狼少年は今日も嘘を重ねる

OOKAMI SHOUNEN WA KYOU MO USO WO KASANERU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
5
RELEASE
December 8, 2017
CHAPTERS
34

DESCRIPTION

Keitarou Itsuki is a high-school student unhappy about the menacing look of his eyes. Keitarou tries to confess to the girl he likes, Aoi Tokujira, but she rejects him flat out. Thinking that his eyes were the reason why she rejected him, he confides in his older sister about it at her salon, who helps by giving him a complete makeover...as a pretty girl! Forced to head home like this, he runs into Aoi in town, but she doesn't recognize him and thinks he's a somewhat manly girl. Before he can leave, Aoi asks him to help her overcome a problem she's had for many years: an intense fear of men.

Volume 3 and 4 each contain extra stories.

CAST

Botan Kurashiki
Aoi Tokujira
Keitarou Itsuki
Yuuchirou Itsuki

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

GGShang
90/100
A cute romance that does every story telling aspect right
The Boy Who Cried Wolf Tells Another Lie to me is a story that will never gain the largest notoriety or praise for what it does, but what it does try to do it does exceedingly well. It's not the most dramatic, the most suspenseful, the most intense love story out there, but rather a simple, cute and quaint one.

The main thing that I love about this manga is that it doesn't really do anything wrong. I can find almost no faults with the presentation, plot, art, pacing or characters. Everything that needs to be there is, and anything that serves no purpose is cut out. The plot follows our MC, who has a scary face so no girls will want to talk to him. He soon falls in love with a girl at his school that doesn't find him scary, but gets flat out rejected when he confesses. After becoming depressed, his brother makes him crossdress and go around town where he saves the girl he likes from a few thugs, and ends up trying to help the girl get over her fear of guys. Later, the girl's friend falls in love with the MC while the girl falls in love with the crossdressed form of the MC, leading to tension and serves as the main crux of the plot. Now, while crossdressing does play a major role in the plot, it is not the focus of it, but rather just a tool to set up the main conflict. So for those worried that the story turns into some weird territory, don't worry about it, it's totally tame.

While I'm on the topic of plot, I might as well go over the pacing as well. This manga is a perfect example of what good pacing should look like. Nothing that is introduced doesn't serve a purpose in the story: sometimes it's to show the growing relationship between the MC and the two main girls, sometimes it's to forward the plot, sometimes it's to help the MC reach a conclusion, but all of it is pretty much needed for the story to run as well as it does. Most people tend to hate fillers and the like in romance type stories since a lot of them take forever for developments to occur. This trend is prevalent in shoujo and harem style manga, but it's not something you have to worry about here.

The characters are all really well made for the story here. You could say that they are relatively underdeveloped compared to characters of longer stories, but I would argue that that's not the case since this story is not meant to be some sort of long character drama. We are given just enough history and development to feel like we know and understand the characters and are invested in their growth. The chemistry between the two girls is great, the chemistry between the girls and the MC is nice and cute, the characters change and show different sides of themselves all throughout the manga as they become more intimate with each other, all leading to an overall, pleasant experience. I personally also really enjoy how the MC makes a pivotal choice in the manga before it gets made for him, despite all the consequences it might bring, so good for him.

The art in this manga is pretty well done for the most part. I enjoy the vibe that it brings with it's soft lines.

Overall this story really fills a niche that I don't see too often in manga: a not overly dramatic, mid length romance with likeable characters, with the focus being on the guy. It doesn't try to get overly fancy or dramatic with what it presents, with everything being done so well and concisely that it's hard to dislike. It stands as one of the top romance mangas on my list for everything ti does right.
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DMM
90/100
A breath of fresh air in this stale sea of romances
This review contains spoilers to the manga, reading discretion is advised

