One Shtik to Rule the All

The first time that I heard the title "My Heavenly Hockey Club" [1], I automatically put it on my auto-pass list until I heard the author's name: Ai Morinaga. The mangaka behind "Your and My Secret" [2] and "Yamada Taro no Monotogari" [3] has been called appalling, and I have to agree, though she is also appallingly funny.

In each of her works, there is one bizarre conceit that is presented and then explored, extrapolated, and exploits the situation until it becomes a self-contained microcosm of madness that becomes everyday. In "Your and My Secret", the main characters are a girly-man and a barbaric girl who switch bodies and find out that they are more compatible with their new gender roles.

"Yamada Taro" follows a dirt poor youth who seems princely and rich. Morinaga manages to squeeze humor out of a normally serious situation by stretching it to its absurd limits and mixing in some innocent and not-so innocent bystanders for the reader to laugh at. The prime victim is Ikegami who falls for Yamada, since he's a prince and then realizes he's poor, but stays stuck on him.

"My Heavenly Hockey Club" is no less subtle. It is a blatant parody of "Ouran Host Club" and even has its own man-'ho host chapter in volume 3. For those who haven't been exposed to the other Haruhi, the heroine in "Ouran" damages a rare vase at her prestigious high school and is roped into joining the host club as a cross-dressing hostess. "Hockey Club" similarly begins with the plebian Hana, who is borderline narcoleptic, sleepwalking to school. She is hit by a rich boy's car. Since his field hockey club is short a member, he uses the car's damage to blackmail her into joining the all-boy's hockey club. Like "Ouran", much is made of the patrician and plebian divide.

Ouran Host Club [4]

Not Ouran

And that exhausts my limited knowledge of "Ouran". To continue with "Hockey Club", the newly established field hockey team attempts to play a match. Since there are no other teams nearby, they use the club's considerable resources to get into stupid situations. Hana is tempted along, because she is a slave to the basic pleasures in life: sleeping, eating, and bathing (really, soaking). The rich boy Izumi initially treats Hana as his personal toy, not in an ecchi way, but as an object for his own amusement.

As the club stumbles from disaster to disaster (meeting a bear, eating magic mushrooms, getting lost in a jungle), Izumi develops an attachment to Hana. The lack of physical attraction on Izumi's part, his fear of ghosts, and his general ambivalence toward girls adds up to a kid-like feeling to this budding romance. As Izumi bumbles from one chapter to another, he seems like a grown up child, simultaneously shielded by his wealth and landing into mayhem because of it. If he sounds like an annoying person, you would be correct.

But you must remember, when reading Ai Morinaga, you aren't laughing WITH the cast, you're laughing AT them. [5]

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[1] Originally licensed by ADV, this is now licensed by Tokyopop. [6]
[2] Currently fan scanlated by the NCIS group.
[3] Licensed by Del Rey.
[4] Combine the kid and the tall blond and, voila, you've got the girly guy in the middle of the "Hockey Club" shot.
[5] The dividing line between a tragedy and a comedy is that, in a tragedy, misfortune befalls someone you respect. I've forgotten the source for this.
[6] With new, unimproved, and unnavigable site!