The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Tiger & Dragon

What's It About? 

A shoujo manga about a love triangle between childhood friends—including one who disappeared!

When Konomi was five years old, her best friend and neighbor Kagetora moved away. After ten years with no communication, Konomi decides it's time to finally move on from her childhood crush. Luckily, with her other childhood friend Tatsuomi waiting in the wings, it looks like romance is right around the corner. That is, until Kagetora suddenly reappears, and Konomi's love life is thrown into chaos!

Tiger & Dragon has a story and art by Mizuki Hoshino, with English translation by Nicole Frasik. This volume was lettered by Christa Miesner. Published by Seven Seas (October 29, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

The love triangle is a tried-and-true staple of, well, any romance. It does seem like shoujo manga has the market cornered though; tales of ordinary high school girls torn between a hot guy with dark hair and a hot guy with light hair feel nearly inescapable. Tiger & Dragon is one such story, and it's trying to take a lighter approach to the old standard. I appreciate that, but I also feel like the results are very mixed.

Mostly, for me, that comes down to the backstory the characters are working with. Konomi, the heroine, was separated from her crush Tora when they were five years old, as is required by Manga Romance Law, and she's spent the last ten years pining for him, firmly believing that he's her destiny. However, her other childhood friend Mikkun has a crush on her, and after a decade of unfounded gossip, Konomi starts to think that she ought to give up on Tora and go out with Mikkun. But wait! Tora comes back unexpectedly, and he still thinks Konomi is his destined partner, so now the poor girl is stuck between two boys…but since her parents split up and abandoned her after cheating on each other, she's utterly convinced that her inability to chose between two guys makes her a two-timing no-good cheater and that the world will end because of it.

It's clearly meant to be funny. Konomi is so sure that this situation is entirely her fault and possibly inherited from her parents that she's not certain what to do. Her friend Rinko (who's one of those characters who manages to be loud even in a silent medium) tells her that she's being ridiculous, but it's just not getting through. Konomi therefore spends most of the volume being upset with herself, not seeing that the boys aren't so great themselves for putting her in this position and respecting her issues, and the whole thing just feels like a mess. Shoujo romance gets accused of being over-the-top and dramatic, and this volume is trying to lean into it while winking and nudging about it. It kind of works, but not nearly well enough.

At its heart, this book simply feels a little too mean for its own good. Konomi is yanked back and forth between people and ideas, and she's honestly trying her best with all her baggage. Tora's a cipher, but there are hints that his life in England wasn't a bed of roses, and Mikkun is the only character who has it at least sort of together. If this heads down the throuple route, it could be something at least different, but as it stands, I'd rather see Konomi swear off love and get away from the boys altogether.

This story should not be confused for Tora Dora, even though that series also uses the pun about a tiger and a dragon together. Nor should it be confused with Tiger & Bunny, a series about a pair of superheroes. Instead, this manga is about a cute love triangle between the hapless Konomi and two of her childhood friends, Kagetora and Tatsuomi. There's a lot to unpack here, both from the different ways that the boys show their affection towards Konomi (Kagetora is much more up-front with physical affection, and Tatsuomi is much more subtle and calculating) and from the subtle ways that the boys start competing with each other. While a lot of the story is Konomi fretting over having to choose between two people that she cares about outside of the romantic situations, the story also shows that there's a lot more to Konomi than just idly wringing her wrists (she's dealing with the childhood trauma of both her parents having a messy divorce after they both cheated on each other).

Tiger & Dragon has the potential to get a bit darker, especially with the ending reveal that Tatsuomi is very dedicated to pursuing Konomi romantically—but not too dark. The series still hinges on Konomi being a bit of a goof, after all. I think the art is a bit of a weak spot where so many of the panels and pages being white voids with few-to-none backgrounds. But the story is engaging, the guys are appealing, and the tension is gripping. Recommended.

You can turn some of the most cliché and mundane setups into something entertaining as long as you lean into the potential absurdity of everything. That is what Tiger and Dragon does. It's the classic love triangle setup of an adorable girl caught between two attractive boys. How she finds herself in this situation and her reaction to the realization are priceless. I was laughing and smiling by page ten and by the end, I was ready with popcorn in hand for the cat fighting about to start.

Some of the tropes this story plays with the idea of having a soulmate or someone you're destined to be together with. However, our main character operates under such extremes that she inadvertently ends up caught between a childhood friend she had been pining for about a decade, and another childhood friend who had always been there for her. The story lays out our lead character's flaws without making her come off as unlikable. She is one hundred percent at fault for creating the situation she finds herself in because she is just an immature girl who operates under such extremes. Plus, when she realizes that she has fucked up, she commits to making amends for it in a very grounded and believable way. One of the ways the story tries to establish a status quo between our three characters is because the lead's parents broke up over both of them having affairs, so she doesn't want to end up in a situation with either of these two boys where she feels like she is cheating on the other.

The two boys on the other hand are ready to be at each other's throats, and I am here for the drama. I lean towards feeling sympathy for one boy over the other as one seems to be in a situation with more grounded circumstances while the other operates more under the extreme logic that our lead does. We see their flaws in a way that makes them feel sympathetic. Both of them are possessive, but not in an overly creepy way and there seem to be repercussions for lines being crossed. Overall, this is a pretty good example of a love triangle done right. If you're a fan of romantic comedies or slice of life, then this is right up your alley and deserves a shot. I'll certainly be looking forward to it when it comes out.