MANGA REVIEW | "Let’s Do It Already!" - Volume One
First thing’s first: get your mind out of the gutter. Yes, calling a manga Let’s Do It Already! will easily trigger sexy time thoughts in anyone’s brain. But even though the manga starts off with a relationship sprouting (beating the previous record-holder You and I Are Polar Opposites by many, many pages), the couple doesn’t just dive headfirst into a physical relationship. Quite the contrary, as author Aki Kusaka throws everything and the kitchen sink at the lovers in order to keep them from hugging, much less kissing and [inappropriate action redacted].
Yuri Hasegawa and Keiichiro Katsuragi are the couple that Let’s Do It Already! focuses on. They start with a love confession in the first couple of panels, with Yuri going for the kiss to seal the deal. However, Keiichiro stops those lips from planting, revealing that there’s a hell of a lot of red tape his family has wrapped his love life in. As the son of a wealthy man — on top of being a possible future politician — Keiichiro is forced to abide by a rule book bigger than a dictionary to keep him in line.
Naturally, this puts Yuri in a frustrating situation. While others in her class are going out on normal dates (and the occasional one-night stand), she’s forced to read and fill out paperwork in order to merely text Keiichiro on specific days and times. Speaking of which, him actually getting his own smartphone requires a ton of written proposals and hurdle-jumping, leaving Yuri feeling irked over everything Keiichiro’s family puts him through.
If anything, Let’s Do It Already! is a romantic comedy about how far one will go for love. While a series like Kaguya-sama: Love is War goes to extreme lengths to push a couple together, this one goes hardcore with trying to pull them apart. There are even mysterious men-in-black that both hide and surround Keiichiro to protect him from the world, a visual that’s both funny and eyebrow-raising. But even when the powers that be attempt to break up this relationship, Yuri and Keiichiro find a way to push the pullers back.
For the most part, the concept work. It’s a cute twist on the usual rom-coms that force readers to wait for the main couple to get together. Only this time, we don’t have to wait to see if there’s a connection between the two of them. Instead, Yuri must wait until Keiichiro reaches the proper age before they can hug, kiss, and do other things couples should.
However, some of the gags can go on for a bit too long. Although it builds up to a both a sweet moment and a humorous punchline, the whole “limousine life” Keiichiro showcases gets more shrugs than laughs. There’s also the cell phone addiction that Keiichiro gets once he obtains the phone, a bit that’s been done many other times in manga, anime, and even Western comics and cartoons. (Again, it does give us a funny punchline involving a student-teacher meeting, but the bit could’ve been shortened just a tad.)
Thankfully, the first volume of Let’s Do It Already! has a lot of charm that keeps it from feeling long-winded. Keiichiro and Yuri are an endearing couple, and it’ll be funny to see what else the rich family throws at their son in order to ruin their relationship. But when there’s a will, there’s a way, and this couple goes to great lengths to follow, defy, and finagle the rules to their benefit. Well…so long as there aren’t too many black-suited men literally blocking the couple from achieving that
FINAL GRADE:
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
