Hana Yamada has just moved to the big city, ready to make her Tokyo debut, and is confident that her strange condition is finally in control. With her green tea in hand, Hana can combat the hives that break out whenever she makes contact with a cute boy. Her first day isn't so spectacular however, and a series of trips and falls ends with Hana being forced by her older sister to work for free at a relaxation room run by a group of handsome young men – the fabulous Shinnosuke and the standoffish Haru. Despite Haru's attitude, Hana finds herself being drawn to his demeanor – but can she get close to someone who she can't actually touch? In the relaxing atmosphere of Haru Hana, anything can happen.

Highlights:

Hana's first day at school in Tokyo goes disastrously wrong as she is late for class, then stumbles into the infirmary – and catches a cute boy in an intimate moment with another girl! Flustered, Hana manages to find her way to her class, where she pretty much cements her high school status as the screwball klutz of Room 1-C. She goes home to find out that her sister's got her a job already, and she's blindly led to her new place of employment – where she meets her new boss Shinnosuke, a crossdressing young man, and his co-worker Haru, also known as the boy from the school clinic. Haru soon finds out that she is working for a massage parlor meant to relax and relieve people of their emotional troubles through Shinnosuke's tea and Haru's magic touch. As Hana gets to work, she is hit by another bombshell: she's not getting paid for her work – her sister has literally sold her to the shop for six months. In her shock, Hana trips and falls back, only to be caught by Haru, which makes her break out in hives and forces her to explain her condition. Watching Haru do his stuff makes Hana intrigued about who he is, but she soon figures out that his past is a murky patch of amnesia and mystery.

Empathising with customers through his massaging tends to wear Haru out, and one day it exhausts him so much that he collapses onto the floor during a session. Through Hana's violin playing, she is able to not only energize Haru but bring a bright new atmosphere to the shop. In honor of how well they work together, Shinnosuke decides to name the shop Haru Hana. The more time Hana spends with Haru at both school and at work, the more she learns about him, like his reluctance to have his photo taken and his desire to remember his past. When ballerina Nakajima enters the picture and openly admits her feelings for Haru, Hana feels uncomfortable with this and does not understand why. Hana decides she has to break free of her condition no matter what – then finds out the hard way that she's only allergic to Haru's touch, which severely strains their already rocky relationship. However, they manage to start to bond as they take care of a dog that has been beaten by its owner and abandoned.

Haru's birthday comes up and Hana decides to practice as much as she can so that she can play on the violin the song that Haru remembers from his childhood. The Haru Hana shop, meanwhile, finds competition in the form of a contract masseur that has been hired by Nakajima's ballet company. As Nakajima and Haru seem to grow closer, Hana finds that her heart aches at the sight of them together but she still does not understand why. When Hana's grandmother asks that she come back to Osaka, Hana feels conflicted between going home and staying at the shop. Hana looks to Haru for guidance, but is shocked to find him kissing Nakajima and, heartbroken, almost leaves town until Haru tells her the truth. Later, Haru's family history rears its ugly head when the boy is kidnapped by his relatives and the truth comes out about his past, and it falls onto Hana to save Haru from his family as well as help him discover what happened to him many years ago.

Overview:

Here we have a story that revolves around a girl who is allergic to boys and is forced to work with boys in a new and strange environment – it sounds terribly similar to screwball comedy series Maria†Holic, except without being in an all-girls school or having an obligatory "trap" character in its cast (you could argue somewhat that the utterly flamboyant Shinnosuke fits the criteria, but he only wears a girls' wig for one short scene). However, as much as Maria†Holic is lewd and perverted in nature,Haru Hana is sweet and clumsy with its light airy humor and odd scenarios. Its main protagonist, Hana, is a naive girl from the country who blows into city life with a lack of tact and a whole lot of stumbles and tumbles as well; her cheerful disposition and refusal to believe that people are not inheritably good makes her reminiscent of a more famous shoujo heroine from a certain series about the Zodiac wheel. However, Hana is no Tohru Honda; she can also get angry and feisty when the occasion calls for it, and it's usually against Haru's cold indifference or lack of sympathy that brings out the reverse tsundere in her personality.

Does the series do anything original? Not really. It has all the classic tropes found in a shojo series: girl and boy meet in whacky circumstances and are forced to work together; a rival approaches in the form of another girl and becomes a detriment to relationship growth; the oh-so popular school festival; someone sees two people kiss and draws the wrong conclusions. In fact, before the final act opens, the only truly original thing Haru Hana does is when Hana opens a fortune-telling booth complete with "men only" sign just so she can confront her condition and hopefully rid herself of it. However, in said final act – which contains the answers to Haru's memory problems as well as introduces us to his troubled family's secrets – is an unexpected change of mood against the rest of the series' flowers and sunshine feel. Haru's back story, once revealed, is dark and depressing and almost drags the book down into a heavier tone previously unheard of on Haru Hana's pages. Yet the manga-ka manages to inject some needed humor into the story at the critical moment, and the series ends on a light note – not entirely happy considering what will soon happen to Haru's family, but once again the magic of the relaxation shop proves to bring people closer than ever – even if one can't physically touch the other without breaking out into hives.

Some will find Haru's personality grating, or think the premise too silly to warrant further investigation. There is also the fact that the ending can be seen as non-conclusive when it comes to certain things. I'm also thrown off by the fact that Tokyopop decided to release all three volumes at once in an omnibus format, which begs the question: did Tokyopop not have enough confidence in the series to sell well on a volume by volume basis? It is not like the series has to be read all in one sitting, bound together in one volume, and it is rare to see the big book treatment for a series that hasn't been previously released in single volumes. Still, at the price Tokyopop has it at, it is certainly affordable even for a three-in-one book.

What this series does, it does with charm and whimsy. Even the art, simple at times but effective and emotional, reflects this. It maintains a balance between the comical and serious that only threatens to tip over near the end but never does. Shojo fans will certainly want to pick this up and give it a read; all others may want to just borrow it from their shojo-loving friends if they're interested. For a series that is as cute and dramatic as Haru Hana, it certainly seems ripe for an anime adaptation one of these days.

ComicsOnline gives Haru Hana – The Complete Collection 3.5 out of 5 blooming flowers of joy. Look for this manga on Amazon!