Pretty Face

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Pretty Face

プリティフェイス (Pretty Face)
Genre	Comedy, Romance, Seinen, Shōnen
Manga
Authored by	Yasuhiro Kano
Publisher	Shueisha Viz Media
Serialized in	Weekly Shonen Jump
Original run	May 2002 – June 2003
No. of volumes	6

Pretty Face (プリティフェイス, Puriti Feisu^?) is a fictional manga written and illustrated by Japanese author Yasuhiro Kano revolving around a high school boy attempting to impersonate a girl. A common theme in the series is the loving relationships the characters share for each other, whether they be between siblings, friends, or lovers. It was first serialized in Jump Comic's Weekly Shonen Jump by Shueisha between May 2002 and June 2003, finally coming to an end at chapter 52. Viz Media has acquired the rights to release on English translation of the series; Viz will release the first volume on August 7, 2007.^[1]

1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Manga
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Pretty Face is a story involving many different types of characters which takes place mostly at the school the main characters attend, Seika high school. The main protagonist is Randou Masashi, a highschool student and a karate expert who harbors an unconfessed love for a fellow student, Rina Kurimi. One day on route back from a karate tournament in Hokkaidō, he is caught in a tragic school bus accident and burned beyond recognition.

Randou awakes from a coma one year later to find that he's been in the care of a doctor named John Manabe talented enough to reconstruct his body, though ends up using the closest thing to an identification found on his body as a basis to reconstruct his face - a photo of Rina.

Afterwards, Randou finds out that during his year long coma, he was mistakenly pronounced deceased, his parents moved away, and even his house was demolished. Once he has realized his old life is now gone and has broken down on the sidewalk in front of his former household, he runs into Rina by chance, and is mistaken for her missing twin sister, Yuna. After Rina takes him back to her house and presents him as Yuna, he proclaims to have amnesia in order to not arouse any sudden suspicions. Later, after seeing Rina in so much pain with having her sister gone, Randou decides to impersinate Yuna for the time being until he can find the real Yuna and reunite her with Rina and her family.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Main characters

Randou Masashi (政乱堂, Masashi Randou^?)

The main character, he is a karate expert who is very arrogant due to the fact that not many can defeat him. After a schoolbus accident, his face is reconstructed to that of Rina Kurimi, a fellow student who he also feels an attraction towards. After waking from his year-long coma, he is mistaken by Rina for her missing twin sister, Yuna. In the end, despite much inner turmoil on what to do, Randou decides to pose as Yuna until he is able to find the real Yuna.

At first, he has a lot of trouble acting like a typical female high school student and his personality as Randou comes out often with disastrous results. Even after being in a coma for a year, he is still incredibly strong which usually raises a lot of questions because of his small size. Often, as a running gag, he gets nosebleeds when he gets stimulated. However, as time goes on, he comes to discover a lot of things about being a female. Furthermore, one of his main fears is that he'll become accustomed to being Yuna for good.

When it comes to matters involving Rina, he is often very selfless and only thinks about her happiness.

Rina Kurimi (栗見理奈, Kurimi Rina^?)

She is the girl Randou likes and ironically, she liked him back before the accident, just she never told him. She has a quiet personality and feels responsible for what happened to her real twin sister Yuna after she ran away from home. Rina is a very emotional person and depends a lot on Randou (as Yuna) for support and guidance.

She is a very intelligent person and the smartest in her class, though she seems to struggle when it comes to cooking.

After Randou came back as Yuna, Rina has become very scared that her sister will end up leaving her again and hangs out with her more often then not because of it.

Yuna Kurimi (栗見由奈, Kurumi Yuna^?)

Rina's real twin sister and the person Randou impersonates. She ended up running away from home in order to fulfill her dream of becoming a beautician. After she left, she traveled to Otaru and started working in the Kaze hair salon owned by the Yoshida family. Additionaly, she started living with them for the time being too. During her time working at the salon, Yuna was described to be a very hard-worker. She is also very intelligent, much like Rina, though is smarter than her younger sister.

After the salon went out of business, she decided to go to a professional beautician school in Sapporo.

Dr. John Manabe (真鍋順, Manabe Jun^?)

The very talented doctor who reconstructed Randou's face using a picture of Rina as a reference that he found on his charred body after the school bus accident.

He is excessively perverted and constantly suggests that Randou should get a complete sex reassignment surgery to become entirely female, much to the disgust and wrath of Randou.

[edit] Supporting characters

Yukie Sano (佐野雪江, Sano Yukie^?)

She's the most mature one of the five main female characters. Additionally, she has a boyfriend named Reiji Nakama who is older than her and already attending a university. Much like Randou, she can get mad very easily and gets out of control because of it; Randou is very scared of her when she's like this.

