Minamoto-kun Monogatari is basically a modern day manga version of the old classic novel Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) which was written in the early years of the 11th century (the Heian period). I don't know the full details but Genji Monogatari is basically about a man named Hikaru Genji and his love life, he is man who had good-looks and was a playboy who apparently had 14 lovers in his life.

Your probably wondering why im telling you this. Well these facts play a huge part in this manga's storyline and will help you to understand it.

Story 9/10

The story focuses on Minamoto Terumi (18) a guy with a pretty face who is often mistaken as a girl, due to this he was often bullied in middle school by girls and now suffers from Gynophobia (fear of girls) and can't seem to drink milk because of the trauma he received when the girls pouring sour milk all over him. He is forced to leave his home and live with his aunt-Fujiwara Kaoruko (fathers younger sister) in his 1st year of college, little does he know that she is actually doing research on Genji Monogatari and that she plans to use him as test subject to find out what went through Genji's head when he conquered his 14 women. To find this out she plans to have Terumi conquer 14 different women and have sex with them. To do this, she slowly educates him on how to handle women and get used to a women's body which helps with his Gynophobia, she will then introduce him to a girl he must conquer and will be his guide on how to do it.

Art 8/10
The characters are drawn pretty well and they are very pretty, one problem that this manga faces is that it only has around 10 pages in each chapter, but the reason being is most likely because its a weekly manga, instead of giving a big release every month, it would give out small chapters every week or so, which in my opinion is better as there are faster releases and people who cant wait will have something to read every now and then the people who dont mind waiting and like longer releases can wait a few weeks and read a bunch chapters (pages) all at once like they would in a monthly manga.

Characters 9/10

The main characters are pretty interesting and are likable, the main protagonist (Minamoto Terumi) for example isn't the total pussy i thought he would be and is actually a strong character who at the start of the Manga was already working to get rid of his Gynophobia and his distaste for milk. At the start he already wanted to "bang every chick he comes across", well what he meant wasn't really to have sex with every girl he meets but to be more confident with girls and get a girlfriend, this is what i like about him, he knows his weakness but instead of wallowing in self pity and depression, he is already trying to become better and cure himself. I dont think ive come across a character like him and he is interesting to watch.

Another example would be Fujiwara Kaoroku, she is Terumi's aunt, she is very beautiful and is admired by many for her looks and her intelligence, it is said that she dislikes men and hasn't had a boyfriend because of it, yet she doesn't mind sexually teasing Terumi and letting him touch her. She acts as Terumi's mentor on how to handle girls and helps him with his Gynophobia, she saw Terumi's pretty face and thought he had the potential to become a playboy like Genji and help her with her research, she saw that he was already reading books on "how get girls to fall in love with you" and tells him that she can educate him a lot better than a book, she is very smart/sharp and can tell what other people are thinking or feeling, often using her knowledge to sexually tease Harumi and uses his hornyness and pent up desires against him but she does it not because she loves him but does it so that he can learn more about the female body and how to handle it so that he can get used to it and use what he has learned to conquer the girls she targets.

Enjoyment 9/10

When i came across this manga it was months ago, around the time when it first came out, at that time it was ranked just over a hundred in manga reading sites, i read the description on it and thought it would be one of those crappy ecchi mangas with the main character being a total pussy and yet suddenly gaining the affections of the girls around him and it turning into a typical harem i didn't think it would last long until it drops in the rankings...............................Oh how wrong i was, i found it again months later with it being in the top 30 which is amazing progress in my opinion, i ended up checking it out and i was addicted after 5 chapters, although the chapters are short, it doesn't have any sort of wasted pages and doesn't beat around the bush and gets straight to the point, which i like, it does an excellent job at keeping the story interesting and leaves you wanting more and more.

Drawbacks

As i mentioned before the chapters are small but it comes out every week or so, i don't say every week because the generous fans who translate this manga take time having to buy it and translate it, which can take a few a days so the releases aren't really consistent and on average takes a week for a new chapter to come out, but hopefully the translations will pick up and as the series gets more popular there will probably be more pages per chapter as it is already getting more and more colour pages but i warn you now it may be irritating having to wait for releases and reading small chapters when they come.

Overall 9/10

even with its small releases it still has a great plot and story with interesting characters to boot, i would recommend it to harem lovers and people who would enjoy mangas like To-Love-Ru Darkness and The world God Only Knows as they are similar in many ways, this manga is also still at the early stages and it hasn't even been a year since it was released so it is quite new to people and not many people have read it so dont let the current rank (2002) disturb you when not many people have read it, i predict in a few months time the rank will undoubtedly increase, if it doesn't i will eat my shoes.

i would also like to warn you that this is a mature manga and is more seinen than shounen, although they have not appeared yet there will without a doubt be sex scenes, i wont spoil the details but it is one those rare mangas that wont progress unless it has them, so sooner or later this manga will be put in the smut category on manga reader sites, it is really recommended for people 18+ but what do i know, im 15, so if you are watching be prepared for adult content.


Thank You for reading my long, boring review. I would appreciate feedback :)