Terumi Minamoto is a young man with a feminine face enough to make people think he's a girl. Because of his face, he has never gotten intimate with women, as they bullied him in an act of jealously. He developed a fear of women due to the trauma. Just as he enters college and makes a promise to himself to overcome the trauma of his past, his father remarries and asks him to move out of the house. Terumi is arranged to live with his aunt Kaoruko Fujiwara for the time being. She is an extremely beautiful woman who is also a non-tenured professor at his college. When he arrives at her apartment, she drags him into a special project in which he must seduce fourteen different women in the same fashion of the protagonist of The Tale of Genji.
Main Characters
Terumi Minamoto (源光海, Minamoto Terumi)The main male protagonist, Terumi is a university student who was always bullied by girls since middle school because of his girlish appearance, thus he never got intimate with a woman. Until he moved to Kaoruko's house, where he is tasked by her to collaborate with her project of re-enacting
The Tale of Genji in real life, while losing his fear of women in the occasion. His surname derives from the
Minamoto clan that
Hikaru Genji adopted for being demoted from succession.
Kaoruko Fujiwara (藤原香子, Fujiwara Kaoruko)The main female protagonist, she is Terumi's aunt and a literature teacher at his university, specialized in researching
The Tale of Genji. She recruits Terumi to participate in her experiment by seducing fourteen different women, each related to one of Genji's lovers from the tale. A quite beautiful and mature woman herself, Kaoruko shows no bounds in helping Terumi to grow accustomed to the opposite sex, to the point of using her own body to it, despite the fact that they are aunt and nephew. At a young age she chose not to be with a man, but changed her mind in adulthood. There have been hints that she might have feelings for Terumi.
Labeled as "Targets" by Kaoruko, each one of them share some similarities with one of the women seduced by Hikaru Genji, and she instructs Terumi to get into relationships with them, for the sake of her research.
Asahi Momozono (桃園 朝日, Momozono Asahi, 21-year-old)The first target and Terumi's cousin, she was close friends with him when they were kids, but got separated since then. After several failed attempts to seduce her, Terumi hears from her that she will only accept being his girlfriend if they do not have sex at all, to which he refuses. While Terumi got himself busy with other targets, she eventually develops feelings for him. She's based on Asagao no Kimi from the Tale of Genji.
Aoi Kiriyama (桐山 葵, Kiriyama Aoi, 24-year-old)Kaoruko's friend and the second target, she owns her own nail salon and because of this, she is too busy to take care of her house chores, thus Terumi offers himself to be her assistant in order to get close to her. However, Aoi has a
father complex which ends up hindering his plans to have sex with her. She is based on
Aoi no Ue from the Tale of Genji.
Chisato Hanada (花田 千里, Hanada Chisato, 18-year-old)The third target, Hanada works at a Soba Shop while studying Home Economics at Terumi's university. She is very conscious of her large breasts and thus is very shy around others. She eventually becomes Terumi's first real girlfriend, as well as the first with whom to have sex properly. Terumi once considered stopping the Genji project in order to have a continuous relationship with her, but he ends up learning that despite enjoying his company, she does not truly love him, thus prompting him to move on with it. She's based on Hanachirusato from the Tale of Genji.
Miya Rokujou (六条 美也, Rokujou Miya, 25-year-old)The fourth target, Miya is a gorgeous, teacher who works at Terumi's university as the Information Processing Tutor. She once was Terumi's teacher at high school and since then developed an obsession with him. After spending some time living with her, Terumi leaves her in order to continue with the Genji project, a fact that she is aware, and usually stalks him since then. She is based on Lady Rokujo from the Tale of Genji.
Shian Kowaka (小若 紫亜, Kowaka Shian, 10-year-old)The fifth target, Kowaka is a little girl with a very innocent, polite and cute personality. Kaoruko chose her because she wanted Terumi to become more used to younger women after his bad experience with Miya, and due to her similarities with
Murasaki from the Tale of Genji.
Iyo Semi (瀬見 伊予, Semi Iyo, 27-year-old)The sixth target, Semi works as a shop clerk at the university and is involved with an unknown man for a long time, unable to properly deal with her relationship with him, until spending the night with Terumi. She's based on Utsusemi from the Tale of Genji.
Yuu Tokonatsu (常夏 夕, Tokonatsu Yuu, 22-year-old)The seventh target, she works as a fitness instructor and was always sick when she was younger, thus not having any experience at all with men, until meeting Terumi and becoming his girlfriend, much to Miya's envy. Terumi's relationship with Yuu made him decide to quit the Genji project for her sake, but she then receives a job proposal that she can't refuse, and believing that Terumi has a thing for Kaoruko, she is forced to move to Osaka. She plays the role as Yuuago from Tale of Genji
Hana Suetsumu (末摘 華, Suetsumu Hana, 20-year-old)The eighth target, she is a sophomore in the broadcasting department at Terumi's university and aspires to become a voice actress. She was looking for a partner for an audition practice for a role in a video game and Kaoruko recommends Terumi for the task with the intent of getting them close. She is based on the Safflower Princess from the Tale of Genji.
Tsukiko (月子, Tsukiko)Asahi's close friend and writes erotic novels. She finds Terumi as a good source material for her novel. Her family name is not published.
Tsukasa Chuujou (中将 つかさ, Chuujou Tsukasa)She is the reason for Terumi's fear of women and milk. After six years Terumi finds out that Tsukasa is a student in the same university and she is having affair with one of the professor. A brief confrontation reveals that she has completely forgotten about him. Offended that the cause of his trauma has forgotten about him, Terumi wants her to fall in love with him. After Terumi cross dress as a girl and stealing away the man Tsukasa was after Terumi had conquered his trauma and even making Tsukasa have affection for him after he kissed her in public and show that the man she was after was more concerned with his position as a teacher than her.
Murakami (村上, Murakami)Terumi's classmate and close friend. The reason he enrolled to the school was just to be close to Kaoruko, his ideal woman he wants to lose his virginity to. Murakami is a Japanese family name. His first name has not been published.
1 (April 19, 2012)2 (October 19, 2012)3 (April 19, 2013)4 (October 18, 2013)5 (April 18, 2014)6 (October 17, 2014)7 (April 17, 2015)8 (October 19, 2015)9 (April 19, 2016)Volume 3 reached the 48th place on the weekly Oricon manga charts and, as of April 20, 2013, had sold 24,973 copies; volume 4 reached the 27th place and, as of October 27, 2013, had sold 53,436 copies; volume 5 reached the 24th place and, as of April 27, 2014, had sold 61,646 copies; volume 6 reached the 34th place and, as of October 19, 2014, had sold 35,693 copies; volume 7 reached the 25th place and, as of April 26, 2015, had sold 65,645 copies.
On manga-news.com, the series has a staff rating of 15 out of 20. On Manga Sanctuary, it has a staff rating from one staff member of 6 out of 10.
