Written by the author of Yakuza Fiance, Haru’s Curse is a very short manga, spanning only two volumes. As I just finished reading it, I wanted to discuss my thoughts a little bit!
A little bit of info about the series
The author
Konishi Asuka is the author of this manga. Their name can be written in Japanese as 小西 明日翔
How many volumes?
There are two volumes total. In English, these two volumes were combined and published in a 2-in-1.
What genre?
- Josei
- Tragedy
- Romance
- Drama
Potential Trigger Warnings
- Death / loss
- Perceived cheating
- Poor relationship with family
A “quick” recap of the story
Haru and Natsumi are sisters of a vaguely influential family. In order to further gain status, an already incredibly influential and rich family set their eyes on the sisters. Having a tie between the families would be good for business, and so the son of the rich family, Tougo, is instructed to court one of the girls.
The more “appropriate” sister, Haru, is chosen by Tougo’s overbearing mother, and they being dating.
Although it was an arranged relationship, Tougo has lived his whole life by this point just doing as his mother told him. Because of this, while he didn’t exactly dislike Haru, he was more-so dating her because that was what he was meant to do.
That is, until the day Haru started to get sick. While at first it was thought to be a curable disease, Haru slowly started to get more and more sick, eventually to the point where she required hospitalization.
During their time together, and until the moment Haru passed, Tougo treated her as a perfect boyfriend should. He later admits to Natsumi that, had she not gotten sick, he was fully planning on marrying and having children with her.
However, as both Tougo and Natsumi would often visit Haru in the hospital at the same time, Natsumi began to notice something between the two of them. While there was by no means anything close to cheating done, she did always take note of them noticing things about the other – “why did she notice he has a cut on his finger?”, “why did he notice she was looking for a pen?”.
Although it was an arranged relationship, Haru really did love Tougo until the day she died.
At Haru’s funeral, Tougo finds Natsumi and makes a startling proposal: he asks her to please date him. He lies to her, and tells her that he’s doing this at the request of his mother, as they still need to fulfill the original contract of binding the two families. Natsumi, completely distraught as her younger sister just passed away, surprisingly accepts, but with a condition: that they only go on dates to places he went with Haru to.
And so, they begin dating. Every second since they start dating though, Natsumi thinks of the horrific betrayal of her sister that she’s committing. She sees dating Tougo as a sort of way to still be close to Haru, but because she knows just how much Haru loved Tougo, she can barely handle it.
The guilt eats away at Haru so badly that after holding hands with Tougo briefly while on a date, she immediately tries to throw herself in front of a train.
Eventually, they go to all of the places that he went to with Haru, and they decide to stop seeing each other…
A little while later, Natsumi discovers a blog that Haru kept while she was still alive, begins to snoop, and the guilt becomes a lot worse.
Haru wrote about her fears that Natsumi and Tougo would get married were she to die. She also wrote about how if she could, she would drag Natsumi to hell with her, if not to just keep Tougo single for the rest of his life.
Seeing this obviously traumatises Natsumi even more, and she makes the decision to move out.
From Tougo’s side, we do learn a lot about exactly why he is so drawn to Natsumi, and why he went so far as to lie to her in the first place. He noticed that, when Haru was alive, the only time Natsumi looked at all at peace was when she was together with her sister.
He found her to be a very interesting, caring person, and was constantly drawn to her – probably more-so subcounsciously at first. When he first asked her to date him, he really just wanted to keep her close to him, but the more time they spent together, the more he grew to actually like her as a person.
Due to his family, Natsumi was the first person he was able to interact with purely because he wanted to, and that probably had a bit effect on why he grew to like her so much.
When it’s revealed to both of their mothers that they’re seeing each other, things blow up a little bit. Though it was revealed after they decided to stop seeing, both parties disapproved.
Natsumi’s mom (step-mom) keeps asking her to think of what Haru would say were she there. Had she been alive, they would be able to fight over Tougo, but stealing her dead sister’s fiance is just too much, her mother argues. She implores Natsumi to stop seeing him, as this will haunt her forever, but Natsumi runs away every time her mom tries to talk to her.
On Tougo’s side, his mother calls Natsumi a creepy stalker, and lets Tougo know that she’ll call the police if she hears Natsumi is hanging around him again.
Both parties end up leaving their families in the end, confessing their love for the other, and agree to move in together. Tougo’s mother all but disowns him, and tells him that he’ll have to beg and plead for a place in the family once he realizes his mistake.
Natsumi’s mother does let her go, but does her the favour of telling her dad for her, claiming that were Natsumi to tell her father herself, she would never be allowed to leave the house again.
At the end of the story, they both agree that while they may indeed be cursed by Haru for the rest of their lives, they are still their lives to live.
My thoughts
My goodness was this a heavy read. This is probably the heaviest non-horror manga I have ever read. I really enjoyed how deep the mangaka went when explore all of the themes around loss and betrayal.
Natsumi truly felt like a real person going through something tragic, and it was really sad watching her try and cope while hating herself.
The ending…
While I did really enjoy this manga, i’m not too sure about how I feel about the ending. While I was more or less expecting Natsumi and Tougo to end up together,
I do understand that Natsumi felt like she didn’t belong in her family’s house, especially now that Haru’s gone. Likewise, I understand that Tougo really needed to leave the influence of his mother in order to grow as a person.
Maybe because this is such a sad story, there’s no ending that I would be perfectly happy with…
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