Manga Review – It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me!

It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me!

It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me!
間違えて、ドS支配人に買われました (Machigaete, Do-S Shihainin ni Kawaremashita)
CHITOSE Piyoko
Josei – Romance, smut
3 Chapters (complete)
Manga Reborn

Summary:

Yuu decides to go on vacation after being rejected, and she is surprised when her hotel sends someone to pick her up. But the venue’s oddities continue to pile up, culminating with a man coming in to her room! Yuu tries to leave, but the manager says she has already signed a contract. If Yuu can’t pay with money, he says, she’ll have to pay with her body!

Warning: this review is of a series that is recommended for ages 18+ and is not safe for work!

Review:Not Safe for Work

An aside: it seems like this manga may been published under a couple different titles in Japan, but I went with the one that Manga Reborn’s English title was based on.

It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me! sounds like one of those bloated titles for a light novel. The setting feels like it would serve as the basis for or is based on some larger reverse harem multimedia project, like an otome game. After all, she becomes the only female member on staff, and the various men all have different personalities that fall into the popular categories: the cool, levelheaded main love interest, the friendly one, a secret ladykiller, etc.

Of course, not all reverse harems explode in popularity, but I could see the appeal of a girl at like a host hotel where the female protagonist somehow ends up as the only female employee. Besides the usual “girl goes around healing guys and/or opening up their hearts”, Yuu could also learn about the hotel business and deal with some weird and/or jealous-prone customers. Right off the top of my head, I can think of host club-based media and maybe some summer beach stand series, but not many manga — let alone reverse harems — about hotels. I could even see such a series being more for the older crowd, as, of course, it IS a hotel…

But this is supposed to be about It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me!, not some request list. So…

Right off the bat, Yuu reminds us of the importance of requesting identification. Or at least reading what you are signing. The real fault, as the title spoils, lies with the Manager, who picks up the wrong Nakabayashi. But Yuu doesn’t know this; all she knows is that she has to pay in full for her stay even if she leaves early. From the cover, Yuu looks like she couldn’t even stand up to a child, but she is puts up more resistance than I thought she would. She is understandably scared when she is told to use her body to pay, but instead she’s hired as an employee to do random jobs. Since poor Yuu is no longer a guest, she is forced to stay in the messy room of the hotel’s owner and manager, Natsuya.

Speaking of Natsuya, he is hard to understand though. Again, the cover is somewhat deceiving. He looks like a wolf, but an employee openly wonders if he’s ever been with a woman. According to the workers, Natsuya only cares about the hotel. I found it odd he cares so much about the hotel considering his mother abandoned him there after an encounter with the place’s previous owner, his father. Plus, considering his lack of interest in dating, flings, and/or being an escort, I wonder why he hadn’t just turned the place into a regular, perhaps swanky hotel years ago. Plus, for someone who reads books, we never see him actually read. I know this is a short piece, but why is he so messy in his room? Even if it’s far away from the guest rooms, you think there would be a smell that would waft through… So while he is bossy and often rude, he isn’t physically or mentally torturing Yuu like the title suggests.

But as the real woman who made the reservation arrives, she chooses Natsuya to be her companion for the night. I don’t really know how long he has been working at the hotel, but how was he never chosen before? Yuu has begun to take a romantic interest in her boss after about two days, and she agrees to be his practice partner. A couple of other things happen, and then the manga reaches its conclusion. I’ve read and played some games with rushed romances, but this is REALLY fast, and a time skip with them apart also dulls the romance even with its cute ending.

As much as I want to complain about Natsuya’s connection with readers, I do applaud the author for making him not the standard alpha, sadistic male lead. Yes, the way he a mistakenly-signed contract is not ideal, but technically, he’s right: she signed a contract. But the ones who try to force themselves on Yuu are the other workers, not Natsuya himself. Natsuya doesn’t even have a bust down the door and save the girl moment, a scene usually a staple of the genre. (He only helps her when Yuu accidentally drinks an aphrodisiac.) So, while Natsuya comes across as a bit mysterious, the couple’s dynamic feels fresher and less problematic than most of these josei manga.

As for the art, it’s good. The characters look like designs from an otome game, and the manga feels like a quick adaptation of a game with a common route before splitting off into a character route. Natsuya in particular reminded me of Uta no Prince-sama‘s Tokiya, and I kept hearing his lines in Tokiya’s (Miyano’s) voice. I wish we would have seen more of the hotel grounds, but I know that’s hard to do in a single volume. Since the two leads are both inexperienced, the smut scenes are not as… “adventurous” as in other titles. I guess to make up for that, we hear about a threesome and see a voyeuristic hotel guest. Chitose got her start in yaoi manga (a genre she still draws for today), but she is far more experienced than many of her Love Kyun Comic colleagues. I’m not a fan of this cover myself, but no one will be wincing at the actual art, unlike some other titles.

Final Comments:

I still think a lot of the smut could have been removed in favor of a longer shoujo manga serialization. But if there was a convention for all Do-S titular characters, Natsuya would be out-of-place. Yuu is also a better heroine than I thought she would be. So despite its flaws, It was His Mistake and Yet Now the Sadistic Manager Owns Me! didn’t make me rage like some of its contemporaries.

Reader Rating


1.67/5 (6)

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6 Comments

  1. Coco

    I thought I’d recognized the art. I didn’t know that Chitose-sensei branched into josei/shojo. ^^;

    Reply
    1. Krystallina (Post author)

      I was surprised at how many of these artists majored in (or got their start in) BL manga and then later got into shoujo/josei.

      Reply
      1. Coco

        Or vise versa. Start out in shoujo/josei and jump to BL.?

        Reply
  2. Leafさんの夢が。。。

    Wow, with a title like that I thought for sure this was going dark places haha glad that’s not the case

    Reply
    1. Krystallina (Post author)

      Haha, no, not quite *that* dark! XD

      Reply
      1. Leafさんの夢が。。。

        XD Hahaha I see

        Reply

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