Ken and Yukari are childhood friends who formed a club known as “Abiko and Fujimoto”! They take part in doujinshi events and, with their average skills, struggle to sell their works. However, as long as they stay together Yukari is ok with what’s going on. This changes when Ken mentions that he’s taking an exam to go to prep school, which means Yukari won’t actually be with him forever. She’ll have to make a drastic decision if she wants Ken’s undivided attention.
And thus kicks off Yukari’s journey to become a big-shot doujinshi artist!
I’m not quite feeling Pen Love after this first volume. Doujinshi manga stories are always fascinating stuff, and this one focuses on two who are awful at it. It makes sense since they start in middle school, but their works never sell. But from a storytelling perspective we can see how it is for artists who start at the bottom, where no one looks at their works and little money is made, and we even get an idea of those at the top, where boxes of doujinshi are stacked behind them, waiting to be sold. There’s not too much manga about doujin available in English, and while this likely might be unrealistic at points, there are enough tidbits in here that are solid enough.
However, the major focus is the romance, or the lack thereof, between Ken and Yukari. Yukari ended up kissing Ken in grade school after he complimented the structure of her early works. They’ve been friends since then and clearly lean on each other to an extent, but this begins to change when two things happen: the first is when Ken says he wants to attend a prep school in Tokyo, and the second is when he reads (what one can assume because of the cover) a hardcore doujinshi. Both of these events and one in the last chapter essentially show Yukari’s love for Ken was one-sided.
It makes sense considering she only remembers him hitting her on the head. The hitting on the head gag pops up frequently in Pen Love, and much to its detriment. It’s usually not funny. When Akira unleashes her violence on Haruo in Hi Score Girl it sometimes misses but the timing is usually on point and it feels more gag like; here the timing is always awkward. It also doesn’t help when none of these aspects feel like they matter. Something about the dynamic just feels off, and makes it hard to care about these two.
The art is nice to look at, and while there are ecchi moments, it’s not something that dominates this manga. The only times the style doesn’t work is any of its romcom scenes or even when these two characters break down. So between that and the romance, it’s hard to say Pen Love is worth everyone’s time. It’s not a bad manga, and Yukari’s new goal is fascinating considering her poor motivations and mediocre art skills. But it ultimately does enough to be lackluster in some key aspects.