One of the most popular boys in school just so happens to be a huge fan of one panda mascot! Little does he know that the person inside the mascot is his new friend, Hanna.
You can check out a sample of this series for yourself below!
Author
Genre & Tropes
Info about this series
Tags
What’s this series about?
Panbu is the name of the upcoming panda-samurai mascot. Loved by both children and adults, the role of mascot character is a very important one! So, when high schooler Hanna is hired to man Panbu, she is given strict instructions to follow: never let the illusion that Panbu is its own entity dissolve (i.e. don’t let anyone know there’s a person inside the mascot), never talk while in the costume, and never let anyone know she is the one who mans Panbu. Hanna understands the importance of the character, so she abides by the rules stickly.
In comes Ubukata. While poor Panbu was toppled over and getting attacked by some children one day, a boy wearing Hanna’s school uniform swoops in to save her. We soon learn that his name is Ubukata, and he is one of the more popular boys at school. Hanna learns who he is the very next day at school, but Ubukata never realizes that the person he saved was Hanna. After this chance encounter, Ubukata and Panbu develop a friendship! As both of them work at the mall, they have many opportunities to run into each other, though Panbu is never able to actually talk with him. At school, Ubukata has been slowly getting drawn in by Hanna, liking that she has a similar atmosphere to his new panda friend. Never realizing that she is that very panda!
My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)
This was a very welcome break from the more toxic romances I’ve been reading lately! In case you didn’t know, this is the newest series by the author of Futarijime Romantic. While it’s a bit different in tone, the lightheartedness and slightly daydreamy atmosphere found in Futarijime can be found in Panda.
Our protagonist’s name is Hanna—she’s a high school student who is short in stature and very athletic. In other words, the perfect person to man the Panbu costume. She’s also described as being very quiet, so a job where she doesn’t have to talk at all is perfect for her. Her quietness does come back to cause a bit of tension here and there throughout the volume, but it’s also one of the things that makes Ubukata stand out as the male lead.
Ubukata seems to be the only boy Hanna interacts with who is able to understand her without difficulty from the very beginning. He seems to be more on the caring and observant side, so it makes sense that he treats her the way he does. Even when he has to take out his contact lenses, he is still able to find Hana in a crowd not long after they first meet! There’s never a moment where he doesn’t treat Hanna with kindness, even before he realizes she resembles Panbu. When he thinks his female classmates took her keychain, he went out of his way to gift her a new one to make up for it before ever speaking to her.
While there are some parallels between how Ubukata treats Panbu and how he treats Hanna, it’s clear his relationship with Panbu has developed quite a bit more. It’s actually rather cute to see him be so caring and thoughtful towards a big panda samurai. When he misunderstands Hanna for also being a big Panbu fan, it only brings the two of them closer, as he has become a huge Panbu fan seemingly overnight. Nothing brings people together like shared interests, after all!
While the idea of a teenager being so invested in a mascot character may sound a bit strange at first, he does explain why he admires Panbu so much. He sees just how much work Panbu puts into everything! It’s the exact same reason he begins developing a friendship with Hanna—he appreciates people who give their all to whatever they do.
Going forward I hope we get to learn a bit more about Ubukata as a person, as right now we really only know him for his likes and not much else. I’m also very curious about exactly why Ryuuji hates Ubukata so much. I can see him being the sole force behind all the drama in the upcoming volume—he really is a menace with everything he does.
Maddies Manga 
Leave a comment