Dear
Manga series by Cocoa Fujiwara consisting of two parts:
Watashi no Ookami-san ("My Wolf-san")
Komomo, a level 0 hero, has taken up a life of adventure, hoping to earn enough money to eventually fulfill her dream of buying a house. Unfortunately, she's too poor to take the level-up qualification exam, so she's stuck with "quests" which are really basically community service projects. Hoping to change her lot, she enters the castle of the demon-lord. She charges him with her sword raised... and he sweeps her into a hug, asking why she doesn't come to visit him more often. Turns out the Big Bad is a Bishonen named Subaru who's more interested in sitting under the Kotatsu watching television and glomping on Komomo than trying to take over the world, much to the consternation of his mooks. When they gather together and demand that he ban her from the castle, he agrees... and resigns his post so he can go with her. Thus, Komomo sets out into the world with her "level 2000" definitely-not-her-boyfriend, who is effectively her Disc One Nuke since he can instantly vaporize anything that threatens her. (Which annoys her, she doesn't want to twink).
The series started out as a short-run gag manga consisting of a mash-up of Shoujo romance and every single video game RPG cliché you've ever seen, but proved popular enough to spawn a second volume, telling the tale of Purino, one of Subaru's chief lieutenants, a very clumsy girl who sets out to find him hoping he can cure her oncoming lycanthropy. Afterwards transitioning into...
Dear
The sequel series begins with a young girl Chiruha who also turns out to be the last surviving member of the lycanthrope race and her childhood friend Kisara, who has been Cursed with Awesome. They are later joined by the returning cast: Komomo, Subaru, Carol, Kurenai and Purino. A somewhat more serious twelve volume series, with longer story arcs and a little more work on the world being consistent and logical, though with plenty of gags thrown in, too.
Not to be confused with DearS.
- Author Avatar: In the mailbag sections, Fujiwara usually portrays herself as one of the demons in that volume.
- Attractive Bent Gender: Kisara, just Kisara.
- Bastard Boyfriend: Komomo sometimes imagines Subaru this way when he's messing with her a bit, though in reality he's incredibly caring and considerate toward her.
- Bishonen: The whole main male cast.
- Butt Monkey: Kurenai, for Carol and Subaru mostly.
- Cute Little Fangs: Chiruha.
- The Cutie: Chiruha, Komomo, and, well, pretty much every female character. Fujiwara even describes them as "prettyish lolitas".
- Dojikko: Purino.
- Fantastic Racism: Komomo gets this for being a "magic holder," even though she never once uses any magic.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Chiruha and Kisara. Also proves to be an important point later when Chiruha turns out to be unable to heal herself because she had passed her immortality to Kisara.
- Kotatsu: Subaru spends most of his time under one in the first chapter.
- Make a Wish: Chiruha wishes for someone who will love her.
- Narrator All Along: Last two pages of the first chapter, then continuing to the beginning of the second.
- Noble Demon: Subaru takes this and Affably Evil to its logical (and hilarious) extreme.
- Ojou: Purino. Though not many in the Demon Lord's castle knows about her wealth - which is a good thing.
- Our Demons Are Different: They're... Bishonen and cute, clumsy girls? Though some genuine High Octane Nightmare Fuel demons are encountered later.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Lycanthropes are a friendly race of moe anthropomorphs.
- Schizo-Tech: A high-fantasy world with sword-wielding warriors... and cable television, handguns, and Humongous Mecha. This is partly because it was originally supposed to be a quick gag manga, so the author was concentrating more on Rule of Funny than proper world building.
- Secretly Dying: Subaru, though he's trying to keep it from Komomo.
- Slap Slap Kiss: Komomo to Subaru. He's Made of Iron so it mostly amuses him.
- Stepford Smiler: Chiruha. Having the Healing Factor means she ends up the punching bag of random people who won't leave evidence behind because those bruises are just going to fade away.
- Also Subaru, since his arm is slowly consuming him but he wants to see Komomo smiling for his time remaining.
- Tsundere: Komomo, though she tends to flip between the A and B types a lot.