STORY
The story for me felt interesting but in a good way. It's been a while since I've read something where the plot circles around ones uncontrollable fear but I was very welcome to find out why it was. And it doesn't dribble around it either. The manga makes sure it keeps the flow of what's going on nice and steady and it doesn't put too much unnecessary filler in between, so you could get right back into it after 1/2 chapter of filler. Thankfully understanding the fear was straightforward and that's spread across multiple chapters. Took me by surprise it was due to some traumatic experiences with the father. Though the situation she was put into I could kind of sympathize with it. The father leaving is one thing but having to realize it was due to an affair and then having years passed to cross paths once more, only to be essentially kidnapped and then slapped when refusing to go with them? How does that sound it seems kinda exacerbated I think? Not that I'm saying it doesn't happen but the way how it's presented seems a little coming in hot style, you know a little out of field like I wasn't expecting this to be the catalyst kind of thing. However that aside, he really did do it in a good manner and it kept with the flow of the story. There weren't no obnoxiously long chapter spreading it out and there wasn't no tiny size piece of info either. It was just enough.
__CHARACTERS __
my initial impressions of these characters would have been the stereotypical romance comedy. But actually I was surprised with this one, each character have a diverse pool of traits and they don't stick to one's attitude for more than it's welcomed. As I said before it's a breath of fresh air to have characters you could like without glaring problems.

Keitarou Itsuki
I think Keitarou Itsuki strikes the perfect balance of being very reasonable but still giving off that unnecessary menace vibe they were planning.
And they don't stick with that for a lot either, it's used as a base for a very important part of the story. And whenever it is mentioned it is only for the story, not something they beat him over the head with every chapter like most series do. He was very likable through the entire series and not once did I want him to either spill the beans already or shut up. A nicely made gentleman

Botan Kurashiki
With Botan's appearance I immediately assumed she was gonna be an uptight snobby girl who was overprotective of her one friend. I kept that for at least two chapters since her introduction and was going to keep assuming that's how she was going to be. It wasn't until one of my colleagues in the discord i chat into pinged me in all caps saying "KEEP READIN TRUST ME". Thankfully I stand corrected. Bolton quickly GREW ON ME me. She has this warm go to attitude and a warm and comforting personality. She's somebody you could have a strong conversation with and not have it derail with slapstick routine of misunderstandings. Plus she reads BOOKS as her main interests? Now that's a first for me. Usually it'll be something else like the desire to grow a club or make a bunch of friends will become famous as their interests. Quite a surprise and a welcomed one. As the manga continue so did my love for her and I quickly became a fan of hers. Honestly I wish I had more characters like her. I would become more invested in romance mangas this way ha ha

Aoi Tokujira
Now with this her I had my concerns right from the get go. The dark hair loner soft talking types aren't my thing, i just assumed she was gonna act callous and cold for an absurd reason for the entire manga. But thankfully as I kept reading I became less annoyed of her and became more sympathetic. Her development as a character is slow, but the payout is great. You start to understand why she's like this in the first place in a really hits you hard near the finale. She's a definition of " Not judge a book by its cover, but of the contents within"

even the supporting characters fit the same formula. They were all welcoming level headed, concise and didn't become exaggerated shells. I enjoyed them all.

Personal Thoughts

When I came to this manga I expected it to be another run-of-the-mill romance situation. And that was wrong. This manga in particular broke one of the fundamental laws romance forced, the law that regardless of who was introduced into the story the end result will always be the main male character with the main female character. This took away from that and made the most compatible option the defacto. And honestly it was a breath of fresh air since the two were made for each other. Which is a mere couple of chapters they were able to formulate a bond that felt naturally grown.

This manga has a surprising level of honesty and lack of dense characters. Most of the romances that i have read always followed a chain of events that all leads from a misunderstanding and the lack of trying to think past face value assessments. In this manga in particular everybody is clear headed focus straight as an arrow on what they mean and how they interpret it to others. There isn't a single chapter where a misunderstanding leads to a chain of misfortunes and everybody is at the same level instantly. That's another breath of fresh air this manga seems to give to me towards the romance genre, it's great to see actual human emotions and common sense.

But man after going through all that and at the end of the series finally mustering up the courage to break that fear of men only to essentially be starting a new? It's a sweet bitter moment. However I can respect somebody who isn't overtly selfish and watches out for her friend. Really tugs at my heartstrings. All in all it was a great read and I wish I had more manga similar to this so I can enjoy the romance genre once again.

9/10
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