The story is your
typical girl meets boy,boy ignores girl, and then guy and girl fall
in love. The basic plot concerns an all girls school going co-ed and
how that affects the students. It works for the most part but the
plot point never comes up that much after our lead, Hanabi gains
rank in the student council. Instead focusing on Hanabi and Yasukai
relationship,which is okay, it is a romance story after all. Up till
around the mid way point everything is going along fine then Hanabi
and Yasuaki finally get together and it all goes down the tubes.
The second half has
no idea where it wants to go and like me trying to fill space,and I
realize I didn't care about the characters at all. They aren't bad
characters per se just boring stock shojo characters. As a result of
this revelation,I can't be asked to get invested in the story and I'm
left questioning why I even cared in the first place. The problems
are a result of the characters being stupid and not in the too broken
to fix things way. It's more like The World God Only Knows making up
problems that shouldn't be an issue but suddenly are.The story is
trying to have an underlying theme and this is where the book goes
from meandering idiocy to full blown flaming train wreak of
insulting.
Love can change is
a common theme in shojo and Rie Takada is rather fond of it in her
works. Unfortunately, her use of it is rather insulting and is the
biggest problem I have with this book. Hanabi starts out as the brash
protector of all her friends and her entire character arc is moving
away from this image and style. Becoming less impulsive is fine but
however quite a few of the boys have this same problem or similar
problems and it's never treated as bad. So it comes off as Hanabi is
too boyish and needs to become more girly to be a happier person.
Hanabi's problems that are less problems and more she's not a girly girl, how dare she. The book has no respect for girls in general, the only girl with any not is Hanabi and her personality is too boyish to be respected by the book. They are all a nameless mass that can't resist the sexy boys that they are now cohabiting and therefore are useless. The boys are just as interested in the girls of the school but are treated as cool people who can look above base urges. The one time the girls stand up for themselves in what is the Shojo equivalent of Rape Squad they are all berated for being silly and that the guys should handle the girl's problems. The way Yasuaki is portrayed does not help the book's case.
Yasuaki arc
concerns his fear of women but it's never given much time outside of
a few chapters and I genuinely forgot it was a problem till it's
magically solved by having sex with Hanabi. Other than that anything he
does is treated as right and Hanabi is being silly for not trusting
him. Had he actually expressed his thoughts then they could avoid
most of these issues. This could actually be a problem that needs
addressed but it's never treated as such and his only change that
happens is him stating he's happier. I'm sorry I didn't realize you
were unhappy,as you enjoyed surfing and that's about it.I mean he could be, he's not that deep or nuanced.
Sadly these
problems are not exclusive to Happy Hustle High but it is a more
blatant example of how this can easily fail. It's
insulting in what the author thinks of her own gender and her
idolization of men. Had they balanced out both sides and making them
equally flawed and I could forgive it but it doesn't. It's by no menas a bad series,and got a laugh form me on occasion, but it doesn't excuse the utter banality of the whole mess or the dim view on the female gender.
Till Next Time: Stay Positive
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