Ando. Volume 1 Cover Art, Something’s Wrong With Us, Kodansha.
Something’s Wrong With Us – Information
Author of Story: Natsumi Ando
Chapter Count: 19 Volumes, around 92 chapters
Status: Completed
Content Warnings
These content warnings do not reflect the contents of the review below; only the literary work itself.
- Murder, death, blood
- Loss of loved ones
- Mature/adult content
- Nudity
- Trauma
- Pregnancy, loss
- Mentioning and depictions of SI, SH
Spoiler Disclaimer
This recommendation post may contain small plot spoilers for review purposes. Any major spoilers are hidden by default and are able to be revealed via click or tap.
If you’re someone who loves romance manga with crazy drama, plot twists, and borderline unhinged characters, this manga recommendation is perfect for you.
Something’s Wrong With Us is a very strange romance with mystery, drama, murder, and…cute confectionaries! It is an incredibly interesting read, with a plot that makes you think “what is even going on right now” with every chapter.
I had actually recommended a manga by this author once before in my 2024 April Fool’s Day post, called Arisa, which was yet another psychological manga. So fun to see the author incorporate this genre into their newer work as well.
I really enjoyed this series and it’s even completed, so let’s jump right into this Something’s Wrong With Us manga review!
Something’s Wrong With Us – Plot Summary
This manga starts with the very young and sickly Nao Okura, who moves into the residence of the Takatsuki family with her mother. Her mother had secured a live-in job making traditional Japanese confectionaries at this family’s famous sweets business, called Kogetsuan.
This is where Nao learns about sweets, grows a love for them, and befriends the Takatsuki’s son and heir to the business, Tsubaki.
However, everything goes horribly wrong for Nao when her mother is accused of murdering Tsubaki’s father—removing the both of them from Kogetsuan. Nao’s mother also passes from stress soon afterwards, leaving Nao all alone. This completely changes the course of her life, but Nao never gave up on making sweets even as she got older.
Now age 21 and using the surname Hanaoka, Nao finds herself competing against Kogetusan in an event to make sweets for a wedding. At this event, she happens to compete against Tsubaki, who seems to not remember her and lacks the sunny personality he once had as a child. They both present their confectionaries at this friendly competition, where only one will be chosen for the wedding.
Nao, although representing herself and not a famous business, clearly had the better creation. Tsubaki, desperate in his own personal goals and impressed by Nao’s skills, asks her to marry him on a whim. Nao agrees, determined to uncover the truth of her mother’s accusation from many years ago!
As you can tell, Something’s Wrong With Us is full of drama and strange twists! The plot is a wild ride and a whirlwind of emotions, but I really enjoyed this crazy, dramatic manga.
Ando. Volume 2 Cover Art, Something’s Wrong With Us, Kodansha.
Why I Enjoyed Something’s Wrong With Us
Now and then, after reading lots of slice-of-lifes, wholesome stories, and romcoms, it can be fun to read something a little more interesting (or in this case, bizarre). Something’s Wrong With Us definitely fits the bill…
Plot:
Even with the two strange main characters and the unique supporting characters, Something’s Wrong With Us is totally worth a read. The weirdness and mystery of the all these characters honestly made this manga very engaging. Readers will slowly learn more about each character’s motivations and experiences with the murder case, which keeps the story moving.
There are so many different players and layers to the story, that every time you begin to pin the blame on someone, new information changes your mind. Everyone is at fault in this manga, but as to who or why is a mystery slowly unraveled throughout the plot.
The romance starts off feeling a bit strange, as the protagonists don’t really have much to like about each other. They have more to dislike if I’m being blunt. They obviously don’t fall in love at first sight or anything.
However, their crazy must have matched up well, because the romance doesn’t take too long to start getting somewhere. I wouldn’t call the romance in Something’s Wrong With Us a true slow burn, although they do have their share of unique obstacles to overcome.
Although the premise of the manga makes you think this would be such a freaky couple to ship, (and that’s not entirely untrue) you really start to root for the two of them as things progress. This josei manga gets just a little spicy, and sort of feels like a dramatic enemies to lovers romance!
