Suki. Dakara Suki

すき。だからすき

(Suki. Dakara Suki)

Genre: Romance, Mystery

Written by: Clamp

Published by: Kadokawa Shoten

English publisher: Tokyopop

Demographic: Shoujo

Magazine: Asuka

Original run: 1999-2000

Volumes: 3

Synoposis:

Hinata Asahi is a book-smart 16 year old high school girl who lives by herself with the company of her two teddy bears Waka and Tono. Whilst being cheerful and having exceptionally good grades she's often made fun of for her lack of common sense and rampant naivety.
 One night she discovers the beloved house next-door to her has a new resident. Coincidence after coincidence, Shiro Asou suddenly becomes a teacher in her school- her home-room teacher. Hinata is overjoyed by the simple affections and kindness of her new neighbour, but her friends, especially Touko seem to be very wary. 

Plot:

The plot sets up with a young girl, who lives alone, suddenly having a man move in next door to a house of emotional significance and becoming her teacher, they slowly become more intimate by walking to school, eating breakfast and doing chores together. Other characters hint at a possibly dark purpose behind this friendship and mention how Hina has been in "incidents" before. When coupled with how the girls talk about there not being any young male teachers in the school, my initial impression was that she was preyed upon by a young teacher and Shiro may have been attempting the same thing.

The relationship blossoms but Touko is very wary of Shiro's intentions and also that mentioning her being next-door to and being so friendly with their teacher may spark jealousy in the other girls, though this may have been a gentle way to deter her friend from the mysterious stranger without rousing any panic or denial.

One you find out her wealthy background, the plot begins to take a more complex spin. Shiro is ex-secret police and her father hired him because Hina wanted to live alone so no one could be blamed for her being held to ransom so many times. At this point the main protagonists each have two supports; Tomo&Masaya and Emi&Touko each protecting them from their personal flaws. Hina is too trusting and Shino is closing himself off.

The catalystic event is when Emi kidnaps Hina and blows Shiro's cover in the process. Hina begins to see that because of his job Shiro must have had to be nice to her and thus he must not have any feelings for her and her feelings were based on a lie and must also be false. Hina happily forgives Emi after finding out of the family's debts and persuades her father to pay them off, and Shiro leaves thinking he isn't capable of doing the job any more.
Thanks to Tomo's writing, Hina is able to see Shiro's affections were genuine and she is able to confront him before he departs. Hina gets a kiss on the cheek and Shiro's phone number.

Characters:

Hinata Asahi:

Hina is in essence a Tohru Honda kind of protagonist, she believes in the good of all people, despite those who try and tell her the real world has some horrible evils in it. She has suffered from kidnappings but insists they were good people forced to do things and she understood, they didn't hurt her, of course they weren't bad. Hina is a totally puritanical character, she seems to be able to see no negative and holds on tight to any positives she has, which actually shows how emotionally mature she is. It's perhaps because of the trauma of her mother's passing and the kidnappings that she chooses to be carefree and act like a child, in an essence part of her had to grow up much too quickly.

While she doesn't undergo any real development, we do start to see her for who she is. Our initial impression is that she is naive and a prime target. When actually she has dealt with a lot without allowing herself to feel any sadness. She also displays a huge amount of understanding, it's possible she allowed herself to be kidnapped so she could help the people who were so desperate to do so.

Shiro Asou:

At first it's difficult not to see Shiro as a very cold-hearted, standoffish person, who else would be utterly unable to crack a smile being around such an adorable person like Hina? However we see massive character development and a deep struggle within him. First it's alluded to by Hina's friends who sense something isn't quite right, then we meet Tomo and Masaya. Shiro is a deeply scarred man, though his backstory was slightly confusing to me. Why would someone refuse to make emotional connections because someone got shot in the leg? I'd understand if she was killed. I would have thought in his line of work as a personal bodyguard that he would have come across things like this all the time, unless he was genuinely the best in his field!
I got a bit sceptical of the relationship as I'm not a fan of 16 year olds dating 32 year olds, but I'm glad to see that Shiro, in the end, treated Hina almost as a father would. A classic case of melting a frozen heart.

Touko Shinohara:
Touko takes on the role of a surrogate mother to Hina, she's always watchful in the background, willing to ask questions when needed. She also acts as a reality-checker, testing Hina to see if her thoughts are ideals or actually possible. She had witnessed Hina go through everything from the death of her mother to the numerous kidnappings.

She's a very valiant, nurturing person and quite understanding. Unlike Hina's father (since we're drawing the mother comparison), she is not quick to blame, hence her not punishing Emi for any of her actions. For some reason I see her perusing a relationship with Tomo, her sensibility with his aloof nature would go together perfectly! I ship it!



Emi Kishitani:
At first Emi seems like the standard school friend, an equally energetic and bright partner for Hina, though it is possible her bright attitude is compensation to cover up her exposure to her family difficulties. Emi is fiercely loyal, to her family and friends, she is even willing to risk her life with loan sharks to make sure no one is hurt.

Tomoaki Namiya:

Tomoaki may be my favourite character in this, I tend to lean towards the author-types as I can relate to their aloof then sudden serious nature. Tomoaki is the catalyst for a lot of the manga, through his child's novels, he acts as someone that can put things into a simple perspective. I guess you could describe him as a close friend of Shiro's, as he is eager to pull him out of what became a life of guilt and atonement. To make up for all that seriousness he likes to make it known he also writes erotic novels.

Masaya Kizu:
Since Masaya's character was so similar to Shiro's design I got a bit of a headache trying to differentiate. He seems to have very little emotional input and acts like a backup.


Art Style:

I'll not lie, for a Clamp title at first I was disappointed, I had thought that this was due to it being an earlier work, but I was mistaken. As I read through the story I realised that extravagant illustrations would have taken attention away from the base note of the plot. There's very little distraction, thus allowing the reader to take a introspective stance throughout the reading experience. I now think this was a very clever device and amplified the meaning behind the story significantly.

Final Thought:

From being introduced to a few Clamp titles before this, I can see a lot of elements of other manga within this one, that made me want to look up the chronology of works to see what came first; which plot device inspired furthering another one, which was the pilot etc. The device of using a child's story "Suki" within the story to gain some perspective was possibly leading to the use of the "City with no People" book in Chobits (which came a year later).

The relationship between Shiro and Hina also reminds me a lot of the relationship between Tereda Yoshiyuki and Rika Sasaki (Cardcaptor Sakura manga started 3 years before), with it being a teacher-pupil relationship that gets very sweet. Along the lines of Cardcaptor Sakura I couldn't help but notice how Hina fell on top of Shiro, this was how Sakura Kinomoto's mother and father met- when Fujitaka was a teacher and Nadeshiko was around 15-16.

The story is very sweet, with likeable characters, simple art and not drama-intensive. It was a very enjoyable read that draws the reader closer towards their more innocent self, especially when reading the books about Kuma-chan. Some nice little reminders of the human condition and how we shouldn't always assume the worst of people.