Krystallina: Behind the Scenes!! lacks the comedy of Ouran High School Host Club, the drama of Millennium Snow, and the romance of both. Only the last one I don’t mind.
Ranmaru just wants to stay in the shadows. But he ends up joining the Art Squad, a college club that does the visuals for film clubs. The Art Squad has to create sets and design costumes within a time limit and a budget, and things don’t always progress smoothly. It’s a refreshing change from the “has enough money to do anything” Host Club. (Although I couldn’t help wondering how Ruka could afford to keep making so many dresses for one film.)
It feels like Hatori is trying to include as many eccentric characters as possible (a bully, a delinquent, horror-genre lover, etc.), but one volume isn’t enough time to get to know an entire club, see them do their jobs, meet clients, and plus allow Ranmaru to evolve. Ranmaru learning to be confident is a key part of the manga (along with the mystery of the landlady’s daughter), but the story is just being pulled in two different directions. Is Behind the Scenes!! a screwball comedy or a slice-of-life story? Quite frankly, I’d like to see the series take a more serious turn rather than trying to force a laugh from a right-angle lover. If Hatori wants to do a college club comedy, she should just write Ouran College Host Club.
Justin: Behind The Scenes tells the story of reluctant and frightened university student Ranmaru Kurisu, who ruins a take done by the school’s film club. In doing this, he is forced to work under the Chief of Shichikoku University’s Art Squad, Ryuji Goda, which leads us to find out that Ranmaru has a knack for creating and producing. Whether it’s simply creating cranes in a matter of minutes to using a part of the school to create a hot spring, the focus is squarely on how he shows his talent to the the Art Squad. The problem is I find his relationship with Soh, who from reading the first three chapters is maybe related, far more interesting than what’s going on at school. Why does Soh act so cold to Ranmaru, even though she claims she hates boys?
Well, instead of getting that dynamic, we instead get a chuckle here, uninteresting dialogue in the middle, then a creative idea out of Ranmaru’s head, and that’s Behind The Scenes in the end. It will probably change the more you read, but I can only hope they focus on the interesting part more than anything lame going on with the Art Squad and Ranmaru.