"I got my happy ending after marriage! Or so I thought..." Three ladies who went to the same school together admit they have dated nothing but losers. Miraculously, they have all gotten married, but marriage was not the goal. A controlling husband, an overbearing husband, and a mama's boy... with these marital problems, where will they go from here?!
"I'll help rehabilitate you... I'll become your boyfriend." Koharu Momose was dating someone from her office, when out of nowhere the whole relationship fell apart. The reason: "you're a boring woman" ?! Momose, now stuck thinking about how her past relationships have ended with men thinking she just isn't interested, is now convinced she just isn't cut out for this love business. However, the ace of the sales department, Ayato Shiomi, has something else to say...!!
"This is my punishment - someone as hideous as me falling for someone as good-looking as you..." Yumeko had a mountain of complexes about herself. Then, a terrible accident befalls her. Though somehow saved from the brink of death, Yumeko wakes up a completely different person. "Is this...me...?! I'm SUPER cute!!" Those around her can't hide their surprise and wonderment at this 180-degree change... But Yumeko's new hyper-positive attitude starts to change her surroundings, too. Worries and complexes can affect anyone, and Yumeko will chop right through those of her various supporting characters!! In love, work, friendship... And an attempted murder case?! This frenzied romantic comedy will leave you bubbling with energy!
*This volume compiles ch. 1-5 of "Plus-sized Misadventures in Love!"
Yuriko, 35 and single, leads a humdrum everyday routine of work and looking after her disabled father. At the kindergarten where she teaches she's treated as an old maid, and at home her father won't listen to a thing she says. And of course she has no plans to marry... after all, she's just going to live out the rest of her boring life here in the countryside anyway, right? But while she's lost in thought over it, she causes a fender-bender. She doesn't know how to react, but Sosuke, the man in the other car, tells her he'll forget it ever happened... if she has sex with him! But after she goes with the flow and "just does it," it turns out that he's actually the father of one of her students?! And as if that weren't enough, Takumi, her kindergarten's cheeky young chief director, arrives on the scene...? Thus begins a clumsy love triangle for a flawed adult who had given up on love.
You're great just the way you are. Even though Miku is 25 years old, she hasn't learned a thing about how to do her own makeup -- but her boyfriend, Haru, tells her that he prefers her that way. Miku and Haru live together, after all, and they might get married, in which case she'll just quit her job anyway, so it's probably fine never to learn... At least, that's what she tells herself. One day, a boy with a special love for makeup suddenly appears in her life. The beautiful stranger does Miku up gorgeously and Haru's reaction to her new look is almost unbelievable--? A story of starting anew and taking one's life back through makeup!
"I'm living on the green side of the grass." Successful career woman Sono never let envy drag her down. She had everything she ever wanted, and she'd gotten it all through her own hard work. On top of her growing list of accomplishments at work, her relationship with her boss (and live-in boyfriend) Taiya was going great, with a proposal right on the horizon...until one unexpected twist brought her whole perfect life tumbling down around her. Heartbroken and needing an escape, Sono moved to a run-down little apartment, only to realize it had a secret hole in the wall that looked straight into the neighboring apartment. When she sees what the neighbor is getting up to, she can't seem to look away, and as the days pass she finds herself more and more obsessed with peeking in on her neighbor... A mature love story about a career woman intent on being "strong and independent," the mysterious boy next door, and their slowly intertwining lives.
Koyo Ito works at a law firm while studying to pass his examinations to become a judicial scrivener. One day while out drinking with his friend, Morio, he meets a mysterious and alluring girl in college who goes by the name "Nana." Koyo, who for some reason or another had already given up on dating, is met with a suggestion by Nana that the two "go on a date." Right as a spark is ignited between the two, Koyo's co-worker, Minegishi, begins showing interest in Koyo, which leads to the breaking down of Koyo's everyday life.
Matsubara is just one of many ladies in the Planning Division who are feeling rather annoyed. Her fellow coworker, Miwa Iida, is managing to drag the entire office down with every move she makes. And the men surrounding her in the office are only managing to make that worse. "This has to stop... Someone do something!" After finally reaching her limit, Matsubara heads to HR where she meets Asari Kuga, a woman a stern gaze who spits facts like a machine gun... the "Office Detective"!
Since she was just a child, Lydia was determined as the daughter of a Marquis to do everything in her power to support the royal family. However, everything seems to be changing before her very eyes as her fiance Rogerio begins showing romantic interest in a lowly noble aide to the princess. While ignoring their duties, the two seem to be getting awfully familiar... and yet Lydia seems to only be treated as an antagonist when confronting the situation. Feeling betrayed, her manners and patience have reached their limit...!
Tomoko is 37 years old and works in the general affairs department. In the same department is a woman known for her eccentricity, Haru Hatsuse. She doesn't care at all about how others see her, wearing flashy clothes and saying whatever she feels like without reading the room. Tomoko's friends mock Hatsuse and call her "a quirky and strong willed elderly single woman." One day, Tomoko's friends start to see Tomoko in the same way and make fun of her... Do all women have to worry about having an "aging look"? Or aim for marriage? Hatsuse, who has always lived being true to herself, somehow makes other women's lives burdened with various problems, a little easier to live!
