Butterflies, Flowers, Volume 1

By Yuki Yoshihara

Book Overview

A hilarious office romance

Choko Kuze is the sensible daughter of a venerable family who went bankrupt. She joins a real estate company as an entry-level office worker, but her eccentric boss is harder on her than anyone else in the company After hearing him inadvertently call her "milady," she realizes he was the young servant boy she knew as a child. At work he's a tyrant, but after hours he insists on treating her like a lady of the nobility. Is romance even possible for a couple locked in such a crazy role reversal?

Choko Kuze is the sensible daughter of a venerable family who went bankrupt. She joins a real estate company as an entry-level office worker, but her eccentric boss is harder on her than anyone else in the company After hearing him inadvertently call her "milady," she realizes he was the young servant boy she knew as a child. At work he's a tyrant, but after hours he insists on treating her like a lady of the nobility. Is romance even possible for a couple locked in such a crazy role reversal?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421532034
• ISBN13: 9781421532035
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Viz Media
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.6" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

One of the best shoujo releases of the year

"Are you a virgin?" It's one of the questions lobbed at Choko Kuze during her job interview for an entry-level position, and it ought to have served as a terrible premonition--for it is only the first in a seemingly interminable series of awful indignities this daughter of an aristocratic family recently fallen on hard times is subjected to in her new workplace. Her tormenter in question is Director Masayuki Domoto, the handsome yet hard-driving head of the Administration Department, and soon enough he has taken a decidedly unhealthy interest in her. Why does this insufferable, sadistic suit seem to have it in for Choko? The answer, as it turns out, lies in Choko's privileged past. Back before her family was running the local ramen shop, they were the lords of a great estate with many employees. One of these was Choko's beloved "Cha-chan," a gentle boy with whom she became fast friends. The heroine soon learns that Director Domoto is actually Cha-chan, all grown up and apparently hardened by life after the Kuzes, and he continues to secretly cherish the girl he once called "Milady." Armed with this knowledge, Choko decides to tough it out in the Administration Department--no small decision, given that Domoto is just as autocratic a slave driver as ever. But of course, you never know...love might be just around the corner! Not since Yayoi Ogawa's Tramps Like Us has such an observant, flinty-eyed--yet riotously funny--vision of the working woman's life in modern Japan been published in the United States. Manga artist Yuki Yoshihara, who made her professional debut over 20 years ago, is a consummate professional. On top of the usual workplace romance scaffolding, she has hung matter of fact depictions of sexual harassment, over the top gender-bending, and humor enough to make Choko's long-suffering employment exploits seems nearly worth it all. Plus, the artwork of Butterflies, Flowers is exquisite and clean-lined, yet another hallmark of the experienced creative professional that Yoshihara so clearly is. At times, it may be hard for the Western reader to take Domoto's abuses at face value...or, for that matter, the many indignities, both major and minor, that Choko faces every day. Arguably among the worst is the time where she nearly gets raped by one of her company's most important clients during an after-hours carousing session. On the other hand, her cross-dressing colleague strains believability in a positive, cathartic way. Fortunately, there is never the sense, as there could easily have been, that any of this behavior is condoned, and you often get the sense that the humor, invariably delivered with impeccable comic timing, is a sort of whistling in the dark. Yoshihara's beautiful layouts and character designs are the icing on top of what, on the strength of story alone, would have already been one of the best shoujo releases of the year. Her lines are delicate yet confident and charismatic, and it's easy to love Choko, Domoto, and t

One of my favorite authors

I can preface this by saying that Yuki Yoshihara has long been one of my favorite artists/authors/magaka. It's such a pleasure to see her work translated into English manga. The hallmarks of a Yoshihara work are comedy, zaniness, and romance. You'll find all three of those in equal measure in this series. Another interesting aspect of Yoshihara's work is that the romance is almost always AFTER the marriage and not the typical "leading up to a marriage" that is the hallmark of many romantic type of novels. As such, her work is written for women and typically features adults. One thing I really love about her work is that there is a lot of sweetness - you really like the characters and there isn't overly heavy melodrama as with so many shoujo type of novels. Butterflies and Flowers is a great introduction to Yoshihara's works. It's a wonderful book to read when you want to lift spirits and laugh out loud. I especially love her chibi characterizations since they really punctuate the humor in this particular series. Enjoy a pleasant and fun read of a novel to make a modern woman's days a bit lighter and friendlier.

Screwball romantic comedy, for grownups

Our Heroine Choko is the daughter of a formerly-wealthy family, now fallen on hard times; as an entry-level "administrative worker" (= secretary) at her first job, she ends up under the thumb of hot-but-tyrannical Administrative Department Director Domoto, who turns out to be (shoujo-worthy coincidence incoming!) one of her family's former servants, on whom she had a pretty obvious puppy crush as a tot (before the family lost its money). Screwiness ensues, as Domoto switches back and forth between his dictatorial-boss role (in which he insists Choko address him as "Director Domoto [heart]") and his devoted-servant role, in which Choko promptly falls in love. Add a hot cross-dressing co-worker, assorted workplace foibles, and a few insane reasons for Domoto to take off his shirt, and you have a fun but slightly weird romantic comedy, light on reality but heavy on silliness. Butterflies, Flowers is technically josei manga (for adult women), but in tone this series is closer to shoujo manga (for girls); the older audience is acknowledged mainly by the ages of the characters (young professionals, rather than high-schoolers), a bit more sexiness (not much yet, but later volumes earn their 18+ rating), and a more realistic (for which read "pessimistic") view of Japan's gender hierarchy. Domoto saves Choko from sexual assault at the hands of a drunken client, then promptly berates her for not being able to handle the situation herself ("Idiot! The way to deal with lechers like that is to make them drink until they pass out!"). (This is, sadly enough, pretty much the way things work in Japan; as a woman in the secretarial department, flirting with clients is part of the job, and you need to be able to keep things from getting out of hand without offending the client by actually rejecting them.) Other borderline sexually-harassing situations, like the jaw-droppingly inappropriate question that Domoto asks Choko at her job interview, and knowing her bra size, are played for comedy. On the other hand, Choko has moments in which she shows more spine than your standard-issue shoujo heroine, talking back to Domoto in a manner that would probably get her fired in real life. Yoshihara's art is nice and clean, and the characters look their (unspecified but presumably early-20s) ages, although her chibi version of Choko is obnoxiously unattractive. The story moves briskly, with a few moments of ridiculous melodrama interspersed with the comedy, and the translation is fine. So if you are interested in a series with the silliness and unrealistic nature of shoujo comedies but with adult (agewise) characters and the promise of future smuttiness, check this one out.