Hot Gimmick – The End
29 July 2007
I spent the entire week reading Hot Gimmick in a bookstore. Why? Why did I go out of my way to read this perplexing addictive shoujo romance? Why, must you really know? Well….Inhale, exhale, deep breath. Alright, I’ll just say it. I’ll say it. I read Hot Gimmick for the extremely attractive guys! There were three! Usually, I’m just happy with one extremely attractive male, but Hot Gimmick had three! What am I supposed to do? Pass that up? Three for the price of one? Hell, forget the plot, forget the characters, just give me Ryoki, Asuza and Shinogu.
The one thing I could never understand about Hot Gimmick, but overlooked anyways, was the characters. In retrospect, the characters were terribly dysfunctional. You don’t know the meaning of dysfunctional until you’ve read Hot Gimmick. In short, it’s a love square. No more love triangles, it’s a square now. If it gets even more complicated, we’re going to have a circle on our hands. Basically-three guys, one girl, angst, teenage melodrama, I’m a sucker for guys in glasses, end. Think of bad cafeteria spaghetti, noodles with catchup for tomato sauce and you’ll have Hot Gimmick. It brings “难受” to another level, a totally different level. Not in exasperation at a wonderful ending, but in pain, bullet in the head, quick and painless death pain.
The protagonist, Hatsumi Narita is like a napkin. You take one when you need it, use it and then throw it away. It’s flimsy, tenuous, negligible, tears too easily, bad for doodling but makes for in terribly entertaining. Bachelor number one is her childhood hero turned (extremely good looking) model, who for no apparent returns to the town. Actually, it’s for revenge, but anyways. Bachelor number two is a complete jerk, (jerk doesn’t even begin to describe the poor man, but he’s also indecently attractive, did I mention he’s blond and has glasses?) who used to bully Hatsumi when they were little. Bachelor number three is her brother. They have problems! All of them! It drives me insane how good looking they are and totally and brilliantly messed up they are. Their personalities are so far fetched and excessive, it’s difficult to believe the things that happen, no matter how good the plot is.
I want to slap them-hard. Hatusmi needs to stop being a doormat and have people walk all over her. It’s so infuriating! Why can’t she stand up for herself? Is it that difficult to say “no” and just leave? Ryoki (number two) needs to learn the world doesn’t revolve around him and stop being a babbling baffoon. Asuza (number one) needs to shut up, go away and stop complaining about his dead mother. She’s dead, too bad, move on. It’s terrible, but this guy’s revenge scheme is just stupid. Shinogu (the brother) just needs to give up, even if he’s adopted and not really related to Hatsumi. You’re her brother, she’s in love with glasses jerk, stop making it more complicated and angst-filled.
And yes, napkin ends up with glasses jerk. I’m actually kind happy, dysfunctional couple to the max, but it’s cute…to an extent. The most controversial aspect of the pairing is the fact that Ryoki beats her, and before the twit falls in love with her, proceeds to almost molest her. In all honesty, I’m a bit sympathetic towards the guy. Maybe because he’s good looking, or because of the consistency of his personality, whatever the reason, I’m fond of his character.
At the end of it all, I just feel tired. Really damn tired. Twelve volumes and the ending wasn’t even that good. Hatsumi loves Ryoki! Love defies all! We must get married! We must have sexual intercourse! We must move in together! Yay! Gee whiz! End.
Then again, I shouldn’t care that much. I was there for pure eye candy. When it comes down to it, I’m assuming that’s what made this manga so popular. It’s a love hate relationship people have with Hot Gimmick. Either you hate the characters for the way they are, or you love them. Either for their personalities and what not, or like me, they’re just pretty to look at. Hot Gimmick is comparable to a shallow puddle, an obstruction in the road, the aftermath of a rainstorm, a momentary flicker of a reflection on the surface, interesting despite it’s banality.
Don’t read it. Don’t even skim through it. Flip through it. If you’re a fangirl like me, flip through it and stop at the good parts. The potentially interesting plot was crushed by the unfathomably excessive and unrealistic characters, which, thankfully, left the art untouched. No matter how convoluted and strange her characters may be, Aihara Miki has a talent for drawing good looking guys. Ignore the weirdness of the whole thing and just enjoy the pretty picture because if you look for anything else in Hot Gimmick, you’re asking for a big handful of “难受“-ness and a slow, painful, melodramatic death.
Speaking of pretty pictures…