Kei Wataya, age 28, is an unwed single mother from a small town... whose beloved son refuses to go to class. The pitying looks she gets from her fellow clinic staff, not to mention the rest of the world, are almost bad enough to make her wince. Between work and trying to help her son integrate into school better, Kei's got her hands too full to worry about romance... and that's assuming anyone would even be interested in a woman with so much "baggage." That's where 40-year-old doctor, Nagisa Kamijo, comes in. He's more than a decade older than Kei, and his disparaging view of women is just one of many reasons they don't get along, so there's no danger of love blooming between them... Or so she thought, until a bizarre proposal from Kamijo lights a spark that might just become more. She couldn't care less about love or romance, and she doesn't regret the life she chose, but some nights she yearns to feel the warmth of another body... Tune in for an age-gap romance just as off-kilter as it is passionate, between a single mother who's "done with men" and a doctor who "hates" women.
"I wonder if he no longer sees me as a woman..." Orie has been married to her husband, Takuya, for ten years now. They've been trying to have children for over seven years without any luck. She feels like he's given up and no longer cares about having children with her. Constantly seeing her friends posting about their new babies causes her to spiral, questioning her self-worth. At the OBGYN, she meets Keisuke, who's accompanying his wife, and the two hit it off, discussing their troubles with conceiving. What does it mean to be a wife, a mother, a woman? A powerful, touching drama about the universal struggles of womanhood!
Reporter Rei Kurisu, eight years into this career without a single scoop to show for it, was starting to sweat a bit. So, when a tip comes in that the home where the famously unsolved K City Family Murder took place is soon to be torn down, Rei immediately sets out to investigate. But this house may hold more secrets than ever expected. It starts with a single peculiar photograph, and the further Rei probes, the more hidden truths and pieces of the victims' shocking past come to light.
"I can't have kids. It's impossible for me because I don't want to be a mother." Asa and Tetsuya Kanazawa are "DINKs." A married couple that both work and make the conscious choice to never have children. Even after 3 years of marriage, that hasn't changed. One day, Asa is invited to her high school class reunion. Not only is she unable to join in her former classmates' conversation as they talk about raising kids, but she also overhears them talking about her being childless behind her back, making the whole night extremely uncomfortable for Asa. After getting home, a depressed Asa is comforted by Tetsu's words, "We don't have to have kids." But behind those words Tetsu harbors secret feelings and Asa has no way to know...!!
"Why won't he choose me?" Mizuki has been living with her boyfriend Ota since they were in college, but he hasn't proposed yet and this eats away at her. She's been putting in her best effort at work, doing all the household chores, and saving money for a wedding. Ota, on the other hand, throws his entire bonus into his own interests. "If I were to get married, it would be to Ota. Doesn't he feel the same?" There is so much that Mizuki wants to say, but she swallows her words. Absolutely miserable, she decides to meet with a male escort named Shu. He is kind and loving and Mizuki's feelings for him quietly begin to stir. No one has chosen her... so who will Mizuki choose for herself?
Midori is a cool and confident independent woman. Her best friend, Aira, is the type who will do anything she can for the one she loves. Together, they're two women who live as they see fit. Despite their tender hearts and profound patience, both have endured miserable marriages to terrible husbands. Suffering infidelity and all manners of maltreatment, their love for their husbands has grown cold.
When their husbands drive them to their breaking point, Midori and Aira take matters into their own hands and purge their husbands from their lives. These wives are not to be trifled with. They're ready to give their husbands twice the payback they desreve. A ruthless, invigorating drama about divorce is about to begin!
For 5 whole years, Karen had devoted herself to taking of her ailing mother-in-law. 49 days after her mother-in-law passed away and Karen's long days as the sole caregiver came to an end, she discovers that her husband is having an affair.
She overhears him talking to his lover on the phone about how he can't divorce his wife just yet, since it would look terrible for him to abandon the woman who had been looking after his mother so selflessly. But it's clear that he intends to throw aside Karen, who had grown old and worn from caregiving stress, and replace her with a younger, prettier woman.
Devastated, Karen contemplates killing herself, but is stopped by a man who happens to be a tattooist. On his side, he has a tattoo of a beautiful lotus flower, reminiscent of Karen's own name...
"Why not drag that husband down to hell? At least do that before you die."
From this day onwards, the "secret" carved on her chest began to change Karen's fate...
Everyone said becoming a wife was supposed to be a happy thing... Whenever Chieko, Rinko, and Kasumi meet up, all they talk about are their marital struggles. Emotional ab*se, cheating, mommy's boys. As the years progress, the true nature of each one of their husbands comes to light... and the three of them are fed up! These women take a stand to reclaim their stolen pride. It's time their good-for-nothing husbands get what's coming to them. Off with their heads!
Yoshiwara, old Edo's paradise of pleasure, has been reborn in modern-day Tokyo.... In this playground of the powerful, where money rules all, women sell both their bodies and the idea of romance to their male clientele. Thrust into this world is the ingenue Asuka, who's been sold out by her foster parents to pay off their debts. While at first oblivious to the nature of Yoshiwara, she accidentally barges in on a "transaction" between a courtesan and her client. Confronted with her new reality of being bought and sold, she longs to make a break for it... but is there anyone around her she can trust...?!
"Both my career and my love life were going so well...but it all fell apart on my 25th birthday, the day of that fateful incident." Aiko Miyata may have lost her parents at a young age, but she still grew up with plenty of love in her life from her kind older sister Sae and her doting doctor boyfriend Yuuma Yoshimura. Her happy life seems to be headed toward pure bliss, with Yuuma poised to ask her a very big question at her birthday dinner, when out of nowhere she gets stabbed by a hooded figure. From that day onward, Aiko finds herself mired in a tragedy of epic proportions...! This psychological thriller blurs the lines between love and hate as Aiko struggles to stay afloat. Hard to watch, but even harder to look away... How much can you handle?