Koko ni Iru yo 1 On the very first page, we see the protagonist girl as a little kid who hides while playing hide&seek and the text says „I’ve always been waiting for the person to find me in the darkness.” Sumino Hikage is a 2nd grader ad middle school and she spends her life bein nonexistant to other. People are just not aware of the fact that she is alive. Her classmates don’t even know her name an she has no friends. On her first day of school, she was run over by a motorcycle while saving a cat, so she had to spend long time at home and when she returned to school, people already formed groups and she didn’t belong anywhere. As she sits in class that day, two of her classmates, Hinata and Teru enter and everyone greets them excitedly. She thinks of them being two really bright people. At home, as usual Hikage is writing her weblog. She writes about her problems of not being able to talk to people and being an outsider and usually two people with the nicknames ‘MegaPig’, who’s always a little mean and ‘KuroUsagi’, wo is very kind, are commenting. On the next day, she is alone on the school yard when Teru und Hinata come running. Teru took Hinata’s schoolbag and Hinate tries to get it back. Teru grabs Hikage and hides behind her. As Hikage rushes out for his bag, he grabs Hikage’s shoulder. He comments on the plant she was planting and says she’s great and even says her name. Hikage asks if he really knows her name and he says “Sure, it’s Sumino Hikage!” as he walks away with his friends. On the next day, the teacher asks for 4 people to clean the PE storage room and 3 girls say they will do it and Hikage gathers all her courage and says she’ll do to. While doing their duty, she can talk to the girls pretty normally and is very happy about it. The girls go to wash and when they come back they don’t realize Hikage is still there, so they wonder if she already went home and lock the door and leave. Hikage tries to scream she’s still there but she’s not to be heard. Hikage thinks about how her life has always been like that, people were never aware of her existance. She remembers when she was a kid and she played hide & seek, other kids forgot that she was hiding too and they left without finding her. Hikage thinks about how lonely she is. She starts to cry and thinks she wants somebody to find her. That moment, Hinata is opening the door. She runs to him and hugs him. She says she thought nobody would find her and thanks him for finding her. He looks at her smiling and says that he has always been looking at her. As she runs home later, she keeps thinking about his words. The next day, she tries to explain to the three girls who were on duty with her that she was still there, because they think she just went home early, but she can’t get their attention. Teru and Hinata enter class. He greets her across the room and smiles but she gets all shy. At home, she sees comments on her blog and the two people who always comment say that the guy who said he was always watching her, doesn’t that mean he likes her? Hikage thinks about those words. After school she follows some girls who are watching Hinata do Kendo, and she hopes she’ll have a chance to return a hankerchief, that he lent to her when he found her in the PE storage room. Since it’s crowded and all girls are there for Hinata, she decides to leave, but Hinata sees her and follows her. The other girls see it and one says she’s the one who came out with Hinata from the PE storage room after school and the girls stare at her. Teru steps in and says he just freed her from the storage room and that’s just the kind of guy he is. He’s nice to everyone and doesn’t ignore people Hinata wants to say something but Teru points him to be quit. Hikage apologizes for troubling him and leaves. She goes to her plant on the school yard and thinks how she doesn’t want to return to class. Suddenly Hinata comes up behind her. He tells him to go back because if he’s not there, everybody will worry. He says he’s the one who worries. It’s not that he talked to her because he is too nice, but because he’s in love with her. Hikage is shocked and asks why he likes her. She’s plain and nonexistant, so why. He says he isn’t, he liked her since the beginning and asks her to please consider him as a boyfriend before he returns to class. When Hikage returns to class, the two look at each other and get all shy. Hinata blogs about the confession and MegaPig is all surprised and KuroUsagi is happy for her. At school, Teru runs into her and asks her if Hinata confessed to her. Hikage gets nervous and Teru says he knows him enough to be able to tell. He wars her about other girls who will be jealous of her. As he’s walking away, he asks her if it wouldn’t be better to continue being plain and nonexistant. She writes on her blog that she’ll turn down Hinata after all. After waking up, she sees MegaPig and KuroUsagi’s comments and they say she shouldn’t give up just like that. Hikage sees it’s raining a lot so she runs to school to protect the sunflower she planted. As she tries to protect it from the rain, Hinata comes up and helps her. She tells him it’s okay, but he says he’ll help because he was also always looking out for the sunflower (I don’t see how he didn, but yeah, however…). They wait until the sun comes out again and Hinata says that Hikage is a very protective person. He says he saw her protecting the cat on the first schoolday and he thought her courage was amazing. Hikage is looking at Hinata and says right now, she doesn’t have self confidence to be his girlfriend. But she want to become a person as good as Hinata, so she want to be with him from now on. Hinata answers that he wants to be the person closest to Hikage and smiles. On the next day, Hikage still can’t great her classmates, but Hinata greets her at the lockers and they talk a little. Teru gets annoyed and drags him away. At class, a girls has a book that tells you a lot of phsycological stuff about yourself just by what’s your favourite animal. Hikage everyone gathers and Hikage wonders if she should go too, but she doesn’t. Hinata is looking at her and asks her what her favourite animal is. Hikage answers hamster and he invites her to join. Hikage comes closer and for the first time what it feels to be part of a cirlce of classmates. She thinks about how happy she is and blogs about it later at home. The following day, Hinata asks her if she’s free after school because he wants to spend time with her. Hikage says sure. Later she overhears girls talking about how annoying it is that Hikage is not so close to Hinata (but still, no one gets her name right). They say she shouldn’t be too full of her self only because Hinata is nice and she runs away. She runs into Teru, who sees how pale she is and can tell what happened. He says that’s exactely what he warned her about. After school, she’s sitting and the school yard and didn’t go to meet Hinata as promised. Suddenly a girl (Arisa) from class waves to her direction smiling and says goodbye. Hikage is confused and also the Arisa’s friend asks her who she was talking to. The Arisa says it’s the hamster girl from their class. Hikage thinks how it is thanks to Hinata that Arisa greeted her and she runs to the gym where Hinata has already been waiting for her. She tells him what happened and he says he’s glad because he thought something might have happened. Hikage says she’s okay. He asks her to exchange phone numbers and tells her to call him whenever something’s up. On the next day at the lockers, a group of girls are approaching her and say they want to talk to her and she probably already knows what it’s about. My opinion on Koko ni Iru yo vol 1 I just don’t know. Okay, I really really don’t hate it but I also don’t love it. Let’s ignore that it’s a lot like Kimi ni Todoke, because hey, what’s new when it comes to Shoujo Manga nowadays ;) I think the story is a little shallow and the characters have no real depth. The only one who is very interesting to me right now is Teru, because he’s kinda mean to Hikage and you can’t tell what kind of person he is. In other Manga, he would have been the guy who would have already fallen for the main girl by now. Well, he probably will in later volumes. All in all, I think this Manga is one hell of a predictable Manga. I’ve read vol 2 already, and it the story really goes into the direction I predicted it to go after reading the first chapter. I do like the artwork a lot and all, but about the story, I really need to see where it’s going. ISBN 978-4-06-364171-4 Back