Paradise Residence Chapter 03 Manga
パラダイス レジデンス Chapter 03

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The young Dorm Mama is feeding the dorm’s well trained dog, Neopan, when Hatsune rushes out in a hurry, upset at not having been woken up. When she make a comment about how weird the name Neopan is, the dog bites her without breaking the skin.

At school, Hatsune complains to Suzuka about not being woken up and Neopan delaying her further. Hatsune is shocked to discover that Neopan has never bitten Suzuka, so that afternoon, she rushes home to confront the dog with a bag of treats. As she’s giving the dog a treat, she tries to pet him, but the dog bites her. Tachiarai shows up, finding it odd that Neopan bit Hatsune when she’s never been bitten by the dog. Komatsu shows up, saying the same thing. Dorm Mother tells Hatsune that only Hatsune gets bitten.

Upon hearing this, Hatsune consults with her fellow dorm residents, but none of them have been bitten by the dog. Hatsune is upset by this, but determined to rectify this problem. As such, she puts serious research time into how to get dogs to like a person, an effort Suzuka remarks would be admirable if Hatsune put the same effort into studying English and Physics.

The following afternoon, Hatsune returns to the dorm with Suzuka, determined to win the dog over. She follows the techniques she’d learned, but got bitten anyway. So Hatsune tries to subdue the dog by growling and grinding her teeth. She gets bit again, but she refuses to give up.

The next day, Hatsune oversleeps again, leaving her bento lunch box behind. Dorm Mother attaches the lunch to Neopan and sends the dog to deliver it to Hatsune. At school, Hatsune laments having forgotten her lunch, but is cheered when Neopan shows up with it. Hatsune is happy to be able to pet the dog, but while she’s doing that, the dog helps himself to her lunch.

Thoughts/Review:

As chapters go, this one was OK; nothing special or particularly funny to me, but OK.

The gag of the dog repeatedly biting Hatsune is obviously supposed to be funny. For me, the dog biting Hatsune wasn’t funny or even amusing. Then again, I couldn’t help but think that if a dog bit me just once, that would possibly be the last time that dog did anything (depending on the circumstances, of course). In the case similar to what happened to Hatsune the first time, I’d just avoid the dog and have done.

The chapter does give us more of an insight into Hatsune’s determination to achieve a goal once it has been set, doing whatever it takes to make it happen. We saw that last chapter with her studying English, and now again, we see it with Hatsune refusing to lose to a dog who keeps biting her.

While we are only three chapters into the full version of Paradise Residence, I can’t help but notice that Fujishima-sensei is not giving the characters any kind of background development. I know I’m supposed to just go with the slice of life moments in each chapter, but I’d like to know why these girls are attending a boarding school. I’d like to know why an elementary school girl is the Dorm Mother. Hopefully, Fujishima-sensei will explore these things down the road.

I do get a sense that Fujishima-sensei likes drawing Suzuka’s character. He seems to have put more time in with her, making her cute with her hair up or down, and even giving her a bit of fanservice by having her take off her dress so that we could see a bit of her bra before she went to bed.

Beyond that, not a lot to say about the chapter. It was certainly not boring or terrible, but just an OK chapter to read.