So in Volume 1, I missed the joke. My fault. Perhaps because it wasn’t funny? Ikemen Onna to Hakoiri Musume, Volume  2 (イケメン女と箱入り娘), written by Mochi_Au_Lait, drawn by majoccoid, drops the joke and ….well, I’d really like to say it takes off and becomes wonderful, and it eventually does, but the creators are really committed to the joke and let it linger way too long.

So what was the joke? Kanda Misaki is a woman, only her girlfriend, Okuma Satomi, thinks she’s a guy. True, “Kanda-kun” is handsome and androgynously attractive, with a tendency towards gallantry. She’s Satomi’s perfect boyfriend and despite the fact that pretty much every one else can see Kanda is a girl, Satomi is completely unaware. Meanwhile, they are actually pretty happy as a couple, only for Kanda, there is a big ole elephant in the room.

In Volume 2, something is going to have to shift. On Christmas, as part of their big romantic date, Kanda comes clean. And…Satomi doesn’t believe her. Well, more specifically, she decides on a kind of cluelessness that makes it almost impossible to believe. Naiveté is one thing, but being unsure of a person’s stated gender is kinda ugh and double ugh when they are standing there naked. When Misaki takes off her clothes and Satomi remains unsure, I was not sure I could continue. The way in which this was resolved probably made the creative team happier than it did me, BUT, finally Satomi is on board! At last. And props to Satomi here; she’s supremely unconcerned that the person she likes turns out to be a woman. It really didn’t matter to her.  The rest of the story settles into a pleasant little progression of their relationship and Satomi continuing to be completely happy to have Kanda as her girlfriend.

The art is very much in my wheelhouse. majoccoid’s handsome and cool Kanda is on point. Satomi is cute, but her cluelessness had to be pushed a good leap past what I was willing to accept, but that is the kind of overplaying a gag Mochi_Au_Lait does. While it’s an imperfect story,  it has a much better end than I hoped going into this volume.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 If only it had not overplayed its hand, I might have even given it an 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3 Coy nudity
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8