A First Look at Tonikaku Cawaii: Fly Me to the Moon

One of my formerly favorite manga series was Hayate the Combat Butler by HATA Kenjiro-sensei. While on the whole it is an entertaining manga, the way it ended disappointing me quite a bit. However, I am still willing to give any new manga from Hata-sensei a read. Surprisingly, rather than resume his Ad Astra per Aspera series, which he wrote monthly for a time alongside Hayate the Combat Butler, he started a new weekly manga entitled Tonikaku Cawaii: Fly Me to the Moon. As of twenty-seven chapters, how does Tonikaku Cawaii look?

The Story In Brief

The premise of Tonikaku Cawaii (and yes, that is the official way Hata-sensei and/or his editor decided to spell “kawaii”) has a junior high student named YUZAKI Nasa encounters a beautiful young woman and is immediately captivated. As such, he doesn’t pay attention and his partially hit by a truck. The young woman saves him from dying, then leaves. Though injured, Nasa goes to find her, eventually seeing her taking shelter from the snow in a bus stop.

She gives him some additional care, warning him about not throwing away his life. He confesses his love for her and wants to go out with her. She agrees to go out with him, providing they get married first. Nasa passes out. Although he was a good student, Nasa decided to skip going to high school. He worked hard, saving as much money as possible. He rented the tiny apartment above an old shop.

On his 18th birthday, Nasa still thought of the mystery girl. Amazingly, she showed up at his door, introducing herself as Tsukasa. She even has a marriage form, proving she planned to keep her promise from years before. She has them immediately take the form and other paperwork to the registrar’s office that night, and they are legally married. Afterward, Nasa and Tsukasa begin to get to know each other, good and bad, including Tsukasa’s terrible sleeping habits.

Not all is rosy though. Tsukasa’s adopted younger sister is determined to end the marriage. In spite of this, Nasa decides to introduce his wife to his parents.

Parallels to Hayate the Combat Butler

As one might expect, there are some parallels between Tonikaku Cawaii and Hata-sensei’s previous manga, Hayate the Combat Butler. For starters, Nasa is somewhat similar to Hayate. Both get hit by vehicles in the first chapter and are near death. Both get saved by a girl who happened to be in the area. Nasa is kind hearted like Hayate. He’s also someone who’s willing to do what it takes to reach his goal.

Where Nasa breaks away from Hayate is that Nasa is smarter. Also, Nasa is willing to take more risks when it comes to Tsukasa. This may be due to the fact that Nasa and Tsukasa get married right away in the story. As such, he goes and takes Tsukasa’s hand for a “hand holding buffet.” He’s held Tsukasa in the night. He’s initiated a proper kiss with her in chapter 14! This alone makes him a far superior main character (MC) than Hayate ever was.

As for Tsukasa, she’s a combination of the best elements of Hina and Athena from Hayate the Combat Butler. She has Hina’s petite body structure and hair color along with Athena’s graceful way about her.

Also, through the first twenty-seven chapters, there’s one misunderstanding. One of the supporting characters named Aya apparently has feelings for Nasa, which Nasa is unaware of. Aya is the eldest daughter of the people who own the local bath house. She doesn’t realize that Nasa and Tsukasa are married and simply thinks they are family since they have the same family name.

Hayate the Combat Butler References (and more)

It is most likely that the world of Tonikaku Cawaii is the same as Hayate the Combat Butler. Hata-sensei established this in Hayate the Combat Butler, as he took characters from his earlier manga works and introduced them into Hayate the Combat Butler. So it makes sense that Hata-sensei would continue this pattern with Tonikaku Cawaii.

As such, the bankrupt store Nasa lives above is called Tachibana Sangouten. The implication here is that this store is attached to Wataru’s family in Hayate the Combat Butler. Nagi’s head butler Klaus appears to have been the registrar who took Nasa’s and Tsukasa’s marriage paperwork. In one of the extras where Hata-sensei discusses how there’s the ghost of a priest in the building.

In addition to a few nods to Hayate the Combat Butler, Hata-sensei did what he’s done before and that’s make pop culture references. As such, there have been several nods to the Fate franchise, especially the Fate/Grand Order game. Tsukasa is really into American movies like Star Wars, Terminator, Human Centipede (why? ?), and even Sharknado. And of course, there are references to anime and manga stuff like Urusei Yatsura and a whole lot more.

These kind of references help give the manga an extra layer of fun.

