Kujirai and Kudou are real estate agents in the walled city of Kowloon, Hong Kong. Both are young, single, good-looking and the summer’s a-heating up… gee, I wonder where this is headed? Except Kudou is strangely taken with the concept of nostalgia and Kujirai begins to suspect something’s up with her colleague. Are they really just co-workers - or do they somehow share a past she doesn’t know about?
The first volume of Jun Mayuzuki’s Kowloon Generic Romance isn’t half bad - on the one hand, despite the knowing reference in the title, it’s full of the predictable light fluff you’d expect to see in a romance manga; on the other, there’s intriguing mystery and surprising sci-fi peeking out from beneath the schmaltz.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing (oh here we go…) but it’s unusual these days to see a character like Kujirai in modern stories. She’s a very submissive woman who allows herself to be mocked by men, unquestioningly cleaning up after them, worrying about her appearance for them - it’s an old stereotype that feels like a throwback. Although, given what else happens in the book, perhaps that’s intentional. It is odd though that a female creator like Mayuzuki would feature so many gratuitous butt and bewb shots of her female lead. It all feels like she’s pandering to a male audience by presenting such a cliched desirable woman.
Most of the book follows the formula of the genre. Both bizarrely single characters gently jab at one another until one realises they’re in love with the other. You can see where it’s all headed even if you weren’t told by the title. That said, I didn’t dislike it - both leads are likeable, the romantic tension is cute, and you kinda want them to fall for one another. We may have seen it all before, but it’s still a well-done and not boring romance.
What makes this title stand out and makes me want to find out more are the non-romance things happening in the background. Kowloon Walled City was demolished in 1994 and Kudou goes to a porn theatre - despite the existence of smartphones and presumably internet porn - and there’s an artificial planet being built in space called Generic Terra! Past, present and future all sit together in this one place and that really interests me because it’s a unique mix. The cliffhanger also suggests all is not as it seems in this place that shouldn’t exist - it’s an effective tease to end the opening book on.
Mayuzuki’s art is really something. The character designs are fairly standard for manga but they’re no less masterfully executed than the best in the genre. What’s most impressive is the detail of the now-lost city, which she brings to life so convincingly that you can easily imagine what it must have been like to have been there once upon a time.
I suppose I shouldn’t really criticise a book literally called “Generic Romance” for having too much generic romance in it - it does what it says on the tin - but, for my taste, if there was more of a balance with the compelling weird sci-fi stuff in here, I’d rate this higher; as it is, Kowloon Generic Romance, Volume 1 is a decent start to a promising series. If Philip K. Dick ever wrote a romance manga, this is what it’d look like!
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