A review of the first volume & first impressions
Serialized in Shogakukan's Petit Comic since 2022, Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell (Yonoi Tsukihiko no Shiawase na Jigoku) is a romcom about a pair of opposites being set up for marriage. Seven Seas published the series as single large-trim, 5.875 x 8.25in volumes. Seven Seas published the first volume on November 12, 2024, and the company will publish the second volume on April 1, 2025. No foolin', this is our first Hina Sakurada manga in English. Hina Sakurada is best known for the 13-volume romcom about a lady and her butler Shitsuji-tachi no Chinmoku (The Silence of the Butlers). (Shitsuji-tachi no Chinmoku ran in Shogakukan's Cheese! magazine from 2016 to 2020.) While Hina Sakurada may be relatively unknown in the West (i.e. United States and similar English-language markets), Petit Comic is not.
You may recall Petit Comic being home to several mangaka and works published in print by Viz under the Shojo Beat imprint, and they are Maki Enjoji (Happy Marriage?!, SP Baby, and An Incurable Case of Love), Ohmi Tomu (Midnight Secretary, Spell of Desire), Everyone's Geting Married by Izumi Miyazono, and my personal favorite Butterflies, Flowers by Yuki Yoshihara. Chances are you have read some, if not all, of these. (Side note: I have personally read all of Maki Enjoji's works in addition to Izumi Miyazono's Everyone's Getting Married and Yuki Yoshihara's Butterflies, Flowers. I dropped Spell of Desire, and I skipped through Midnight Secretary. Ohmi Tomu just doesn't grab me unfortunately.)
If you enjoy road to marriage stories or (un)happily ever after marriage stories like Happy Marriage?! by Maki Enjoji, then you may also enjoy Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell provided that you enjoy comedy, specifically screwball comedies. With the last major Petit Comic release being An Incurable Case of Love (ran 2016-2019 in the magazine and released in English from 2019-2021), I am very excited to be getting a fresh, hot-off-the-presses release from the magazine and from a new-to-me (and most people) mangaka to boot.
Seven Seas describes the story:
In this josei romantic comedy manga, marriage comes before love for a pair of total opposites!
For the sake of her family’s farm, Hanabata Mikan has been arranged to marry the heir of a food and holdings company, Yonoi Tsukihiko. Mikan refuses, saying she already has a man she loves, only for Tsukihiko to laugh in her face! He finds romance and love unnecessary and has no intentions of changing his views. But Mikan can’t get married to a man who doesn’t believe in love…right? Is this pair doomed to rot, or can a love ripen between two total opposites?
Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell isn't anything special.
Wait.
That didn't come out right. Let me back that up.
Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell isn't so special that a company known for printing smut, weird, niche, short, and random series, especially random series that nobody asked for (but didn't know they needed) like Seven Seas had to be tasked with publishing it. Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell could have been published by Viz.
In fact, I wish the series was published by Viz if only for selfish reasons like exposure and being way cheaper. (Seven Seas's large-trim volumes are $14.99/vol, $2 more than the regular-sized volumes. By contrast, most single volume Viz manga under the Shojo Beat imprint is $11.99/vol.) Hell, the series could have been published by Yen Press. Then again, we may have missed out on the large-trim format and possibly getting the series quickly. Then again, the release date between volume 1 and 2 is a little to be desired given how awkward the first volume ends.
The first volume just ends with Mikan having an argument with Tsukihiko and headbutting him in frustration. Not the funniest joke to land on, and it doesn't give you much to think about or anticipate going into the next volume unlike Chapter 3. Chapter 3 ends with Mikan getting a new job. That new job is at the same subsidiary that Tsukihiko is the President of. Much funnier set up and pay off. Had the story ended at Chapter 3, the rest of the manga could have been padded with Sakurada's numerous short stories. As it stands now, the first volume ends with Chapter 4 and a bonus crossover story featuring Tsukihiko and the lead of Shitsuji-tachi no Chinmoku. Now, I also want to read Shitsuji-tachi no Chinmoku. (The tbr pile never ends!)
So, if you read the first volume of Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell and don't know how to feel about the series, I completely understand. There just isn't much to go on. The series has the potential to lean towards melodrama like Happy Marriage?! (please don't), or it can lean heavily into farcical, balls-to-the-walls comedy. I'm really hoping and thinking it's the latter given how our heroine is a straight up bimbo.
Mikan Hanabata is an airhead and a romantic. She is spoiled by her family (and Tsukihiko's grandfather 😂). She has no job or career, and she isn't very skilled or talented. Her special talent thus far seems to be her sense of taste, which is handy for a fruit farm and a snack corporation. She's carefree and so unserious.
By contrast, Tsukihiko Yonoi is a career-driven, ambitious, and serious young man. Too serious, in fact. He is the President of Moon Food, a subsidiary of Yonoi Holdings. Yonoi Holdings is owned by his grandfather and staffed by a different branch of the family. Tsuhikihiko has ambitions of becoming the head of the main corporation, but he has a few obstacles in his way such as entertaining his grandfather's wishes to get married and have an heir. A battle of wills and the sexes clash when Mikan and Tsukihiko get together, and they have chemistry. Good bed chem too. So far, the humor stems from Mikan and Tsukihiko clashing over their ideals and the meddling grandfathers.
Besides the characters and story, the art helps set this story apart. The art is fantastic. Characters are sharp, expressive, and detailed. I am weak in the knees for a male MC who looks good and looks hot while smoking. The large format was an excellent choice for this manga.
The TLDR
Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell v.1 is a josei manga about two opposites being set up for marriage that fans of Petit Comic and Maki Enjoji may enjoy. If you're looking for a screwy romcom featuring adult characters, then add Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell to your tbr this year. I really enjoyed reading this first volume of Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell in spite of Chapter 4's abrupt ending. My interest in Hina Sakurada's other works, specifically Shitsuji-tachi no Chinmoku (The Silence of the Butlers), was peaked with the bonus story in this volume. I'm looking forward to seeing where this manga goes. (The two aren't married...yet.) Hopefully, you will too!
Check out Yonoi Tsukihiko's Happy Hell via Seven Seas' website here.
Happy Reading and Happy New Year!
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