The Shonen Jump magazine is no stranger to high-school romcoms, and its newest series Someone Hertz from new author Ei Yamano is exactly that. Even while the art is very cute and the dynamic between the main characters is sweet and wholesome, it tackles the comedy niche which the story is built around well, despite it being difficult for a western audience.
Japanese comedy can be hard to translate. Many jokes depend on wordplay or references to Japanese media, and puns that work in the original Japanese may not land well when translated to English. These sorts of jokes are what take the center stage in Someone Hertz. The main characters, Mimei Fukumori and Kurage Mizuo, are regular listeners of a “late-night comedy radio show” called Monday Midnight Talking (Mon-Mid), submitting one-liner jokes for a chance to read aloud, similar to what Shijimi did at the beginning of Jump’s recently finished comedy manga Show-ha Shoten!.
Yet as Show-ha Shoten! used Japanese comedy in a more traditional sports anime sense, Someone Hertz uses a facet of it to explore the potential romantic relationship between two characters. Our protagonist Mimei is the student council president, whose extreme dedication and diligence makes him good at most things academically. However, he lacks actually being funny, and has never gotten his jokes read on air. Meanwhile, his classmate Kurage is the mysterious short-statured girl behind the “eel potato” name, who is funny enough to get her jokes read often on Mon-Mid.
The first chapter sets up the dynamic between these two well, with equal parts friends-to-lovers and rivals-to-lovers. Kurage pushes Mimei to get better at comedy and says she can’t fall in love with anyone not as funny as her, which is an interesting narrative promise baked into the plot of the manga: as Mimei gets better at making jokes, the romance between him and Kurage is sure to progress as well. Even when some of the jokes are hard to understand or find funny, Mimei is right there with us as he struggles and learns to be funny, and we can always enjoy the cute developments between the pair.
What we’ve already been given of their dynamic in the first chapter alone is heartwarmingly cute, and I honestly can’t wait to read more of it. Mimei’s nervous tendencies and expressiveness in the way that he’s drawn is a great contrast to the cool-headed Kurage. When they genuinely bond over the radio show, whether it’s talking in the halls on their way to class or listening to it alone together in the park at night, you can’t help but smile.
This all being said, I give Ei Yamano’s Someone Hertz One Thumbs Up. Though its core concept is based in Japanese comedy and might not be for everyone, it’s nonetheless worth giving a shot, especially for fans of romance manga. Thankfully the translator David Evelyn has done a great job on the first chapter, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series as it comes out.
