Colorful Joker by Minami Sachi: Manga Review

Not that shoujo manga can't be intelligent: I've lost track of the number of titles, in which the male protagonist is this academic tensai or teacher (or both? I'm hard pressed to say if I've ever run down a two-fer), that guns for substance and smarts and delivers, or gives an appearance of, frequently with mixed, pile-up-on-the-freeway results. But this unassuming title caught me by hit-and-run surprise, tickling my inner geek into bursting out in a wide, beatific grin.

You couldn't tell from the blurb:

I, Asakura Kohime, adore performing magic tricks. Through magic, I spread joy and bring smiles to people's faces. But there's this guy, Kijima Motonari, who loathes magicians. Magic tricks remind him of a bitter experience in the past. --translated from the back cover copy of the official Indonesian translation

Not much there to hint at the felicity that is Colorful Joker. Additionally, what isn't covered in the synopsis is Kohime's vow: she will make Motonari fall in love with magic. (That it's in the cards that he will also fall in love with her goes without so much magic-trick saying ^^.)

Colorful Joker aka 虹色JOKER / Nijiiro Joker by Minami Sachi-sensei (Mobius Doumei) was originally published by Hakusensha in 2004-2005; you could immediately spot it as one from the pixie-ish chara designs. The series only spans two volumes, with the second having been published by Gramedia m&c! last May. In this couple of tankoubon, the story manages—after a fairly slow okay-it's-followable start—to enchant and entertain, much like how a magic show does.

Some predictable contrivances aside, the plot development that impressed me most (and the foundation of this post's thesis) was having Motonari in the epilogue, express his wub for Kohime in front of an audience of an entire school by using photochromism. As defined by the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia, photochromism is the property of changing colour on exposure to light or other radiation and of reverting to original colour immediately the light or radiation source is removed.

The effect of introducing this colorful detail was akin to substances exploding in a lab... in a very good, ack!-I-learned-something! way.

But beyond the fact that slathering on photochromic dye on Motonari's still silent kokuhaku was terribly in character for our megane kyara (he's a mad scientist chemistry club member, after all), was the spirit of effective "Ganbarimasu!" at work: attention to story-mandated detail showed that Minami-sensei is no lazy manga-ka, reaching for tropes and devices without so much hachimaki-spurred effort to achieve reader satisfaction.

Any author who can work in chemistry (or physics) into a shoujo story--and actually make it work--deserves worship in my books.

As for the OTP/shipment development, while Minami-sensei does fall back on contractual angsty build-up before our leads reach Happy Even After, the story doesn't lose credibility and emotional resonance. At the very least, she scores another bull's eye in the suspending disbelief thing. Moreover, the WAFFy epilogue locks in not only the geeky but also the this-is-why-I-read-shoujo delight.

rating
Let's give Colorful Joker a five out of five usagi out of a top hat, shall we?

~nik who loves when an accidental buy turns out investment-justified
花木兰

disclaimer
Colorful Joker is © Sachi Minami. First published in Japan by HAKUSENSHA. Indonesian copyright by PT Gramedia.

invaluable resource(s)

• Baka-Updates - Manga Division
• Dictionary of Difficult Words