Manga - A Beginner's Look #2

Do You Like Big Girls? (2014-Present)
Original Title: Ookii Onnanoko wa Suki desu ka?
By: Aizome, Goro (Story & Art)
Chapters: 39 (so far) Total Pages: 14-20 per chapter
Genres: Ecchi, Romance, School, Sports, Harem, Seinen

I guess it's probably not too hard to see why this particular manga caught my eye, but upon further investigation I found that the 'big girls' of the title does not refer to their chest regions but to their statures generally. The main character, Tachibana Souta, is a fairly normal schoolboy except he's a bit on the short side. This is something he finds mighty irksome, especially in light of the fact that his 'big' sister, Kaoru, is a tremendously lofty six-and-a-half foot! Putting this considerable height to her advantage, she is one of six members of her college's volleyball team. Unfortunately, their manager is in hospital long-term, recuperating from an illness, so who do they rope into becoming their stand-in manager? Yes that's right - Souta! Of course, what they call 'manager' ends up meaning 'lackey', but it's not all bad as he also finds himself surrounded by his sister's equally lofty, and not-aethetically-unpleasant teammates, all of whom, in a stunningly unexpected plot-twist, find Souta completely irresistable!

In addition to Kaoru and the generously-bosomed Ayano (on the cover, above) who also happens to be Souta's long-time crush, the team consists of Julia, a foreign-exchange student with an even more unrealistic chest region, Sakura, a crazy pig-tailed aspiring manga artist, Kyouka, the only flat-chested member of the team which makes her insecure, and Sanae, the apparent 'captain' of the team and the only one who's not a giant (she's actually even shorter than Souta).

With these being the only main characters, you'll probably not be shocked to hear that DYLTG is a harem comedy. That's good though as most of my favourite animes are usually comedies and many of those are harem comedies which can be great when done well. This is the first non-animated example I've tried and, much like the previous manga I looked at, it's a 'borderline hentai' title. There is also little in the way of story here - there isn't much actual volleyball played considering it's based around a volleyball team, for example - but for some reason I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than my last manga. Or I have been enjoying it, I should say, as it seems to be ongoing in a slightly intermittent fashion.

It helps that the characters actually are characters for one thing, and there are a few little subplots here and there like Kaoru and Ayano's rivalry (or perhaps more just jealousy on Kaoru's part), and the team's mini-feud with the school basketball team, which are rather amusing. The pervy stuff is quite frequent and also a bit silly, as it usually is with things like this, but it is meant to be more funny than arousing, and it often succeeds. There is another subplot that is clearly heading towards an incestuous 'liaison' between Souta and Kaoru but, despite a couple of close calls, there hasn't been anything too explicit that I've seen yet, and the awkward situations we've seen so far have also been pretty funny, so there's not too much to worry about... yet. That's all DYLTG is too, really. Not incest, I don't mean, but rather just a series of subplots or mini-stories without a main story going on in the background. It probably sounds a bit whiffy but it's actually good fun, as long as the plentiful (and over-sized for the most part) boobs don't bother you, obviously. I am still a beginner of course, and I'm confident I'll read far superior mangas than this in the future (probably the near future), but as things stand I did enjoy this one, despite the questionable content.

RKS Score: 7/10