I cannot believe that Viz, with all that WSJ money at their disposal and so many shojo titles under their umbrella to choose from, decided to spend their resources on digging up this twelve-year-old turd of a title.
WOLF GIRL AND BLACK PRINCE (Okami Shojo to Kuro Ojo), by Ayuko Hatta. First published in 2011 and first published in North America in 2023.
PLOT:
Erika wanted to be cool and make lots of friends in high school. Instead of seeking out like-minded people and being herself, though, she chose to hang out with trendy girls and lie about having a boyfriend so she had something to talk about with them. She ends up taking a picture of a random handsome boy on the street as part of her charade. This boy turns out to be Kyoya Sata, who is idolized by the other girls in her grade. He's willing to help Erika keep up her pretense...at a cost. He'll play the role of her boyfriend, but in return she must serve as his dog, always at his beck and call.
STORY:
I've made it clear in the past that I very much do not like shojo manga about innocent girls redeeming their resident Asshole-kuns with the power of love. I'm told that fans of these sorts of story get off on the danger of it all as a sort of vicarious thrill, but I cannot share in that sentiment. The only thing this makes me feel is frustrated. The only difference between Wolf Girl and Black Prince and the others I've talked about before is that I'm almost as frustrated with the heroine as I am with her wretched love interest.
Erika is an idiot. That may be harsh, but it's the truth. As much as I can appreciate that she's not a wibbly, tender little jellyfish girl like so many of her peers, Erika is the sort of teen girl who willingly walks (or talks, in her case) into danger and when caught doubles down on her mistakes instead of admitting the truth or letting others help her. It's not like she doesn't have any friends - it's just that the one she does have isn't cool enough to suit her social ambitions. Even after she makes her deal with Kyoya, she's given a way out. She crosses paths with Kimura, a kinder, more gallant classmate who by any reasonable measure would make for a better boyfriend. Yet when he outright asks her out, she turns him down because she's determined to stick with the terrible lie of her own creation because she inevitably starts catching feelings for Kyoya. I know that as a grown woman I should go easy on her because she's a teenager and teenagers can be irrational and stubborn, but even my teenaged self would have been exasperated with a character like her.
As frustrated as I feel about Erika, I want to stress that I don't think she deserves any of the treatment she gets here. She may be an idiot, but nobody deserves to have to deal with Kyoya.
Kyoya makes a terrible impression right from the start, although after a couple of chapters he tones down the "be my dog" talk and settles into the standard hot-and-cold asshole we typically see in these kinds of stories. He'll protect Erika from mean girls or other guys one minute, only to turn around and call her stupid immediately afterwards, acting like he's over the very concept of love. In true shojo manga fashion, Hatta tries to make excuses for his shittiness. In this case, it's a combination of mommy abandonment issues and the isolation that comes with being the class idol. Not only have I seen variations on this same tragic backstory dozens of times, it does not excuse Kyoya being a cynical dick who pushes people away in the slighest and it shouldn't be up to Erika to be both his girlfriend and his therapist.
It's not like you could just ignore the toxic dynamic between our leads because after the premise is established, the story just goes through the motions. You've got a trip to the beach, a sick day for Kyoya, some older scary dudes threatening Erika, and that's just in this first volume. This story hasn't an original thought in its metaphorical head beyond the fake couple at its core, and that idea is so noxious that it only serves to drag the whole manga down. To borrow a phrase from AITA, this is a relationship where Everyone Sucks Here.
ART:
I guess I have to give Ayuko Hatta some credit as an artist. Her designs are nothing special stylistically, but she puts some care into the fashions and hairstyles. This is most obvious on Kyoya there on the cover, as his hair looks properly tousled instead of the awkward haystack that other shojo dudes tend to sport. She's good at selling both the subtle looks and the wilder takes through her characters' faces. I just wish that her pages were not so cluttered, as they drown out what few good qualities this manga possesses.
RATING:
This manga is published by Viz under their Shojo Beat imprint. This series is complete in Japan with 16 volumes available. 4 volumes have been released and are currently in print.
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