Review: YOU'RE MY PET

 Of course, just because a romance is strange does not mean it is inherently bad or that the manga itself is lacking, as today's example proves.

YOU'RE MY PET (Kimi wa Petto), by Yayoi Ogawa.  First  published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Sumire seemingly has it all: a great college education, a job as a journalist at a high-profile newspaper, and the tall, stately look of a model.  Too bad then that she's just been demoted from the politics section to the lifestyle page, her fiance dumped her for his mistress, and her coworkers are convinced that she's a stuck-up ice queen who deserves what she gets.  

Then she finds a boy in a box.

The boy in question, a teenaged runaway, likes the attention she gives him (along with her cooking) and begs her to let him stay.  She agrees, on one condition: that he serve as her pet.  They won't be dating, but she will provide him with a place to stay, food to eat, and as much attention and affection as he can tolerate.  He won't provide her with his actual name, so she dubs him "Momo" after a former pet.  Their strange arrangement seems to be working for a while until Sumire's old college friend Hasumi comes back into her life looking to rekindle their relationship.  Can she maintain a relationship while keeping Momo a secret?

STORY:

After reading a summary like that, you would expect You're My Pet (formerly known as Tramps Like Us) to be some trashy, kinky power-play romance.  You'd be dead wrong, though.  While there's certainly some strange power elements to the arrangement between Sumire and Momo, this series is so far much more of a character piece about Sumire.

It's a sad thing that Sumire's experiences are all too relatable, even 20 years after its debut.  She's a skilled and strong-willed woman, but that makes others see her as intimidating.  Worse still, everyone around her seems to be punishing her for not being stereotypically feminine.  Her bosses criticize her for not writing in an 'approachable' manner, her coworkers gossip and judge her non-stop, and the fallout from her former engagement and her taller-than-average height leaves Sumire wondering if she'll ever get a date again.  

It's no surprise that she's feeling incredibly insecure and angry about the lack of control in her life, and thus why her deal with Momo is so appealing.  It gives her a measure of control that she otherwise lacks in her life, but at the same times she can simply be herself around him.  Meanwhile, Momo (aka Takeshi Gouda) is all too eager to throw himself into the role of 'pet.'  We don't learn much about him, but what we do know is that he's 15, a talented dancer, with no life skills beyond dance and no apparently friends, family, or guardians to take him in.  Naturally, his gratitude starts to shift into a romantic direction after a while, something that Sumire is oblivious to and something that only gets more complicated once Sumire's old sempai enters the picture.

It would have been easy for Ogawa to make Hasumi a two-faced snake who simply looks perfect for Sumire on the surface, but so far he seems to be on the level.  He seems to sincerely miss her, and more importantly doesn't put any expectations on her to be the perfect woman.  Meanwhile, Sumire is anxious not just about her deal with Momo, but with projecting an image of perfection and strength to Hasumi in the hopes of finding the love she wants.  Emotionally this is all just a big mess, but it's a relatable mess.  More importantly, it makes for really compelling reading.

ART:

Ogawa's art here reminds a little of Moyoco Anno.  I don't know how much of this is a direct influence and how much of that is just that's where josei manga art was at the time.  Still, there's something about the big, dark eyes and long, pouty lips on all the characters that's reminiscent of Anno's work, even if lacks some of the silent emotion Anno puts into her work.  Still, Ogawa is very good at visually communicating the difference between Sumire's public and private selves.  It's not just about the differences in her hair and clothing.  Her moods come through more clearly in her face and body language at home, letting the reader know who the true Sumire is without saying a word.  In comparison, Momo is a little more generically handsome, but his overgrown mop of curly hair and lithe body helps him to sell the whole 'pet' persona to the reader.

PRESENTATION:

As is typical for a Tokyopop license rescue, Kodansha's digital re-release has better image quality (not to mention a title closer to the original), but the new translation lacks a bit of the snap of the looser translation from Tokyopop.

RATING:

Don't let the weird premise throw you off - You're My Pet is a great josei series.  It has incredible character writing and Ogawa has managed to tap into some of the all-too-common problems of being a working woman through Sumire.  This is one that's well-worth hunting down, be in digital or physical form.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics, and formerly by Tokyopop.  This series is complete in Japan with 18 volumes available.  All 18 have been published; the physical volumes are currently out of print, but the entire series is available digitally through Comixology.