Kamisama Onegai

I was actually very surprised by this manga. It read like a WatchTower romance article for teenagers. For those who do not know what WatchTower is, it's a religious pamphlet or newsletter of sorts with various writers who talk about the majestic unanswered questions or mystic places provided by God. Basically, it's a religious newspaper for Jehovah's Witnesses which is the religious group that creates and distributes them. They are actually quite entertaining. But this is what makes this story that much more interesting. I have never read such a highly religiously charged manga. To be honest I have never read a religious manga or seen a religious anime in my life. This is a bit of shocker for me since I had thought that aspect to be near impossible to find.

However this religious theme is wrapped quitely nicely in heavy shoujo writing. Atypical love story to say the least. It's loosely reminiscint of Itazura na Kiss with a religious twist. So what you have is a studious boy who's part of a student council and all around perfect boy who's a bishie (in the opinion of the girls IN the manga) and a young junior high school girl who is naive, basically living in the same room together and he's helping her study. She's completely non-functional in science and math, ie she does poorly in those two classes. So studious, albeit approachable boy, ends up having his defenses torn down by innocence personified. To see how innocent she is, the mangaka makes it a point to draw the lead female almost like a little puppy. So she's eager, happy, sweet, and boisterous and she loves to hug. The boy is far from that, tends to be cold, as I said, studious, reserved and more like neutral or indifferent than either excitable or a gloomy gus.

Then they stress the presence of Kami-sama (or God) which has brought the two together and it's the young girls strong devotion and belief in Kami-sama and his power that she is able to persevere. The boy though is confused to Kami-sama and he's basically pulled in by her devotion to Kami-sama and seeing her as a gift to him. He becomes extremely attached to her and wants her presence around him.

It gives this impression that love is in a way destined and controlled by a "hidden-hand." This hand can be vengeful and benign at will; and when it is benign it gives you the most precious and important thing that comes into your life. An additional theme to the romantic meme, and the power of God; is to never take for granted what is given to you because you could lose it one day. It helps you realize the importance of what is in your life and the people you love.

I have to say this is the first one-shot that I found so moving and worthy of an extended revew. I didn't give it a 9 or a 10 in ways of art mainly because the art is average from my perspective. It wasn't screaming "hot bishies", but I appreciated how the mangaka turned the art into an necessary accessory to her writng as we see with the drawing of the lead girl to underscore and exemplify their personality or personality traits. I thought the story was profound but scored it lower because I felt this could have been a much longer story with much more depth and that the 35 pages were much to small for something with a lot of potential.

The characters were mediocrally developed. They weren't horrible but the story was far to short. This shortness did affect the overall story which although good, was a bit confusing. I just feel he talisman or charm should have been given more presence to understand what's going on. But that didn't happen and I felt it left a lot of things missing, ultimately hurting the characters.

Overally I enjoyed it a great deal and I do recommend it. I'm on my way to read more from this mangaka---not only for her stories but to see if there are any more religiously tinted stories like this one.