I believe the English title is Living with Yakuro-san so that’s what I’m going to go with.
Generally speaking, I’m more of an anime girl. If you look at my average rankings for anime vs my average rankings for manga, the score is significantly higher. Surprisingly, most people whose profiles I have seen also rate anime higher on average despite the fact that most people I know say they prefer manga.
Still, as a rule of thumb, I tend to be a lot tougher on manga than the general public. However, this was not the case for Living with Yakuro-san. Let me tell you about it.
Why I Picked up Living with Yakuro-san
I honestly can’t remember how Living with Yakuro-san got on my to-read list. No one told me about it. I like the cover but I don’t love it or anything. The summary is pretty cute. I guess this was just a right place, right time sort of situation.
Official Summary
19 year old Reikan Yuuki moves into an apartment that’s supposedly haunted by a female ghost and sure enough said ghost shows up at night to get rid of him, but instead of running away in fear he joyfully introduces himself to the puzzled ghost! After all, the only reason he moved in was to meet his fated (ghost) person!
A love comedy between a college boy with unusual preferences and a shy ghost, begins!
My First Impression
Well, it’s exactly what it says it is
What I liked
Not gonna lie, I had a great time with Living with Yakuro-san. It’s quite sweet while remaining a little satirical. The romance is…not really existent. It’s one-sided. But it’s also devoid of all the dramas and contrivance of the genre. I guess calling it a romance might be reaching a bit. It’s a comedy with romantic ideas.
Yuuki is fantastically realistic as a young man that has decided he is in love and will not let anything or anyone tell him otherwise. In the real world, a guy like that would be an extremely creepy stalker, don’t get me wrong. But this isn’t real life, it’s a skit comedy manga and the girl is a ghost who can’t be touched so I’m willing to give it a pass. I’m sure it won’t work for some but I found it fun to read.
Even though the premise sounds like something that should have been done a thousand times, I don’t remember having seen anything like it before. I guess if you really reach you could compare it to Ghost but it would be on the most superficial level only. There’s a ghost and a non-ghost and the similarities stop there.
Yakuro also makes for a very sympathetic vengeful spirit. It was a treat to see her reenact classic Japanese horror tropes from movies like the ring or grudge just toss vertical them by being a nice down to earth young lady who just wants some peace and quiet.
As far as odd-couple dynamics go, these two work particularly well off each other.
I’m not sure if this last one is a plus or minus. It was a plus for me. Living with Yakuro-san is a single volume, 16 chapter read. There are a few short extras as well. And each of those volumes is pretty short. You can comfortably go through the whole thing in an hour or two even if you take breaks between chapters. So it’s pretty short. On the plus side, it keeps the pace brisk and is a great palate cleanser between longer reads. But on the downside it doesn’t give you that much time with the characters, I remember wanting more. And some might feel like they’re not quite getting enough bang for their buck.
Any drawbacks?
I already mentioned the being short bit and how the main guy is not exactly a prince so what am I supposed to put here…
Let’s see… Living with Yakuro-san started as a pixiv comic and you can see it in the art. By that, I don’t mean the art is bad. I found it rather charming in fact. Look at this little Yakuro, adorable!
However some chapters look different, like drafts that the author didn’t quite have time to smooth out. Also, the backgrounds are extremely minimal. None of this is a deal-breaker but I stupidly gave away all the more relevant potential drawbacks in the previous section so now I’m struggling to find something. I’m amazing at this blogging thing!
Conclusion
At the end of the day Living with Yakuro-san is a cute little odd couple comedy and not much else. If like me, you thought the synopsis sounded fun, you should give it a try. What have you got to lose?
Yeah I am giving this a shot. sounds great!
I hope you like it!
If you liked this manga there’s a Western webcomic with a similar premise named “Erma”, about a young girl who is the daughter of a normal guy and a Japanese ghost girl trying to fit in with her other normal human friends. It’s really cute (despite the initial premise and its looks) and still ongoing. I think I remember also seeing fanart of the character with those from the Soul Eater anime!
Sounds cute – I’ll try to find it
This sounds great! I’ve been craving comedies lately and I’ve also been looking for more single volume manga that I can read when I don’t time for long drawn out series. This is perfect! Thank you for the review!
It’s a cute little manga