and Otani Atsushi. When you look at the characters of their names, there is something interesting. Koizumi (小泉) means "little spring". Otani (大谷) on the other hand, means "big valley". Their real-life personas can't be anymore different. Koizumi is the tallest girl in her grade at 172cm tall, towering above the rest of the petite and cute girls in her school. Otani, on the other hand, is shorter than the other boys in their grade. He is 156 cm, humiliatingly shorter by about 20 or so centimeters than the rest of the male population.

The whole story revolves around these two odd people. The two of them are always in the same class, where the apparent height difference is constantly picked upon by their peers. The entire school jokingly dubs them as the "All-Hansin Kyojin" after a famous Japanese comedic duo that has the same height difference. Both are very sensitive about their height...leading to meaningless and comedic fights between themselves. Hate slowly turns to like as the story progresses. About half the storyline is concerning Koizumi's attempts to get Otani to like her (he couldn't 'see' her as a girlfriend just yet).

I absolutely loved this series but I was bipolar when it came to the end of this series. Yesterday, the last chapter of Lovely Complex came out. I was happy that it finally came out after about 3 months of dormancy (I even finished the sequel first!), but there was a feeling of disappointment because it had ended.

The art isn't Korean manhwa but I think that there is something special to be found in it. [However simple it may be, it's capable of summoning a whole range of emotions from you]. It seems confusing, but goodness knows how many times my heart throbbed at their angsty antics. Nakahara-san manages to bring a healthy dose of comedy into each chapter. Either with lates (to school, school trips, and eventually even the graduation ceremony) on Koizumi and Otani's parts or with absolute hilarious faces and expressions.

As the story gradually progresses from hate, dislike, neutrality, and then to like, I felt myself melting into the storyline and relating to all of the characters, especially Koizumi. Being 171 cm myself, I remember going back to China and feeling like a lanky giant. I totally felt everything she felt, with all of her insecurities and doubts. Of course, here in Canada, the height complex isn't as prevalent as in Asia so I don't think I have it as bad.

Ending on a final note: read it! I think it is considered as a classic manga, up there with Ouran, Special A and Naruto (which I absolutely detest...I don't even know why I'm naming it...=.=). The manga has been made into a 24 episode drama, a live-action movie, and a video game (what do they NOT make into a video game nowadays?!). I have watched all of them and loved it. Lovely Complex has a fiercely unique plot with equally original characters. It is deep but light at the same time. It explores the psyche of teenage adolescents while maintaining its humor and keeps the romance flowing.

Read the manga.
Watch the anime.
Watch the movie.

Experience the love.

By: Berber
Edited By: Annie