Yamanko!
Neneko Kaneko is a high school student possessed by a yamanko or "yama no ko" mountain spirit from a rural family full of other yamankos, who moves in with her aunt in the city to go to high school. There she's joined by the gloomy would-be poet Makoto Watanabe and the overly cheerful and child-like Chimi Kitou. Chimi can see spiritual forces out of one eye, which lets her spot the tail of Nene's possessing spirit. As well, Makoto is strong with a "shadow essence" that calms spirits by mere proximity... And it just so happens that the yamanko's ears and tail appear on Nene whenever she loses her cool, requiring her to stay near Makoto in public to keep them from appearing.
Yamanko! is a Slice of Life Seinen Shoujo Ai comedy manga written by Zappa Go (the writer of Please Teacher!, Chocotto Sister, and Domina no Do) and drawn by Itou Ryou.
- A-Cup Angst: Makoto. Even though Nene doesn't seem to mind
- All Just a Dream: Makoto spends a chapter dreaming she'd been shrunk to the size of a small doll. Makoto's Love Confession at the end of chapter 12 turns out to be a dream Nene was having.
- Beach Episode: Chapter 7
- Berserk Button: Don't make Neneko drop her crepe
- Bifauxnen: Makoto
- Blessed with Suck: Makoto has a powerful "shadow essence," which helps Nene suppress her yamanko traits but makes Makoto overall gloomy and prone to depression.
- Blinding Bangs/Peek-a-Bangs: Makoto
- Book Dumb: Nene
- Cannot Spit It Out: Between Neneko and Makoto, but generally more from Nene's side
- Catgirl: Neneko and her aunt Nonoko, as a consequence of being yamankos
- Class Is in Room X-01
- Cloudcuckoolander: Chimi
- Cool Big Sis: Nonoko behaves likes this toward Neneko, even though she is her aunt.
- Crash Into Hello: Nene and Makoto meet when Nene falls out of a tree on top of Makoto.
- Cursed with Awesome: Nene has superior reflexes, balance, and strength, and heightened senses, in exchange for cat ears and tail that come out when she uses her powers or if she loses control of her feelings. Given that she's a student in a romantic comedy and not a superhero, it's inconvenient more often than not.
- Diving Save
- Evil Eye: Chimi can see spirits out of her left eye.
- First Episode Spoiler: Makoto is a girl.
- Freud Was Right: Invoked and parodied. Ogawa spots Nene's tail a couple times when it slips out and describes it as "big and black and fully erect" to Tanaka, who assumes Ogawa is feverish or sexually frustrated.
- Genki Girl: Chimi
- Indirect Kiss: From Nene with Makoto's shaved ice, but stolen by Chimi.
- Les Yay: The main premise of the series.
- Meganekko: Tanaka
- Not What It Looks Like: Ogawa regularly walks in on Makoto suppressing Nene's ears and tail.
- Older Than They Look: Chimi looks about 10 years old. She's 16.
- Panty Shot: Part of how Nene and Makoto meet.
- Personality Powers: Is Makoto gloomy because of her strong shadow essence or does she have a strong shadow essence because she's gloomy? Nonoko implies it could go both ways.
- Power Incontinence: Nene's ears and tail pop out when she's particularly excited, frightened, or even just too relaxed.
- Power Nullifier: Makoto's shadow essence to Nene's yamanko sun essence, and implied to be able to do so for other spirits.
- Sweet Tooth: Nene tends to idly snack all the time, while Chimi makes a big gluttonous show of it, piling boxes and bags of candy into their shopping cart. Guess which one has to go to the dentist with a cavity.
- Tanuki: Rin Roppin needs to fill a gem with light from performing tricks on people so she can become heir of her tanuki family.
- Those Two Girls: Iku Ogawa and Kanori Tanaka
- Will They or Won't They?: Between Neneko and Makoto.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Nene