The Wallflower 4: Yamatonadeshiko Shichihenge (Wallflower: Yamatonadeshiko Shichenge)

by Tomoko Hayakawa

Book Overview

A BACHELORETTE WITH BANGS Four gorgeous yet determined guys are still struggling to turn their reluctant, homely housemate Sunako into a proper lady. So far, the dreamy quartet have miraculously managed to cover up Sunako's total lack of progress from their landlady, Sunako's aunt, who is eager to see results. She has even set Sunako up on a blind date! If the aunt finds out that Sunako is still clinging to the darkness, their rent is sure to skyrocket...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345480015
• ISBN13: 9780345480019
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Del Rey
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 0.6" x 4.8"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher

Customer Reviews

A nice enough collection of stories...

There's not a lot of cohesion between the chapters of this volume, but it's still nicely done. A few of the chapters are filler, but it's well done filler. Everything is still original & fresh. In this chapter Sunako's aunt decides to put her on a (dum dum DUM) blind date. Rather than put her on a blind date that would reveal that Sunako's learned very little about ladyhood, the boys decide that one of them will pretend to be her boyfriend, who of course ends up being Kyohei. Since the two of them are very unwilling, hypnotism is brought into it... with humorous results. I am constantly finding things to like about this series & I always find myself recommending it to others.

First date

Sunako has to find a date before her father arrives but the guys are the only ones who can do the job. Watch Sunako go through all four dates and the one she enjoyed the most. I liked this volume beacuse there was more things in common between Sunako and Kyohei other than their constant fighting. You can see where Sunako gets her strength from when her mother comes to retrieve her father.

The Funniness is Revived

While many people have gotten sick of this manga series and have just given up on it, my love for it grows. I think this is an extremely fresh and funny concept. Though Sunako's weirdness does get a little repetitive sometimes, everything that occurs in the story is still pretty unexpected and funny.I'm not sure what kind of synopsis to give since the back of the book has the best summary already.I'd like to add, if you're a fan of ridiculous shojo manga, you'll think this is gold. I'm thinking that Hana Kimi and Skip Beat fans will enjoy this. Perhaps even if you like something like Imadoki!. But one word of warning is that each volume contains its own little situation (and rarely does it end on a cliffhanger because it seems to end in episodes more or less).This fourth volume sticks with the quality of the first volume (which is still probably my favourite volume thus far).I highly recommend this for comedy-lovers.

This is Halloween, This is Halloween!

One of the things that used to bother me about this series is that in spite of its imminently lovable heroine (heh heh heh) none of the episodes are very serious, or plausible, or even very much about students so much as about four (five, if you count the moments when Sunako casts off her chibi exterior) hot people united for a more or less coherent purpose -- make Sunako a lady and win free rent at a supercool mansion! But then with this volume I realized that following the usual pattern of shojo comics is not really what Hayakawa is about. She's all about having fun with goth-hood and letting us look at lots of handsomely drawn people, and yes, being outrageously irreverent in spite of some of the more genuinely bloodcurdling situations she has her heroes get into (a serial rapist at Christmas and a vicious murder at a hot spring are two incidents in previous volumes that left me just this side of uncomfortable; I'm impressed, however by Hayakawa's ability to generate real character-based humor from such situations). Yes, all the kids are students, and their reasons for being together are rather tenuous, but the quibbling details of school iife and total plausibility are mere blips on the radar, as they should be. Anyways, in this volume Hayakawa seems to have more fun with her characters, placing them in such outlandish situations as: what four guys will do in the heat of a broken-air-conditioner summer, the boys' individual attempts to give Sunako dating practice, and gorgeous, popular Noi's reaction when Sunako suffers a mysterious collapse that renders her unable and unwilling to do housework. Sunako spends most of this volume in chibi form, as the storylines don't really require her to go human. I sort of missed her transformations, but sort of didn't. Chibi-Suna-chan has grown on me, I guess. She does have hilarious moments as a ghastly apparition during her breakdown -- some of Haywakawa's most well-executed fright drawings yet. I also appreciated Noi's extra character development. Check out the back pages where the author drools like a charming teenager over her favorite bands and chatters about her deep interest in goth fashion. The bands will be unfamiliar to non-Japanese readers, but it's interesting to see what's going on over there in the way of pop culture. On the whole, this was a cute book and a fun read. I highly recommend it for those looking for goofy gothness!