Once again, fans, I have found the time to hit up my local Barnes and Noble in search of new manga.
But, this time around, I had a list prepared containing the two series that I had found on my last trip that I wanted to review. Sadly, though, only one of the series wound up making the cut, and it was this one:
“Marriage Toxin”, with Story by Joumyaku, art by Mizuki Yoda.
Master assassin of the Poison Clan, Hikaru Gero, only takes on missions to assassinate “human scum”. In his spare time, he loves candy and cleans obsessively whenever he’s stressed. All of this leaves little time to find love. And, as he sees it, who could ever love an assassin, especially one who sacrificed basic human social skills for awesome training, the way he did?
But this soon becomes more of a problem than he first realized, when his family insists that their clan produce an heir, even if it means breaking up his gay sister and her girlfriend and forcing her to copulate with a man.
Luckily for Hikaru, his next target is a serial marriage swindler named Mei Kinosaki. Jealous of her success with men, he asks for her help in finding a mate. In exchange, he will spare her life. And, after seeing Hikaru pulling off impressive feat after impressive feat to save her life alone, Mei determines that he shines most as a protective knight.
So now we have an assassin, battling other assassins, in various attempts to try and woo a woman via his rescue/combat skills.
This series contains many elements that I enjoy: cool superpowers (often to the point of almost literal; one assassin can literally bend water like Katarra and swim in land), great storytelling, shonen-style battles and a ton of Japanese humor:
To wit, in the first volume alone, we have: Hikaru developing a cleaning fluid that can eat through metal, a sea-going art thief riding a pet shark, a guy who can spit bullets from his mouth with the force of a gun, a creepy Bug Master assassin who gives all his “pets” cute names, and, of course, Hikaru’s cringe-worthy, over-the-top attempts to woo ordinary women.
With this mix of cool and comical, the series is very reminiscent of Spy x Family, with a dash of Hunter x Hunter, and maybe even One Piece, with how over-the-top and downright silly some of the aforementioned gags are.
But one thing that separates Marriage Toxin from those others (so far, anyway), besides the serious way in which some things are treated, is the shoujou-like treatment of love and building relationships. It’s not all-fighting, or all-comedy, but a mélange of all three elements.
Like macaroni and cheese with weenie bits in it.
Mmm…Macaroni and cheese with weenie bits in it…Drool…
Morality is also another big thing here. Hikaru only kills “human scum”, the worst of the worst with vile personalities and no empathy for their fellow man. A handful of villains and side characters also tend to have sympathetic traits, or are committing crimes for just reasons.
Another thing is the LGBT elements of the story, both expected and not (No Spoilers). Hikaru’s sister is in a lesbian relationship and, while it isn’t treated with derision, it isn’t actually treated like that much of a big deal. Granted, we only see one picture of the two of them happily playing with sparklers, but the only people who really say Boo about it do so offscreen, and only for the sake of their family legacy.
But one thing I do have an issue with is Hikaru’s relationship with Mei. I know that, up to this point, at least, Mei appears to be written as the woman Hikaru is ultimately going to end up with, but something tells me the endgame of them producing biological heirs may or may not be something that will be able to happen.
Well, the first volume does end with Hikaru fighting to save a cute female art thief, so I guess we’ll see.
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