Good Morning Call Manga Review

Marissa

7 years ago

I read the Good Morning Call manga for the first time back in January just so I knew the original story when I wrote about the drama. Recently I decided to read it again. I’ve discovered that sometimes you need to read things at different stages in your life. I know from January to now (September) it doesn’t seems like very long but I have learned and changed a lot since then. And it was amazing to discover that when I read it the manga a second time, my original perception changed. Paradigm shift. My manga review will be about my most recent (and better) opinion.

Good Morning Call by Yue Takasuka
Published by: Sheuisha
Genre: shoujo, romantic-comedy, slice of life
Run: September 1997-April 2002
Volumes: 11

Summary

3rd year junior high student (9th grader) Nao Yoshikawa finally gets her own apartment only to discover that it has been rented to the most popular guy in the school, Hisashi Uehara.

Review

I read this manga twice. Once to know the original story. At that time, I found the manga useless. 1. I don’t read manga regularly. 2. I didn’t understand the genre slice of life. I thought it it lacked “overall conflict.” I’m assuming after reading Itazura Na Kiss, I started to understand the slice of Life concept and began to feel more comfortable reading manga. So my second read, I decided that I absolutely love it. It is remarkably cuter than the life action drama. But as usually with books, you get more details.

The story is fun and it makes for interesting situations. It is purely slice of life, but has a minimum amount of character development and a minimum amount conflict (there is conflict, but not too major). I’d say that it is similar to reading a diary (what I discovered about slice of life).

Nao is naive, kindhearted, and simple. She’s unsure of herself, but Uehara reminds her several times that he only has eyes for her. And Uehara is a really hot guy, extremely loyal, and often moody…

Other characters in the manga

Yuri, Uehara’s first love and now sister-in-law, still can’t get her life together like in the drama. We don’t get to meet Uehara’s brother, but we do hear about him.
Marina and Mitsuishi, Nao’s two best friends, cultivated their relationship slowly. In the live action, it happened kind of fast. I also liked that we were able to see their relationship troubles, along with Nao’s.
Abe is a classmate that is known for being rejected by girls often. He claims to be good friends with Uehara, but Uehara doesn’t see it. Abe is jealous of Uehara’s relationship and continues searching for his love.
Issei is the son of the ramen shop owner. The ramen shop becomes Nao’s first job. Issei also becomes interested in Nao.

The Best

I love the details compared to the drama. I get to see how Marina and Mitsuishi start dating. I get to see more than one kiss (there were some really cute kisses). Nao and Uehara are such an adorable couple. I love seeing how they worked things out. I also learned more about the characters, which honestly are unimportant details, but are nice to know.

Here Marina is talking about Mitsuishi’s confession.

Mitsuishi talking to Nao about Marina

The Worst

I enjoyed the manga. I would say that the lack of an overall conflict would be the worst.

After Thoughts/Recommedations

Now that I understand the slice of life genre (that probably come with the shoujo mangas), I would recommend reading Itazura Na Kiss (which is the only other shoujo manga that I have read).

Best quotes/Favorite Scenes

*The following scenes have been put together with a picture editor. I place the picture to be read left to right, but the manga writing is right to left. So I guess you’ll have to make your brain work.

This is one of my favorite scenes in the drama as well.

Elevator Kiss

Nao forgot about Uehara’s birthday. This one is really sweet.

There are so many more cute moments in the manga. These are just a few that I really enjoyed. I hope you enjoyed them too.

Book to Life Connection

There are so many cultural things and interesting things that I would like to expand on that I created this section to do so. In this drama there were several cultural things that I would like to add to a cultural understanding page. Also this is a book written in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was a different time period and there are many things I want to write about that were mentioned.

Culture in Good Morning Call Manga
Milk Pudding (Mentioned, but not as much as a big thing as in the drama)
A blast from the Past
Ice Mint Tea and Lemon Waffles recipes (amazing combination)
Gyoza Recipe