Butterflies, Flowers

In general, shoujo features more innocent romance, while josei tends to take a more mature approach and doesn't shy away from delving into the sexual side of relationships. An office romance story, 'Chou yo Hana yo' revolves around Chouko Kuze, whose once-rich family are now wallowing in poverty. She gets a job as a secretary under a very inappropriate boss, who turns out to be none other than the servant who used to tend to her as a child — and still insists on doing that, in an odd mistress/servant, superior/subordinate dynamic. Right off the bat, the story is unusual for a Yuki Yoshihara manga: herscripts usually rely on subverting shoujo tropes and stereotypes, most often by having the main female character be horny and assertive while her love interest is the "prey". Here, the shoujo personality tropes are played straight, with Masayuki relentlessly pursuing Chouko. However, instead of the repetitive flirting attempts that border on sexual harassment, I would have liked to see more of Chouko and Masayuki's relationship as ojou/servant, as it wasn't developed enough to make their connection as adults believable. True to Yoshihara's style, raunchy humor and visual jokes abound, and most of their effectiveness comes from how bizarre they are. But you can stretch this simplistic plot only so much until the material runs out, and CYHY galloped straight past that point, culminating with a certain subplot in which Chouko is almost date-raped and the outcome is handled very poorly. Other than that, the constant sexual harassment from Masayuki himself was annoying. The art is clean, with pleasant-looking character designs, as is the norm with Yuki Yoshihara; with Masayuki hogging the story so much, Chouko in monstrous chibi form (Yoshihara's own words) doesn't appear quite as often. There's also some fairly explicit sexual content later on, but it's done tastefully and not dwelled on for too long. Yoshihara has her specific style but it's easy to tell the characters apart, and we even get a (toned-down) cameo from Maria of 'Itadakimasu's. CYHY is a story that suffers from having been stretched past the point of being enjoyable. The sweet spot would have probably been around 5 volumes, to avoid slipping into tedium. If you've already read other works of Yoshihara's and are familiar with her style, it might come across as less funny. However, it's OK if you're in the mood for some wacky office romance with a different relationship dynamic than what you'd usually encounter—and if you're willing to power through some old-fashioned josei sexism and awkwardness.