Pretty Face

Infobox animanga/Header
name = Pretty Face


caption = Logo of "Pretty Face".
ja_name = プリティフェイス
ja_name_trans = Puriti Feisu
genre = Romantic comedyInfobox animanga/Manga
author = Yasuhiro Kano
publisher = flagicon|Japan Shueisha
publisher_en = flagicon|USA Viz Media
demographic = Shōnen
magazine = flagicon|Japan Weekly Shōnen Jump
first = May 2002
last = June 2003
volumes = 6

Nihongo|"Pretty Face"|プリティフェイス|Puriti Feisu is a Japanese manga series 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 Shōnen Jump" by Shueisha between May 2002 and June 2003, finally coming to an end at chapter fifty-two. Viz Media has acquired the rights to release an English translation of the series; Viz released the first volume on August 7 2007. [citeweb|url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=2794|title=Pretty Face (manga)|publisher=Anime News Network|accessdate=2007-03-21]

Plot

"Pretty Face" is a romantic comedy that involves a variety of different characters. Most of the story's action takes place at the school the characters attend, Seika High School. The main protagonist is Masashi Rando, a high school student and a karate expert who harbors an unconfessed love for a fellow student, Rina Kurimi. One day, while returning home from a karate tournament in Hokkaidō, he is involved in a tragic school bus accident and burned beyond recognition.

One year later, Masashi awakes from a coma to find that he's been in the care of a talented (yet slightly deranged) surgeon named Jun Manabe. Although Dr. Manabe was skilled enough to reconstruct Masashi's body, he had no identification to use as a reference and ended up using the closest thing to an identification found on his body as a basis to reconstruct his face - a photo of Rina.

Afterwards, Masashi 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, he breaks down on the sidewalk in front of the empty lot that was his former household. On his way back to Manabe's clinic, 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 lies about having amnesia in order not to arouse any sudden suspicions. Later, after seeing how much pain Rina experienced during the time her sister was gone, Masashi decides to impersonate Yuna for the time being until he can find the real Yuna and bring her back to the Kurimi family.

Characters

Main characters

;Nihongo|Masashi Rando|乱堂 政|Randō Masashi:The main character, he is a karate expert who is very arrogant because not many can defeat him. After a school bus 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, Masashi 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 Masashi 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. Due to his vibrant personality and Rina's cute face, he gets many male suitors in the school (and one female). He tries to cope with it, though he usually goes nuts and beats them up (including the student president and various thugs on the streets).

;Nihongo|Rina Kurimi|栗見 理奈|Kurimi Rina:She is the girl Masashi 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 Masashi (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 Masashi 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 than not because of it.

;Nihongo|Yuna Kurimi|栗見 由奈|Kurimi Yuna:Rina's real twin sister and the person Masashi 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. Additionally, 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 said she would go to a professional beautician school in Sapporo, but later tells Masashi that she has been attending a beautician school in Tokyo.

;Nihongo|Dr. Jun Manabe|真鍋 順|Manabe Jun:The very talented doctor who reconstructed Masashi'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 Masashi should get a complete sex reassignment surgery to become more feminine, much to the disgust and wrath of Masashi (which often has him end up on the receiving end of a very violent and graphic beating). He helps Masashi throughout the story even after the surgery and even seems to serve as his mentor.-

upporting characters

;Nihongo|Yukie Sano|佐野 雪江|Sano Yukie:She's the most mature one of the five main female characters. Additionally, she is the only one who has a boyfriend named Reiji Nakama who is older than her and already attending a university. Much like Masashi, she can get mad very easily and gets out of control because of it; Masashi is very scared of her when she's like this. She enjoys looking at cave rocks to admire their beauty.

;Nihongo|Keiko Tsukamato|塚本 恵子|Tsukamoto Keiko:She's one of Rina's best friends and occasionally commented 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.

;Nihongo|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 is "kind of afraid of animals."

;Nihongo|Takahiro Kinoshita|木ノ下 貴弘|Kinoshita Takahiro, Nihongo|Shiyūji Tamura|田村修二|Tamura Syùji & Nihongo|Takuya Endò|遠藤拓也|Endò Takuya:Three members of the karate club that were subordinates of Masashi. When Masashi came back to school as Yuna and destroyed the members of the karate club, they ended up choosing 'her' as their unofficial leader - Masashi has no intention of returning to the club while impersonating Yuna. They often cause trouble for Masashi, leading him to refer to the trio as "The Three Stooges".

;Nihongo|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 Masashi. She seems to have a thing about getting to the bottom of things when it comes to a mystery which led to her trying to investigate Masashi when she first came back. Eventually, she is able to become a regular teacher at Seika high school, where Masashi and the others go to school.

;Nihongo|Nozomi Ueda|植田 望|Ueda Nozomi:A first year student who approached Masashi (as Yuna) wanting to be 'her girlfriend'. She sees Yuna as a good role model for herself and she's admired her for a while after which she started to admire Natsuo Kobayashi. She seems to have a poor opinion about boys, once having commented that they are, "dirty and ugly creatures." Nozomi's father runs a kendo dojo that Nozomi also trains at; she is ranked as a 2-dan. Much like Masashi 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.

;Nihongo|Natsuo Kobayashi|小林 夏緒|Kobayashi Natsuo:She is the grandchild of the monk from the temple the karate club goes to train at once a year. She was partly trained by Masashi 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 Masashi during their training together. Eventually she transfers to Masashi's school even though at first she believes him to be dead like everyone else. After secretly listening in on a conversation between Masashi and Manabe, she learns the truth about the whole situation and becomes a threat for giving away the secret. However, after seeing Masashi's surprising selflessness, she decides to help him find Yuna and wholeheartedly expresses her joy at seeing Masashi alive. Natsuo is the only other person who knows of Masashi's secret and does tease him a bit with it to get him to notice her. As such, this leads to a love triangle as Masashi is somewhat torn between Rina and Natsuo who both are in love with him.

Other characters

;Nihongo|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. Jinnai is the only employee of his company "Jinnai Modeling Research and Development Co." Dr. Manabe knows him and Jinnai makes products that Manabe uses for Masashi's situation.

;Jin Yoshida:A young man living in Otaru who knows the real Yuna. His family used to own a hair salon called Nihongo|"Kaze"|風 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.

Manga

The "Pretty Face" manga was first serialized in the manga magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump", with the first bound volume 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, and vast amounts of ecchi moments. The manga series has a rather abrupt ending, finishing with fifty-two chapters and one extra chapter. It was intended to run longer, but was canceled for unknown reasons. The last chapter featured additional information and alternate endings, as well as some original storyboard art.

References

External links

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