She enjoys looking at cave rocks to admire their beauty.

Keiko Tsukamato (塚本恵子, Tsukamoto Keiko^?)

She's one of Rina's best friends and once commmented that she doesn't like boys. However, she loves animals and in fact has a vast collection of stuffed animals and a couple of pets to show for it.

Despite her boyish haircut, she tends to have a very feminine personality - doing things that normal girls her age would consider fun.

Midori Akai (赤井美都里, Akai Midori^?)

She seems to be the most outgoing of Rina's friends and never passes up the opportunity to flirt with guys. This has become a type of obsession for her and becomes extremely desperate to finally get a boyfriend. Eventually, she fulfills her wish and gets a boyfriend in the last chapter, though this is mainly just to finish off that plot line.

She once commented that she's "kind of afraid of animals."

Takuya, Shiyūji and Takahiro (respectively)

Takahiro Kinoshita (木ノ下貴弘, Kinoshita Takahiro^?), Shiyūji Tamura (田村修二, Tamura Syùji^?) & Takuya Endò (遠藤拓也, Endò Takuya^?): Three members of the karate club that were subordinates of Randou. When Randou came back to school as Yuna and destroyed the members of the karate club, they ended up choosing him as their unofficial leader - Randou has no intention of returning to the club while impersonating Yuna. They often cause trouble for Randou.

Miwa Masuko (升子美和, Masuko Miwa^?)

She is Rina's cousin who comes to be the substitute teacher for Japanese at Rina's school. She apparently is very close with the real Yuna, which causes problems for Randou. She seems to have a thing about getting to the bottem of things when it comes to a mystery which led to her trying to investigate Randou when she first came back.

Eventually, she is able to become a regular teacher at Seika high school, where Randou and the others go to school.

Nozomi Ueda (植田望, Ueda Nozomi^?)

A first year student who approached Randou (as Yuna) wanting to be 'her' friend. She sees Yuna as a good role model for herself and she's admired her for a while. She seems to have a poor opinion about boys, once having commented that they are, "dirty and ugly creatures." As it is, she seems to be a lesbian.

Nozomi's father runs a kendo dojo that Nozomi also trains at; she is ranked as a 2-dan. Much like Randou who appears to be a normal high school girl, Nozomi is a good fighter and can be very intimidating because of this.

She also seems to be very popular among the first year male students because of her cute looks. In addition, she comes from a very rich family, though that is just her mother's side.

Natsuo Kobayashi (小林夏緒, Kobayashi Natsuo^?)

She's the grandchild of the monk from the temple the karate club goes to train at once a year. She was partly trained by Randou when he was visiting the temple, though now she's gotten more skilled. However, when she fights she has the tendency to show her panties a lot.

Apparently, she fell in love with Randou during their training together. Eventually she transfers to Randou's school even though at first she believes him to be dead like everyone else. After listening in on a conversation between Randou and Manabe, she learns the truth about the whole situation and becomes a threat for giving away the secret.

[edit] Other characters

Masato Miki (美木聖人, Miki Masato^?): The student body president at Rina's school and also the most popular guy, especially among the female population. He has been described as smart, good at sports, and very well at his work as the student president. However, he is rather conceited about his status. Eventually, he takes a liking to Yuna.

Jinnai: He is a technician who develops products to be used for models. Jannai is the only employee of his company Jinnai Modeling Research and Development Co. Dr. Manabe knows him and Jannai makes products that Manabe uses for Randou's situation.

Jin Yoshida: A young man living in Otaru who knows the real Yuna. His family used to own a hair salon called Kaze (風, Kaze^?) meaning Wind and at the time, Yuna lived with them as she worked as one of the assistants in the salon. Incidentally, Jin ended up falling in love with Yuna while she stayed with them for a few months.

Before he met Yuna, he had co-founded a gang called The Crimsons with a guy named Haga. Eventually, he got into some trouble with the police after stabbing someone in a fight and the salon went out of business because of it.

Later, Jin left the Crimsons to become a beautician, but Haga saw this as a form of betrayal and thus they are now enemies.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Manga

Pretty Face volume 1

The Pretty Face manga was first serialized in the manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, with the first tankoubon released on October 4, 2002. The series ended in Japan in 2003 with the final, sixth volume in the series released on November 4 of that year. There is a fair amount of fan service associated with the story, but never to the point to be considered hentai.

Incidentally, the manga series has a rather abrupt ending, finishing with 52 chapters. It was intended to run longer, but was cancelled for unknown reasons. The last chapter featured additional information and alternate endings, as well as some original storyboard art.

A running gag in the series is that the eyes of the characters will pop out of their sockets when something shocking happens.