My Wife Is Wagatsuma-san, Vol. 1

My Wife Is Wagatsuma-san, Vol. 1 is a situational romantic comedy about a 17-year-old loser, Hitoshi Aoshima, who time slips 10 years into the future to find that he's married to the prettiest girl in school, Ai Wagatsuma.  It's the first of 13 volumes, and this volume focuses on setting up the situation.  I read it for free on Comixology Unlimited, which for around $6 a month lets you read the first volume or two in a bunch of different series.  I've read a few romcom mangas in my time, and this series has sold pretty well in digital format.

Comedy is all about perception.  When a character's perceived status is higher than his actual status, comedy is bringing him down to the actual status.  Black comedy is when you bring that character down below his actual status.  For instance.  Frazier Crane on the TV show Cheers might be a well-educated and scholarly psychiatrist, but his actual status is just another guy in a blue-collar bar.  For years, the writers on the show crafted comedy between these differences.  Black comedy would be to make him wet his pants afterward, and that never happened on Cheers.

Romantic comedy is usually misidentified as a simple blend of romance and comedy, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Its structure is totally different.  It starts with the main character's perceived status being below what his actual status is and bringing it up to or above that actual status.  My Wife Is Wagatsuma-san begins with picture-perfect romantic comedy, with Hitoshi washing the towels and water bottles of the volleyball team because he isn't good enough to be a full member of the squad.  Is it formulaic?  Sure, but as Roger Ebert once said, "some movies are meant to be formulaic."

See, the initial comedy in a romcom is black comedy, because you have to take the main character's status down to build it up again.  Think of how pathetic any romcom star's life is as the romcom unfolds.  It's funny because his status keeps getting lower and lower.  Hitoshi follows Ai into a restaurant to try and say, "hello," to her, but he suddenly loses track of the girl he loves and in a restaurant, to boot.  A few panels later, he is seated in the fine establishment with a napkin tucked into his shirt.  Does he even have money to pay for the meal?  It doesn't matter because he'll do anything to save face.

So, will I actually pay to read the rest of this series?  I'm not quite sure yet.  On Amazon, the first eight or so volumes are $6.99 each, with the later ones costing $10.99.  I like the fact that if I'm ever in the mood for some Japanese romcom, I can just spend $7 and get another volume of a series I'm starting to like, but with Comixology Unlimited, I can sample a number of romcoms for free.  I think I like this one.