Give Me a Hug, Mr. Frog! Manga Review (Minor Spoilers)

Synopsis

Takanashi is the pretty and popular student council president at school, but he tires easily of the fawning that his classmates direct at him. Instead, he spends his time and money at a nearby cafe, where buying the signature milk tea with the frog logo comes with a hug from the cafe’s frog mascot. Takanashi really enjoys the hugs and getting to feel the buff body beneath the costume. He soon discovers Mr. Frog’s identity as one of his classmates, and thus begins the sweet romance between Hiruma and Takanashi.

The Good

The title of this manga, Give Me a Hug, Mr. Frog!, will certainly catch your eye on a shelf, and it sets the tone for this particular romance. The interactions that popular student council president Takanashi has with Hiruma starts out with him paying for his time with milk tea in exchange for hugs. Takanashi accidentally sees more than he’s supposed to when he spots the buff Hiruma zipping into the Mr. Frog costume, and that leads him to start spending money on the drinks to monopolize the hugs that Mr. Frog gives out. It could just have ended there, but through a series of active steps between the two characters, they move beyond just hugging to a relationship where they actually talk, have disagreements, and resolve them in due time.

The art style reminds me a bit of the pop art style in the manga Girl Crush by Midori Tayama, and there are plenty of panels that are beautifully rendered to show off the comedy and action that appears as part of the story in Give Me a Hug, Mr. Frog!. There was a great callback to when the two first met, used when Takanashi responds to Hiruma asking him out officially. The manga rewards the reader for paying attention, and there are little moments like that throughout. Another example is them sitting in the cafe together, openly enjoying each other’s company.

The end of the main story comes with a spicy bonus winter break story (“Mr. Frog Wants Love!”) that is a great pay-off for all the relationship building that has come before. The comic artistically manages to avoid showing anything too explicit, but it is a beautifully drawn “first time” between Hiruma and Takanashi.

Somewhere in Between

Mr. Frog’s workplace must be pretty lax if they just let Hiruma run off whenever due to plot-related reasons, so if that kind of detail bothers you, this might not be the manga for you. There’s one instance of Takanashi getting wandering hands when hugging Hiruma in the Mr. Frog outfit, and I feel like anyone who has experienced harassment while working as a mascot or in retail will immediately be brought out of the story.

Takanashi does apologize, but he clearly knows he is pretty and uses it to his full advantage to solve any issues where he does something out of line. This also clearly works—Hiruma ends up wrapped around his finger, just as much as Takanashi likes Hiruma for his beautiful body. He doesn’t show his real face to his admirers at school, and while it’s supposed to be cute that he only shows his real face to his crush, it could come off as two-faced. Hiruma also informs Takanashi about the business gimmick behind the hugging—buying one drink nets you a set amount of time to hug. Takanashi takes this to mean buying more drinks makes it okay for him to hug Hiruma for longer. This happens directly after Takanashi gropes Hiruma, which is really jarring since it’s framing the groping as not only okay, but something cute.

On a more subtle note, heteronormativity shows up as a source of conflict, but it does resolve itself between the two leads. It appears in several ways even from the beginning of the story, but the two leads challenge it by being more open and not hiding their relationship.

I’m going to say that the relationship between Takanashi and Hiruma comes off as incredibly shallow. I know they’re teenagers, but it’s hard to tell how much of Hiruma asking Takanashi if he’s coming to the cafe is a genuine desire to see him outside of school and not just for the money he uses to buy drinks. If you’ve already become intrigued by the premise of a mascot costume employee that is secretly hot, I don’t think that this story point will matter that much in the face of how sweet and pretty the story is.

Give Me a Hug, Mr. Frog! is a breezy BL romance story between two teenagers who are navigating school life and part-time work together. The art is a joy to look at, but readers wanting a little more depth and non-traditional high school storybeats will have to look elsewhere. The manga is a quick read that neatly tells the tale of teenaged gay and horny first love that starts off with a shallow reason for meeting, but fills out over time to show two teenagers figuring it out together.

If you liked Give Me a Hug, Mr. Frog!, you may also like…

• Terano-kun and Kumazaki-kun by Yoriko
• The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All by Sumiko Arai
• Colossal by Rutile and Diane Truc

Credits

Story and Art: Enhi
Translation: Margaret Ngo
Lettering: Mercedes McGarry
Original Cover Design: Hachi Inami
Cover Design: Mariel Dágá
Copy Editor: Biddy MacAdam
Proofreader: Hayame
Production Designer: Brennan Thome
Editor: Suzanne Seals
Published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment

Thank you to Seven Seas Entertainment for providing a review copy. Receiving this copy had no effect on the reviewer’s opinions as expressed here. 

Article edited by: Cynthia Caraturo