Tail of the Moon (manga, vol. 1) by Rinko Ueda

Usagi (aka Usa) is the granddaughter of the leader of a prestigious ninja village. Unfortunately, although Usa is a sweet and cheerful girl, she is a terrible ninja, and her habit of skipping training sessions doesn't exactly help. Not sure what else to do with her, her grandfather gives her a mission he thinks even she can manage: marry Hattori Hanzo, the handsome leader of the main branch of their ninja clan, and bear his child. Usa sets off with her little friend Mamezo. When she finally meets Hanzo, she discovers that he is indeed handsome. However, Hanzo tells her that he's not interested in getting married to anyone. Usa sticks around anyway and tries to become a full-fledged kunoichi (female ninja) in order to impress Hanzo. She's got a lot of competition - another family has sent a beautiful full-fledging ninja named Yuri to marry Hanzo and bear his child (he refuses her, too), and Hanzo seems to be in love with the girlfriend of a relative of his. Princess Sara, the girlfriend, is a real threat to Usa's mission, since Sara seems to be just as attracted to Hanzo as he seems to be to her.

Usa is a common female character type in shojo manga - she's cheerful, energetic, and not very bright. Actually, next to Hanzo, Usa looks and acts young and immature. Hanzo's reaction to Sara indicates that he, like Usa, is dealing with his own unruly hormones, but he's doing a better job of it than Usa is. The thing that makes her most likable is how hard she's willing to try in order to earn Hanzo's love and attention. In addition to that, she has no ruthlessness - although she's upset that there are other women vying for Hanzo's attention, she doesn't try to sabotage them, even when one of them tries to sabotage her.

I find Hanzo to be more interesting than Usa. Usagi spends most of the volume wondering why Hanzo doesn't want to marry anyone, and ends up deciding that it's because he's in love with Sara. However, Hanzo's so good at hiding his feelings that I wonder if there's more to it than that. It's obvious that this series will wrap itself up by having Hanzo and Usagi become a couple, and the overall sweetness of the tone of the series means that there are a few things he can't do. Hanzo can't steal Sara away from Hanzou (Hanzo's relative - confusing, I know), because that would make him a bad guy. Also, Hanzo has to somehow get over Sara and start opening up to Usagi.

There are some things that are kind of hard to predict this early in the series. I don't know if Hanzo's feelings for Sara are going to be the main thing keeping Hanzo and Usagi apart - I imagine Ueda is going to bring other complications into the story, however. After all, Usagi used to have a fiance of her own, who is back, naked, and proposing to her by the end of this volume (by the way, he's naked because he was, er, in the midst of giving one of the kunoichi a practical training session). Whether or not Ueda deals with the Sara/Hanzo issue in the next volume, I'm reasonably sure that Hanzo's going to come storming into Usagi's village soon, worried that she left his village on her own, and jealously take her back once he realizes her former fiance wants to marry her.

It's only volume one, but, so far, this story feels simple and cliched. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but, considering the cost of manga, it's not enough to make me feel like I'd buy this manga if I couldn't get it at the public library. The story has humor, but it's not the funniest I've ever read, the artwork is nice enough, but it's not the nicest or most interesting I've ever seen, and I like the characters well enough, but Ueda barely develops any of them in this volume (there's lots of forgettable characters, and/or characters who are basically cardboard, with no apparent depth), so they don't grab my attention as much as the characters in other manga have.

Overall, I think this is a nice manga that's readable, but not great. I plan on reading more once my library gets more, but the series would have to get a lot better before I'd consider spending money on it.

Read-alikes and Watch-alikes:

• Gaba Kawa (manga) by Rie Takada - Rara is a young demon who goes to the human world in order to find an infamous demon named Aku (her celebrity crush) and do evil deeds (Rara's personality is such that her deeds are usually more mischievous than evil). She ends up falling in love with a human named Aku instead. Even though demons who use their powers to help humans gradually lose those powers, Rara helps Aku, risking her eventual disappearance into the darkness. Those who'd like another story featuring romance between a foolish but cheerful heroine and a cool and seemingly unemotional guy might like this manga.
• Imadoki (manga) by Yuu Watase - Tanpopo, a cheerful country girl, has always dreamed of attending a high school in Tokyo, and her dreams come true when Meio High accepts her. However, things aren't as wonderful as she thought they would be. Students sort themselves by family connections and wealth, meaning that true friends are rare. Tanpopo decides to take matters into her own hands by starting a gardening club. She begins to make friends and may even manage to find love. Those who'd like another romantic story featuring a cheerful and determined heroine and an emotionally guarded and distant hero might like this manga.
• Gravitation (manga) by Maki Murakami; Gravitation (anime TV series) - Shuichi Shindo is a singer in a band that he hopes will become famous. One day, he loses a page of unfinished song lyrics. The handsome and caustic man who catches it insults the lyrics and sticks in poor Shuichi's mind. Schuichi later discovers that the man was Eiri Yuki, a famous writer, and Shuichi seeks him out. The two eventually become lovers, but Yuki's emotional issues and Shuichi's rapidly developing musical career may tear them apart. Those who'd like another story featuring a romance between someone who is cheerful, energetic, immature, and foolish and someone who is handsome, distant, and mature might like this manga and anime. This series isn't for everyone, since it features romance between two men - although neither the manga nor the anime are explicit, the anime keeps the physical aspects of the romance slightly more "off screen" than the manga. Like Tail of the Moon, this series has a lot of humor.