Shoujo heroines need their love triangles. One common way of setting up this situation is for the main female character in a manga to suddenly find herself forced to change her living situation so she’s in close proximity to a bunch of boys. Today I’ll look at a couple books from GoComi that share this premise, but express it in different ways.

Crossroad by Mizuki Shioko (amazon)

Kaijitsu has an extremely flighty mother, who seems to get a new husband every other year. Kaijitsu lives with her grandmother, but after her grandmother dies she’s thrown into a household with her two step-brothers Taro and Natsu. Taro is the oldest, and Natsu used to be one of her closest friends, but when Kaijitsu meets him again he seems oddly cold. Kaijitsu’s mother decides to abandon yet another child, 6 year old Satsuki. The kids make the best of their improvised family, with Taro bumbling as he attempts to take on a paternal role. He tends to pop up whenever Kaijitsu and Natsu are together in order to remind them “No Incest Allowed”. Kaijitsu begins to open up a little as she begins to rely more on her new family. Crossroad is a mildly amusing dramedy, with art that is attractive but not very distinctive.

The Devil Within by Ryo Takagi (amazon)

This manga was truly weird, and not in a good way. It had the most unsavory mishmash of plot elements I have yet to encounter. Rion is psychologically traumatized from a film she watched in childhood; as a result she detests men and focuses her attention on boys. She calls all men “devils” and her nickname for her father is “Big Devil”. This is oddly appropriate since his name seems to be Satan. Her father announces that he’s picked three fiancees for her, and they move into her building. Of course she wants nothing to do with them, as her focus is on Tenshi, a mouthy boy who appears to be 5 but is actually 15 – he has a convenient medical condition that has stunted his growth. Somehow the three boys have angelic wings, but Rion has batwings. So there’s some sort of war between good and evil that is being played out with Rion and her relationships? This book was incoherent.