My Best (♀) Butler, Vol. 1 by Souko Masaki
Series Name: My Best (♀) Butler
Genres: Comedy, gender-bend
Intended Age Group: Older Teen
Publisher: Kodansha
Edition: ebook
ISBN: 9781646596515
Rating: 4/5
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Description
Rui Aoto’s family has fallen on hard times. It’s up to her to take care of her younger brother Kyo, and she refuses to be a burden on friends or family. When Rui cross-dresses to be able to work at a host club, things go awry. A rich boy, named Tohma, comes to her rescue, and her life changes drastically. To amuse Tohma, Rui agrees to a wager, and must now serve as Tohma’s “male” butler until next march. If she can do so, without exposing her true gender, Tohma will give her $10,000.
Personal & Info
I absolutely could not decide what to read for this week. Normally, I choose random numbers by rolling dice to decide which ebook on my list to read, but this time I was not satisfied with any of my choices. I ended up asking friends for random numbers instead, and then narrowing it down randomly from there. For some reason, I was more satisfied with that end result than my own. Anyway, this is the book that was chosen via coin flip after all others were eliminated.
This is one of the ebooks I got for free from a BookWalker sale. It does not appear to have any physical copies in English, yet.
Depending on your preference for consent, this book might irk you. There is crotch grabbing and peeking up skirts. That’s pretty much the only thing I recall seeing that is worth mentioning for any kind of warning.
Characters
Rui Aoto is the main character. She is Kyo’s older sister and considered flat chested.
Kyo Aoto is Rui’s younger brother. He dropped out of school after a confession to a male classmate went wrong.
Moka seems like Rui’s best friend. She is the daughter of the bakers who take Rui and Kyo in at the start of the book.
Benny is Moka and Rui’s friend.
Tohma is a bored and lonely rich kid. He has a bit of an attitude, and a severe allergy to women.
Saginuma is Tohma’s driver and butler, because they have yet to replace the previous butler. He’s been with Tohma’s family for a long time.
Yoinomiya and Ohgi are the two guys Tohma requested to watch over Rui at school.
Mr. T. Bear is a handmade teddybear from a series of children’s books. Mr. T. Bear is very important to Tohma. Kyo and Tohma are both fans of the Mr. T. Bear books.
Haruki is Tohma’s cousin, and the despot of the school. He has an anger problem.
Hatarai is Haruki’s butler.
Goryoba and Watatsumi are student council members. Goryoba is apparently very strong, and Watatsumi is “elitist.”
There are an abundance of characters with names throughout the book. I know I did not mention them all, and that is intentional. Several of them are insignificant, or only appear once or twice, so are not worth mentioning here.
Story & Thoughts
I went into this manga blind, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s a gender-bend. Those are some of my favorite kinds of manga. Yes, I know, the lady butler part should have made that obvious, but I wasn’t looking too closely at it.
Anyway, the setting is a little generic. The city they live in is divided into ten wards, which divide the people by wealth. Ward ten, where Rui and her friends live in the beginning of the story, is the poorest. Ward one, where Tohma lives, is the richest.
The host club job Rui’s friend Sera sets her up with is super creepy. The employees, who are teenaged boys (this is where the cross-dressing comes in), sit in a lobby where they can eat and drink from the club menu as much as they want. The facility has one way mirrors, where clients can see the employees to choose one to request for a private sitting. It’s supposed to be conversational entertainment, but the clients are all apparently older, and usually creepy, men.
Rui is warned before her shift starts that she should never leave the building with a client, because it’s unsafe, but that’s practically the first thing she does. It’s like she has no survival instinct. She definitely does not come off as an intelligent character early on.
The day to day life adventures Rui has as Tohma’s butler are amusing. She has much to learn, and must learn everything quickly. Reputation and perception are extremely important to do her job, as well as knowing how to use her resources to her advantage. The simple and ridiculous ordeals she has to deal with make good comedy. The people and places are definitely not entirely normal, either.
I have some suspicions about the Mr. T. Bear stories. I think they’re more than just a series of children’s books that Tohma likes.
There is a tiny bit of romance, but I don’t know if it’s enough to label the book as romance. Rui has a crush and gets flustered, but it doesn’t seem romantic to me. It could escalate to be more romantic later, but I won’t know for sure unless I read more.
I do intend to read more of this series eventually. It bugs me that it’s only available digitally. I’m going to have to figure out which source I would prefer to use, because I don’t usually commit to any digital manga.