The Humor of Tonikaku Cawaii

If you are familiar with Hata-sensei’s works, then you know some of what to expect when it comes to humor. There’s plenty of Hata-sensei’s style of slapstick humor, and it is usually at least humorous.  I usually get a kick out of some character getting busted saying or doing something embarrassing.

The new humor element comes from newlyweds and the situations that arise from that. I’ve never been married, but I still found this humor to be enjoyable. I suspect that folks who have been married will find addition levels of humor here.

The Romance Element

I don’t know what all is in Weekly Shounen Sunday, so I can’t say for sure my next comment applies to that magazine. But in my experience, romance in a shounen title (excluding pseudo-hentai shounen titles like World’s End Harem) is only touched on and certainly not advanced until the very end of the manga. Hayate the Combat Butler was certainly this way, as fans had their favorite girl to pair up with the MC, and Hata-sensei chose the girl who’s ship came in last, even if she was a popular character.

For Tonokaku Cawaii, romance is the name of the game. It is so refreshing to have an MC who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to reach out for it. Nasa was the one who initiated their first kiss. (The official wedding was just turning in the marriage document. If they have a ceremonial wedding, that will be to come.) And Nasa and Tsukasa have kissed a few times. They hold hands (“so lewd,” as the fan jokes go). They enjoy each others company. Frankly, I love seeing this in a shounen title.

Although they’ve been married for a few days now (and as I write this, are in the middle of seeing Nasa’s parents, whom are very great parents so far), the couple has not had sex. I don’t want nor do I expect to see this in the manga. But at some point, a tacit acknowledgement that they have done the deed will be nice. Otherwise, the vanilla, lovey-dovey new romance stuff is fine with me.

The Plot — Kaguya-hime Backstory

In Hayate the Combat Butler, I didn’t even know there was an actual plot until several volumes into the series. With Tonikaku Cawaii, there is clearly some kind of plot foundation being lain, but what exactly that might be is unclear. Hata-sensei has made overt references comparing Tsukasa to the character Kaguya-hime from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

For those who don’t know this tale, Kaguya-hime is an immortal princess from the moon, who was sent to Earth as a thumb-sized infant inside a bamboo stalk. A bamboo cutter discovers her, whereupon he and his wife raise her as their own. After that, the bamboo cutter, gets gold when he cuts bamboo and thus becomes rich. When Kaguya-hime becomes of age to be married, she has a lot of suitors due to her beauty. Five princess rise to the top, but she gives them impossible tasks.

The Emperor also falls for her, but she rejects his marriage proposals since she knows she’s not from Earth. However, she does remain friends with him. Eventually, the day comes when she must return to her people on the moon. She wrote a letter to her parents and left them her robe. Kaguya-hime then wrote a letter to the Emperor and left him a small vial of the Elixir of Life. She was then given a feather robe, which caused her to forget her Earthly attachments. Her adoptive parents became sad and ill as a result. The Emperor was also sad and had the elixir burned on the mountain top closest to heaven, thus becoming Mount Fuji.

The Plot — Tsukasa-chan

Obviously, the fact that Tsukasa is being compared to Kaguya-hime is a massive red flag. There have been other hints that indicate Tsukasa and Nasa may get separated at some point in the future. I suspect that Hata-sensei is attempting to redo the “lovers separated” story he attempted to tell in Hayate the Combat Butler. It didn’t work so well there because (1) the story was rushed and (2) Hata-sensei’s ship wasn’t a fan favorite. Because there’s no harem aspect, and because Nasa and Tsukasa make a lovely couple, if they were to be separated, it would have great impact.

Another interesting plot element for Tsukasa (which also gives an evidence that she might be Kaguya-hime) is that she appears to be immortal. When it came to their marriage, Tsukasa made an odd comment about this being her first marriage. In Nara, she wasn’t interested in the historic elements of the city, as if she were well versed in them. Rather, she was interested in the modern things. At Nasa’s parent’s home, she remarked on how the mountains haven’t changed in 1000 years. And in the various chapter splash pages, we see Tsukasa at different historic places in different time periods.

The plot elements are interesting for sure. However, I am enjoying the newlywed romance stuff more. 🙂

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, Tonikaku Cawaii has turned out to be quite enjoyable. I enjoy the humor aspects and I love the romance story. As such, I plan to chapter blog the series. Here’s hoping Hata-sensei doesn’t lose his way.