Manga Review: So Cute It Hurts Volume 2 by Go Ikeyamada
Recapping from Volume 1: Megumu and Mitsuru Kobayashi, fraternal twins, have been impersonating each other at their respective schools in an effort to get Mitsuru to not fail history. As a side effect, each of the twins has fallen in love with someone at the other school but cannot reveal this without admitting the deception. In addition, other complications are arising.
In this volume, the twins learn that their love interests are coincidentally more closely connected than they had realized. In addition to that, Megumu learns that her romantic interest Aoi Sanada (who looks like her favorite historical hottie, Date Masamune) is allergic to girls. Oh, and several characters are beginning to question their sexuality due to the twins’ shenanigans. It ends with a cliffhanger, as the twins accidentally expose themselves to (perhaps) the wrong people.
It looks like this may be the last volume with the initial premise (which wasn’t going to stand up long in any case.) But the light comedy and romantic hijinks are complemented by the adorable art. The most innovative part of the manga is still the use of sign language to communicate with deaf schoolgirl Shino Takenaka. (The end notes section has some explanation as Japanese Sign Language is somewhat different than ASL.)
The heavy use of coincidence may be off-putting to some readers; it gets highly improbable that the twins always face the same sort of crisis at the same time. There is some partial female nudity for plot reasons.
Still recommended to fans of light romantic comedy.
