Kenka Banchou Otome Review

Hinako Nakayama and Hikaru Onigashima are long-lost twins, separated at birth.  While Hinako was raised in an orphanage and learned to fight for her own survivial, Hikaru was brought up as the heir to a powerful yakuza family.

Unfortunately for him, being the next head of said family means Hikaru must take control of a high school full of thugs as their top fighter, as is family tradition.  But Hikaru hates to fight.  That’s where our protagonist Hinako comes in.  Her brother uses their family ties to guilt the dutiful Hinako into posing as him and going to his all-boys high school (while he, of course, does vice-versa).

This is the basic story of “Kenka Bancho Otome” or, in English, “Love’s Battle Royale”.  (I have no idea why it’s called that.  I speak Japanese and, more literally, it would mean something like “Battle Squad Leader Maiden”.)

Right up front, this story pings several shojo manga and gender bender tropes.  What do you want to bet that we’ll soon run into a pretty girl who either wants to fight Hinako, learns her secret or else falls in love with her?  Or a guy who thinks “Hikaru” is cute and suddenly starts questioning his sexuality?  (Oh, wait: we might already have that.  I forget.)

And, of course, Hinako was saved in her youth by a mysterious hottie, who just so happens to be fellow student Rintaro Kira.  Although one problem I have with this series is that Rintaro looks a little bit too much like fellow hottie Takayuki Konparu.  This became a problem early on, as I quickly got the two of them mixed up.

Also present is teen idol Yuta Mirako, who instantly sees through “Hikaru’s” disguise and has a dark past.  (Ooh, shocker!  Right?)  And then there’s Totomaru Minowa, the strongest and hottest guy in the school, who we all know will eventually end up with Hinako.

One downside to this series is that we never see any of the real Hikaru’s adventures playing pretend in the girls’ school.  And, let’s face it, that would probably be more fun.  I mean, changing clothes for gym, upskirt shots and tons more female eye candy than we’re currently getting.

Apparently this manga is based on a Spike Chunsoft video game dating thing.  And I think there’s an anime.  Maybe it’s better in one of those incarnations (or possibly both).

On the upside, one interesting thing about this manga is Hikaru’s servant Sakaguchi.  He’s a man, and yet he bows and scrapes and drools over Hikaru as if he were a pervy old man after “the young mistress.”

You definitely don’t see that every day.