My Monster Secret Volume 06 Manga Review
Jitsu wa Watashi wa/実は私は 06
My Monster Secret: “Actually, I am…” 06

–> Buy My Monster Secret Volume 06 from Amazon.com

***SPOILERS***

With My Monster Secret Volume 06, I can safely say that at the moment, the My Monster Secret manga series has moved into the #1 slot of my favorite manga. It edged out D-Frag! because of superior humor, mainly thanks to the devil Akane-chan!

The Volume 6 Story

My Monster Secret Volume 06 starts with the devil Akane tricking her great-great granddaughter Akari-sensei into attending a cooking class, where Nagisa is also there. Nagisa hates everything she makes (at rapid speed), but Akane and a couple of her clones are in love with it.

At the school festival, Shiho gets Nagisa and Asahi to go around the festival together while on a break. Nagisa’s feelings for Asahi are so strong. She does not want to see the friendship she has with Asahi and Youko end. As such, she attempts to stop Asahi from confessing to Youko. Nagisa accidentally whacks Youko on the head. Nagisa comes to her senses and pushes Asahi to confess. Youko senses what he is about to do and ends shutting him off and fleeing.

Mikan comes to Asahi’s house to take advantage of Asahi being rejected, but she ends up failing and showing off embarrassing things to their male friends. Meanwhile, Akane decides to force Youko to confront her feelings and to be honest for the first time about her confusion for her feelings for Asahi.

Nagisa attempts to get Youko and Asahi together, but her brother allows Mikan through Nagisa’s traps, then briefly steals Nagisa’s human mobile suit. In the end, Nagisa and Youko come to an understanding.

Akane is angry that Akari won’t get Nagisa to make special chocolates for Akane to eat. As such, she causes an asteroid to set course to crash on Earth. Akari enlists Nagisa, Youko, Rin, Shiho to make chocolates for Akane. They are then aided by Mikan, thus saving the Earth.

Finally, Rin visits Asahi in her dragon, who’s insides are a small apartment. Mikan and Shiho come by as well. However, Shiho triggers the dragon’s anti-nympho defenses.

The Love Triangle: Nagisa

While Asahi has a harem around him, within the harem, there’s a love triangle with Asahi, Nagisa, and Youko. Mikan (or any other girl that might like Asahi) aren’t included because Nagisa finds herself closest to Youko and Asahi. That said, while I have been wanting Asahi to confess to Youko, the interruption of this by Nagisa was an acceptable delay. On one hand, Nagisa loses the guy she has fallen in love with. So after her date-like experience with Asahi at the school festival, I understand why she’d decide to keep Asahi from becoming a couple with Youko.

In addition, Nagisa fears that if Youko and Asahi become a couple, they’d leave her behind. Since Youko and Asahi are her best friends, Nagisa fears being left alone. Frankly, I don’t see either Youko or Asahi leaving Nagisa. Yes, the two would be a couple and want some alone time together, but considering how both of them are, they’d invite Nagisa to come along for things. If anything, it would be Nagisa causing herself to get left behind by not wanting to be the third wheel in Youko’s and Asahi’s relationship.

The Love Triangle: Youko

Thankfully after Nagisa came to her sense, she was able to get Asahi back on to confess to Youko. Once again, the confession is thwarted, this time by Youko fleeing the situation. I have to give Masuda-sensei credit for figuring out believable ways of keeping the status quo, yet still advancing the plot thread for the Youko x Asahi ship. It is frustrating a bit that Youko is more of an airhead than she should be. Nevertheless, having operated under false assumptions that Asahi is still in love with Nagisa, I can understand her panicking at the thought of Asahi being romantic with her.

What was great about the Youko part of this triangle story is that Akane got her to face her feelings and be honest. Because of this, I’m actually OK with the status quo being in place for the time being. What I don’t want to happen is for this love confession to only happen at the end of the manga. With Akane advising Youko to take her time and consider things, I’m a little worried that might happen. What I’d like to see is Asahi confess to Youko and then the two of them become a couple. Then we could have interesting stories about the two as a couple and the consequences to Nagisa, Mikan, and the others.

Akane-chan: The Awesome of the Awesome!

What really puts the My Monster Secret manga above all of the rest of the manga is the 1000 year old female devil, Akane. For My Monster Secret Volume 06, Akane takes the humor factor even higher than it has ever been in this series. For starters, I loved the way she conned Akari into taking a cooking class AND coming to the place where Akane was sitting (with two of her clones) to sample and judge the food. Then to make sure Akari hangs around for the humiliation, Akane has arranged for Nagisa to be there. Awesome and hilarious.

However, that is just the appetizer. Akane steps things up with her overwhelmed reactions to the foods Nagisa made, repeatedly proposing to Nagisa after eating some of every food Nagisa made. The way Masuda-sensei does this just had me laughing so hard. I loved it. Then her trolling of Youko was hilarious.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the only laughs from Akane. The funniest material came from chapter 51, where Akari gets her revenge on Akane by forcing her to eat bad chocolates from the other girls. The description Akane thinks of the overripe, chocolate dipped banana from Shiho literally had my sides hurting from laughter. I just can’t help but love Akane’s character because she’s such a massive, evil troll. That makes for good comedy material.

That said, I’ve been feeling that there’s more to Akane than stirring the pot for great laughs. Sure enough, her whole business for trolling Youko shows that Akane actually cares about her students. They may primarily be a source of entertainment for Akane, but when push comes to shove, there’s a method to her madness. I like it.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of My Monster Secret Volume 06 with a few bullet points.

• I was disappointed to learn that Rin’s dragon doesn’t appear to actually be alive. Otherwise, how could it have her apartment in it? Also, that’s pretty whacked that Rin has to stab the dragon to get the door to open.
• Interesting that Mikan sees Rin and Shiho has friends. They do have a weird kind of relationship.
• Mikan does get some work in the harem element. However, at this point, I’m wanting to tell her, “Give it up.” That said, she’s certainly come a ways from her introduction in the manga.
• All Japanese honorifics are retained in the adaptation. I’m really happy the Twins are doing this title.

In the end, My Monster Secret Volume 06 is the best of the lot so far. The humor is the best so far. In addition, we move some of the harem plot threads forward. I’m really looking forward to the next volume!