About the Mangaka

Couldn’t find anything on Nishino Katsumi, which I found surprising.

About the Manga

I’ve only read the first three volumes of Kanokon, but it’s totally different from what I was expecting.

Before I get started though, lets clear up a common misunderstanding. There’s currently three versions of this series, the Light Novel, Manga, and an Anime. The only one that’s currently licensed is the Light Novel which is licensed by Seven Seas Ent. (Though they have yet to release it, despite having licensed it years ago.)

Okay, all clear now, moving on

I saw the anime first, which takes ecchi to the point of hentai, and lets face it, the omake’s cross that line fully into hentai lol. So when I decided to get the manga I was expecting a more hentai orientated manga. What shocked me however is that the manga is different almost completely from the anime.

While it contains a lot of ecchi content, it doesn’t really get as bad as the anime was. In fact the manga content was more in line with Rosario + Vampire.

this series isn’t one of the greats, it lacks the quality art to really make it stand out, and the story doesn’t really scream at you. However it does appeal if you’re after some mindless fun, much like Girls Saurus.

Katsumi’s art is far from great, but it does have it’s moments. There are some really well drawn aspects. I also noticed that the character designs are a lot more cleaner and well drawn in the manga than the anime. They’re more distinct and more like real people.

The story is interesting, if not engrossing, and it does have some really funny comedy scenes in it. Where it does excel is in the characters themselves. I love the manga characters. Tayura is a lot more manly in the manga, and Chizuru and Nozomu aren’t the sex starved nymphos they are in the anime. Sure they’re still after Kouta, but it’s not to the extreme that it interferes with the story.

The other aspect I liked was the secondary characters were mostly better developed, especially the other yokai in the series. The relationship between Chizuru and Kouta is better expressed as well.

The manga is still currently being published in Japan, I believe they’re up to volume four or five at the moment. Since the novels are still being published it’s impossible to say how many volumes it’ll run for.

Looking at the anime, it would be impossible for it to be licensed, however if the publishers looked at the manga on it’s own merits, it could be a good acquisition. It already has a good and strong fanbase, and if built on could be a good franchise. Especially if they got the novels from SSE and released them together.

While I like this one, it’s not on my Essential Read list. While it is a fun read, there’s to many other titles that do it better (such as Girls Saurus, Mysterious Girlfriend X). But it’s certainly not going on my Junk Pile, and if it was ever licensed, it’s one I’d seriously consider buying.