Our Little Secret
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Ryu Shinonome
Translation/Adaptation: Steven LeCroy
What They Say
Cute but clueless Kou has a reputation as quite the ladies’ man! But has he met his match in the foxy (and forward) Haruka? More importantly, will Haruka’s crew of giggling groupies leave this covert couple alone… or is their secret too sexy to be kept?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a couple of books to his name, Project H Books has their first title from Ryu Shinonome in Our Little Secret. This is my first exposure to this manga creator and it’s one that works out pretty well for me. The title hits the sweet spot for me in that it works with just a few characters and a straightforward full volume storyline. Single chapter stories are definitely fun, but I’ll admit that I like to get a bit more invested in the stories that the characters partake in so a title like this is definitely appealing. It also doesn’t hurt that for the most part we get some really nice character designs, some good sex scenes and even a couple of pages of great looking color pages at the start.
Our Little Secret works the high school setting and does it in a pretty fun way with the cast of characters involved. We’re introduced to a rather unfortunate guy named Kou who has once again found himself dumped by the girl that he liked. It seems like girls dump him fairly regularly after going out with him a few times, but mostly it turns out that once they have sex with him, they leave him. That could send a bad message to be sure and Kou certainly believes that. But what we learn from the latest girl that’s dumped him is that she didn’t heed the warnings of others to avoid dating him because he’s just too much in bed. They make it seem like he’s mad kinky and crazy in bed and that these girls just can’t keep up with it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when a bit older, but it can totally break a young man in high school.
This actually turns into a really good situation for Kou in the end though, but it’s not going to be without its trials and tribulations. It turns out that another girl named Haruka has heard all of this and is intent on finding out the truth about him. So she’s forced him into a situation that has them going at it and she completely realizes that she likes what he’s got. With him being called a pervert by others, she has her own little “perversions” that makes them ideally suited. Of course, the problems start in when he finds out that she’s actually a virgin – but full of lots of knowledge – and then later discovers that she’s actually got a huge fan club in the school, is pretty popular in general and is the daughter of a wealthy family. In a lot of ways, he’s really hit the jackpot, especially since she insists that he’ll be her boyfriend from here on out.
The problem is that since it’s her doing the trapping in a way, Kou can’t quite get behind it, so they try to keep it secret. Which can be fun in itself since she gets into pretty regularly and that leads to them having sex all over the place while trying to avoid being seen. The real complications arise when others do start finding out and they’re very protective of Haruka. The big one he has to deal with is Erina, a shorter blonde girl who doesn’t like this situation at all as she knows Kou’s reputation and thinks he’s nowhere near as good for Haruka as he should be. And she ends up getting herself into a situation where she has to test him to see why Haruka is so smitten with him. The same happens later on with Miki, though she takes a slightly different approach as a friend of Haruka’s who’s just looking to see what’s going on with all of this and enjoy the situation.
The book goes for a pretty straightforward situation where you can easily view Kou as one lucky guy who gets caught up in some really difficult situations. Miki and Erina are definitely problematic if this was going for a realistic relationship book, but it’s just all about the fooling around as they all discover that Kou is essentially a teenage sex god. But completely unaware of it and just going with it all as best as he can. With four characters to work with overall and the usual school based situations, we get a pretty good run of scenes with a main one in each chapter that provides a good bit of variety. It may not bring us to a group situation, but Kou gets to be involved with all three of the girls in all sorts of places, each with their own look and style that provides a great and fun dynamic for each, though I thought Miki was the weakest of the group. What becomes really fun is that since Haruka is a good bit of an exhibitionist and risk taker, they end up fooling around in a lot of fun places, from the back of a bus to a picnic in the park which leads to some hilarious moments.
In Summary
With this being a hentai book, it has to succeed in a couple of different things. The characters have to be appealing, there has to be enough of a story to hold it together to be a little invested in it and the sex has to be good. With Our Little Secret, it definitely hits these three marks well. There’s some really nice designs to it, some great sex and a fun enough story that you want to see how it all plays out in the end. The sex scenes have a good bit of variety and a really good sense of fun about it and we get some appealing designs with costumes and all that as well. With a story that allows for some amusing bits when it comes to the locations and the way it plays out, there’s just a whole lot to like here. I’d say this is good clean fun, but it’s good naughty fun instead.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: Project-H Books
Release Date: May 14th, 2014
MSRP: $17.95