Mr. Bride Volume 1

Mr. Bride Volume 1

Mr. Bride volume 1 by Natsumi Shiba establishes a simple premise as a way of getting two people together in an “opposites attract” situation.

Hayami is a successful career woman who’s a slob at home. Co-worker Yamamoto discovers the mess and cleans up for her. The two end up rooming together, complicated by their feelings for each other.

She needs someone to take care of her, and he appreciates being allowed in her presence (and benefits from her greater earning power). I could relate to someone who’s got it together but craves time to relax without tasks as mundane as cleaning the house, even if there’s a feeling of “we can’t have a woman be too high-achieving, so she’s got to have this exaggerated flaw.”

That’s not the only issue with this premise. Yamamoto reports to Hayami, so that would be an issue if/when they start dating. That’s often ignored in stories of this type, though. It’s also a bit one-sided, in that she seems to get a lot more out of this than he does. I’m not really clear on what he sees in her. And the recurring use of the term “wife” in reference to Yamamoto seems to imply that women are supposed to be caretakers.

Mr. Bride Volume 1

Still, that said, I was rooting for the two of them. They’re cute. She gets flustered seeing him put his shirt on as he’s coming out of the bath, and she’s jealous of the time he spends with someone else. There are a bunch of cliches here, but they’re commonly used because people enjoy seeing them.

Mr. Bride is a digital-only release from Kodansha.



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