Portrait of M and N

Plot

Mitsuru is beautiful, graceful and admired by many people, but she has a weird problem—a single, violent movement against her can get her begging sweetly for more! Her nickname M also stands for masochistic.

Natsuhiko is a guy who found out Mitsuru's secret on their first day of senior high school. Even so, he has an equally bad problem—the mere glimpse of his reflection can send him into a flying fit about how beautiful he is! He is nicknamed N for narcissistic.

They both hope to minimize their chances of being exposed because of their weird behaviours

Characters

Mitsuru Abe (安部 みつる, Abe Mitsuru)

Mitsuru is beautiful, graceful, admired by many people, but she has a weird problem. As an effect of her mother's "Spartan Love", a single violent movement against her can get her begging sweetly for more. She returns to her normal self once she faints. Her nickname M is the first letter of her name, but also stands for masochistic. She has an elder brother and sister. She is in love with Amakusa and because of her friendship with both Amakusa and Hijiri this has subjected her to bullying by the other girls in her class. However, she is still admired by the male classmates. She "protects" Hijiri from dogs and considers it her duty.

Natsuhiko Amakusa (甘草 夏彦, Amakusa Natsuhiko)

Natsuhiko is a guy who has found out Mitsuru's secret on their first day of senior high school. Even so, he has an equally bad problem. Even the mere glimpse of his reflection can send him into a flying fit about how beautiful he is. He tries to hide that by wearing glasses in school, tripping over any objects at times, avoiding the girls admiration of him and especially mirrors. But he gets his own dose at his mirror shrine in his bedroom, because N is narcissistic. Natsuhiko is nicknamed as N. He considers Mitsuru his first friend and vows to protect her and later falls in love with her. He gets easily jealous when other males touch or fawn over her, particularly Hijiri who he (Natsuhiko) knows that Hijiri likes her. He is currently oblivious to Hijiri's fear of dogs.

Eiichi Hijiri (聖 英一, Hijiri Eiichi)

Eiichi is Mitsuru's popular senior in school. He's handsome, athletic, and has the style of a strategist. He is also Yōichi's older brother (see Gakuen Alice). His biggest weakness are dogs and he dramatically screams and runs away whenever a dog is near or the very word 'dog' can send him into a fit. He also knows about Mitsuru and Natsuhiko's secret. Apparently, he is in love with Mitsuru, and though it's unrequited, he still tries to protect her. He just recently found out about Natsuhiko's weakness and frankly asks him (Natsuhiko) if an "N" can love someone other than themselves and claims that he (Eiichi) will steal Mitsuru.

Ririka Tsuji (辻 理々花, Tsuji Ririka)

Ririka is Mitsuru's friend from the same year. It appears that she is the only normal character throughout the series.

Yōichi Hijiri (聖 陽一, Hijiri Yōichi)

Yōichi's is Eiichi's younger brother. He is 3 years old. He appears as a student in the Gakuen Alice, the latest series of Tachibana Higuchi. Just like Gakuen Alice, he has the ability to see spirits and controlling them. In extra stories, it seems that he is the one who doing work behind Eiichi's work.

Reika Abe (安部 麗華, Abe Reika)

Reika is Mitsuru's mother. She's a landscape artist.

Kazuomi Abe (安部 一臣, Abe Kazuomi)

Mitsuru's older brother works as a dentist. He has an Oedipus complex that is not so apparent on the outside.

Saaki Amakusa (甘草 千秋, Amakusa Saaki)

Saaki Amakusa is Natsuhiko's mother. She used to be a member of Takarazuka, causing her to display an extreme character by dramatizing every single thing.

Noriko Hijiri (聖 倫子, Hijiri Noriko)

Noriko is Eīchi and Youichi's mother. Eīchi and Youichi's father died when they are young. Noriko remarried later on. She usually looks very plain and speaks in a weird accent, but her personality drastically changes when she wears make up.

Nariaki Madenokōshi (鞠小路 成顕, Madenokōshi Nariaki)

When Mitsuru was only 3 years old, her parents chose a person for her to marry. He is now 32 years old.

Kaname Miki (幹 要, Miki Kaname)

Kazoumi's friend during high school and Nariaki's secretary.

Manga

Written and illustrated by Tachibana Higuchi, the chapters of Portrait of M and N were serialized in the Japanese magazine Hana to Yume and collected into six tankōbon volumes by Hakusensha. The volumes were published from October 19, 2000 to August 19, 2003.

On May 30, 2009, Anime News Network noted that Portrait of M and N had appeared on the Canadian Amazon.com. Tokyopop licensed the series for an English-language release in North America. Volumes 5 and 6 were never released due to Tokyopop's closure in May 2011 and the series is out of print in North America.

Drama CD

There is a drama CD released on February 22, 2002 in Japan by the same name as the manga. The cast is as below.

Yuko Minaguchi - Mitsuru Abe

Minami Takayama - Natsuhiko Amakusa

Akira Ishida - Eiichi Hijiri

Chika Sakamoto

Reception

Portrait of M and N ranked 18th on About.com's list of the 25 most anticipated new manga of 2010.