Maddies Manga

Komugi is in over her head when she discovers that the most popular boys in her school are all actually secretly animal shapeshifters! Will she be able to keep their secret and earn their trust?

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Author

This series was written by Yoko Nogiri. X

Some other notable series by the same author are: Love, Out on a Limb, and Those Not-So-Sweet Boys.

Genre & Tropes

High school romance, fantasy.

Info about this series (complete)

This series is complete at four singles, or two omnibus volumes, in both English and Japanese

TL;DR rating

This volume somewhat filled the hole that Fruits Basket left in my heart! While the boys in this one are much more tsundere, they shine in their own unique ways.

Official synopsis

After some traumatic experiences, Komugi Kusunoki transferred from the city to start a new life in rural Hokkaido. But on her first day of school, the school heartthrob Yu Ogami blurts out, “You smell good!” Despite the hijinks, Komugi tries to adjust to her new school, but it’s not long before she stumbles across Yu dozing off under a tree. When she attempts to wake him up, he transformed…into a wolf?! It turns out that Yu is one of many other eccentric boys in her class year–and she’s the only one who knows their secret…!

My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)

I seem to be something on a wolf-boy kick lately…I’m not going to put too much thought into questioning it.

That Wolf-Boy is Mine! is touted as a series fans of Fruits Basket will enjoy, and I actually have to agree with that sentiment. While the only commonalities between the two are that there are a select number of characters than can shapeshift into animals and there is just one girl that is forced to keep their secrets, I do think fans of one will enjoy the other.

This series starts with an introduction to our female lead: after going through a bullying incident, she’s been forced to move to rural Hokkaido. Because of her past experiences, she’s very careful not to rock the boat…but her super-handsome, super-popular deskmate can’t help but continuously comment on how good she smells. Of course any attention from the school idol would cause her to get negative attention from her female classmates, so she spends quite a while in a state of panic at the start of the story. Personally, I don’t love stories that focus so much on the jealousy of other girls. It actually stresses me out a little when scenes like “he’s everyone’s boyfriend, so stay away!” are included in a manga. Thankfully, there was only a few more jealousy scenes scattered throughout the rest of the volume.

Eventually, partially due to his persistence, his big secret is revealed to our main character—he’s a wolf-boy! Of course she passes out right away, and wakes up to him and one of his equally handsome and popular friends watching her in the infirmary. We then learn that both boys have quite a few supernatural powers: shapeshifting, mind control, and even memory erasure!? I’m not going to lie, when the wolf-boy’s friend rudely attempted to erase Komugi’s mind, I was so upset! She did nothing wrong, and here he is talking crap and trying to remove her memories! To make matters worse, he takes away her autonomy, telling the wolf-boy to keep an eye on her until they can talk in private after school. From that moment I wasn’t sure if this would end up being more of a horror-story, with poor Komugi kept prisoner to this boy’s whims.

One everything is revealed and Komugi promises to keep the big secret, things do calm down a bit, but her relationship with the wolf-boy is kept a bit ambiguous. Although it’s drilled into her from the very start that she’s not allowed to fall in love with the wolf-boy, of course by the end of part one she’s already long caught feelings. Watching her struggle to just be friends with him was rather difficult, and watching him reject her advances and try to go back to normal really, really stung. He didn’t even fully reject her at the time—he literally said he was going to pretend he didn’t hear her! Like, what the hell!? If you’re going to turn someone down, at least acknowledge the fact that they build up the courage to confess! I really hated him in the moment…

From here, it’s established that some of the animal-humans have a difficult time with some human emotions, specifically romantic love. While some of them have dated humans, the relationships are typically quick to end. The wolf-boy especially is someone who clearly doesn’t understand romance, or maybe he just doesn’t want to, so it slowly becomes clear why the other animal-people were warning Komugi to not fall for him.

While I did slowly begin to understand and grow to like some of the other animal-people, I take major issue with the fox-boy. He spent the entire volume being extraordinarily tsundere and rude towards Komugi, just to act like he’s been in love with her the whole time come the end!? What was up with that!? It caught me so off guard that I had to do some re-reading just to see if I missed anything.

While I have my complaints, I actually really did enjoy this one! The drama is the type that really makes you want to continue reading. Honestly, I kind of hope the series ends with Komugi and the wolf-boy just being friends, but I feel like they’ll end up dating once everything is over.

Check out a free sample below!

You can check out volume one of this series for yourself below!