Kakkou no Iinazuke – 01

Yoshikawa Miki (mangaka of Yanki-kun to Megane-chan and Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo) has returned to the Weekly Shounen Magazine with a new entry: Kakkou no Iinazuke (a.k.a The Cuckoo’s Fiancee). And I’m not sure if I’m ready for this, but here goes. The reason I’ve decided to write up this post is that I’m hoping to draw people’s attention towards this promising and exciting Chapter 1. Starting off as a one-shot in September 2019, the folks in charge over at Weekly Shounen Magazine were evidently impressed and decided to make Kakkou no Iinazuke a long-term serialisation. With Go-Toubon no Hanayome coming to an extremely disappointing end for most readers, this is definitely the new shounen romance bandwagon you’d want to be jumping on. So what’s the premise?

Umino Nagi is a loner study freak who constantly places second place in his highschool academic ranking. When he goes home, it’s evident to see that his family is nothing like him – with everyone being loud, playful and raucous. Not to mention that his hair’s a completely different colour from theirs. As it turns out, there had been a mistake when Nagi was born. The midwife accidentally placed him in the wrong cot – switching him with another baby. Consequently, a meeting has been scheduled between their families – although Nagi is very unenthusiastic about seeing his birth parents.

The next morning, while crossing a bridge over a motorway, he stumbles across a girl who looks like she’s going to commit suicide. He tackles her back to the ground, accidentally grabbing her chest thanks to the accidental pervert trope that’s commonplace in shounen, only to find out she was trying to take a cool video for Instagram. As it turns out, the girl’s motive is to prevent her parents from enforcing an arranged marriage upon her. To that end, she seeks to fake a relationship with Nagi to avoid the arranged marriage, introducing herself as Erika Amano, a spoiled girl from an extremely rich family. She coerces him into being her pretend boyfriend – using a picture of him accidentally grabbing her chest as blackmail material. They proceed to spend the day together, doing all sorts of couple stuff. However, they stumble across her stalkers – some yakuza looking boys from a neighbouring rich boy school who are desperate to date her. These rough looking dudes begin angling up to the nerdy Nagi, and the situation didn’t look too good.

But in a surprise twist, Nagi possesses incredible physical strength and had been taught how to fist fight by his parents ever since he was young. He sends these ruffians to pound town, easily beating them into the ground – a brave act which wins Erika’s affections. However, her chauffeur finds her – forcing her to give up her charade. Before leaving, Erika tells Nagi ‘We probably won’t see each other again… I wish you were the one I was marrying, Nagi-kun’ – before shaking it off as a joke. Nagi is left to contemplate on what she said – before realising he’s late for the meeting with his birth parents!

I don’t know if anyone else predicted what came next, but as Nagi walks into the restaurant, he’s greeted by both sets of parents – who reveal that in their excitement, they promised their kids to each other in an arranged marriage. And as she walked in, who could have guessed that the other accidentally exchanged baby and fiancee would be Erika? A misunderstanding ensues – the parents are beyond ecstatic, believing their kids to be young and in love with each other. And to keep up pretenses, they end up becoming engaged. Too bad for Nagi, because it turns out he’s been seeking to beat his highschool’s No.1 student so that he can finally confess his feelings towards her. He’s been in love with the klutzy Hiro Segawa this entire time, who told him she’s only into dudes that are smarter than her. But for now, he’s stuck with this troublesome arranged marriage. And so the harem is formed: the younger sister who realises she isn’t genetically related to her brother, the lively ojou-sama who was switched at birth with him, and the No.1 student who won’t acknowledge him until he surpasses her.

Sure, there are an absolute ton of plotholes. Like how could these mothers forget the gender of the babies they just gave birth to?!? And what kind of parents set up an arranged marriage between two kids they’ve never ever met with a family they’ve met for the first time? Nevertheless, I’ll be enjoying the heck out of Kakkou no Iinozuke – since it’s like a Nisekoi with greater potential to me. The art looks amazing, I’m loving these characters for their personality and design, and this love triangle will definitely be a load of fun – albeit messy. So I can’t wait to see how things will continue to shape up. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. Please give this chapter a go and let me know what you think about it down below!