Manga Review: The Heiress and the Chauffeur by Keiko Ishihara

The Heiress and the Chauffeur concerns the romance between the titular characters, as you’d expect.  What separates Keiko Ishihara’s first manga from other entries in the subgenre of “inequity romance” is that the romance can’t be said to develop during the story, as the love between the two seems a fact from the first pages.  What happens, instead, is that The Heiress—Sayaka Yoshimura—undergoes a change of consciousness during the series, losing some of her naïveté, so that she can recognize the love which the reader sees as blatant.

Disarming sidebars in which the author speaks informally about her uncertainty in creating her first manga may distract the reader from noticing that at times the tale is very sophisticated, due to this poignant portrayal of The Heiress’ change of consciousness.  The best example of this is when The Chauffeur—Shinobu Narutaki— steps onto the grounds of the boarding school to render aid to one of The Heiress’ classmates.  This is 1920s Japan, though, and his assistance needs to be punished because as a man of low social rank, his presence on the school grounds is considered  by the school mistress to be inappropriate for any reason.  The school mistress is about to whip Shinobu across the back of the hand, when Sayaka realizes that she must do it, because she “cannot bear someone else whipping him.”  As the whip descends, her mind goes to a childhood memory that is uncovered by this act of violence to her childhood servant and friend.  She recalled being a little girl.  Her father had come home from a trip, and then left again without speaking to her.  When she began to cry, the much younger Narutaki hugged her, and later that day he was punished for it.  After the reverie, she realizes that “I was the only one who didn’t understand the social barriers between us.”  The Chauffer had already learned his lesson years ago. While she learns this lesson of social inequity at the end of chapter one, it takes her much longer to realize the depths of her feelings for Narutaki; feelings which he has knowingly reciprocated for her since the same day of her memory.  If Sayaka wasn’t so clouded with nescience, whipping Narutaki would have taught her both lessons—that of inequity and love—just as Narutaki learned them on the same day long ago.  Instead, she only learns the one lesson, but it does set the stage for the remainder of her awakening.

Overall, this is a satisfying shojo manga, with one exception: the main story only occupies 75% of the volume.  32 pages are devoted to a short story by the author called “Luca and the Bandit,” which is an interesting and entertaining read, but thematically different.  Presented in this manner it feels like filler.  While my rating for the volume as a whole is a 7 out of 10, The Heiress and the Chauffeur manga novella that occupies the first 150 pages or so would get an 8 out of 10 from me if presented by itself.

The Heiress and The Chauffeur Volume 1 arrived on shelves last week, and you can buy it at bookstores or comic shops, or you can get a digital edition at viz.com.