The Wallflower Makes Her Digital Debut April 12

Kodansha USA has announced plans to introduce the classic shojo manga The Wallflower to the digital market next week. Created by Tomoko Hayakawa, the series lasted 36 volumes.

In broad terms, The Wallflower is a Japanese take on My Fair Lady (or to be more accurate, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, which the movie based its story on). Four friends have been hired to their dream job, which they consider their dream mostly because it involves residence in a posh, spacious mansion. They figure the employment they’ve been assigned to within should be no problem either….but they haven’t met her yet.

The mansion’s owner has a niece who he’d like to bring into the social scene, but only if she can be taught to look and act respectable to that sort of uppity crowd. “Enter Sunako Nakahara, the agoraphobic, horror-movie-loving, pockmark-faced, frizzy-haired, fashion-illiterate recluse who tends to break into explosive nosebleeds whenever she sees anyone attractive. This project is going to take more than our four heroes ever expected: it needs a miracle!”

All this aside….who put the idea into Japanese culture that nosebleeds are what happens when you get hot for someone? The blood tends to rush to the crotch, not the nose. Anyway…

Find out if this crew can turn Nakahara into a beauty when The Wallflower premieres in digital format April 12. The manga will be available on Bookwalker, Kindle, Apple Books, Google Play, Nook, Kobo, izneo, MyAnimeList and more. Also, there’s nothing wrong with being different (or goth, or “not beautiful”), but you didn’t need me to tell you that.