Lastly, the plot has a lot of focus around traditional Japanese confectionaries, which was an unexpectedly intriguing topic that had beautiful illustrations and really helped tone down the bizarre aspects of this manga! If you like this aspect of Something’s Wrong With Us, I suggest you also check out Kitchen Princess—another food-themed, dramatic manga!
Characters:
This story starts off very quick, but clearly has some unique characters to pull you in from the start. The two protagonists of this manga are hilarious. Firstly, the heroine is a woman whose mother died after being accused of murder—and yet, she agrees to marry into the family of accusers.
Then the male lead is a sort of intimidating man who agrees to marry a complete stranger for unknown reasons—and who has a controlling, deranged family to boot. What a lovely couple.
Just as a forewarning, pretty much everyone in this manga is sort of a dislikable character in some way. They’re all either horrible people or make ridiculous choices, and often act overdramatic. Something about this manga, however, doesn’t allow you to stop reading.
You begin to desperately wonder how this crazy story could possibly develop or become crazier. It’s a romance too, which just makes things even freakier. So, let’s talk a bit more about the main characters in Something’s Wrong With Us.
The female lead seems like a determined heroine who simply wants the truth about her beloved mother. However, she is a bit crazy for putting herself around the people who ruined her life and accused her presumably innocent mother of murder—who later died from stress.
And yet, Nao seems to enjoy working with them regardless of that fact and even starts to support Tsubaki early in the manga, which is wild given her experience with this family. She had been alone and without family for a long time, so perhaps she was desperate for the old friend she once knew in Tsubaki.
Tsubaki himself had turned a bit rough and kind of scary as an adult—and his entire family is wild, too. His mother is horribly manipulative and sneaky. His grandfather is distrustful and sort of crazy. Tsubaki even seems to acknowledge those aspects of his family.
His character design wasn’t my favorite appearance-wise if I’m being honest, but it grew on me and his weird personality kept me interested: Why is he marrying (what he thinks is) a complete stranger? What does he know about the murder? What are his true goals? The mystery of his character kept me very engaged with the story.
Art:
The art style of Something’s Wrong With Us is not bad at all. To be completely honest, I think there were some areas it could have improved, and I wasn’t very impressed with the main characters’ rather plain designs.
However, it isn’t at all what I would consider a bad art style, and did enjoy the manga overall. It also was rather consistent throughout pretty much the entire manga series, which was impressive.
Ando. Volume 7 Cover Art, Something’s Wrong With Us, Kodansha.
Any Cons?
I don’t really want to say the characters are a con, since this manga is clearly designed to be more intense—with mystery, drama, and psychological aspects.
However, I’m sure many readers will hate Nao, as she makes some questionable choices throughout the story. Personally, I don’t think her character deserves as much hate as she will probably receive.
On the other hand, Tsubaki received less backlash than I thought he deserved. He has a tragic backstory—and I don’t hate his character or anything—but I do think he was too violent with Nao at times, which made me uncomfortable.
Besides that one issue I had with Tsubaki’s character, for the most part I enjoyed the cast personality-wise (even if you were supposed to hate them. They were still well done, if that makes sense). However, one character didn’t really receive as much punishment or reprimanding as I believe was necessary for the deeds committed by said character.
Obviously I can’t say who or what without spoiling the story though, haha! Although I think this, I will say I appreciated the author’s ability to tie up loose ends and create a satisfying conclusion to the plot.
Additionally, if you can’t keep track of who is who and who did what, Something’s Wrong With Us may become confusing for you.
This next con could just be my impression, but this manga occasionally felt a tad misogynistic in some ways—I can’t tell if it was intentional or just because of the setting.
Women were treated as if they only were meant to serve traditional roles, and this story has a large emphasis on motherhood. I don’t think that theme is inherently bad, but it is definitely overused and a bit stereotypical.
Lastly, although I did really enjoy the ending of this series in terms of resolution, I do think the final volume unnecessarily dragged in a new villain.
I do understand it was to put more emphasis on family and such, but to be completely honest I was hoping for more focus on the couple and some fluff! I think it could have gone in a different direction, but it’s not too big of a deal.
More In-Depth Review (Warning: Spoilers!)
Many readers have said that Something’s Wrong With Us is outrageous, and they aren’t wrong. But that’s what makes it so fun and impossible to drop. The depth to this manga was incredibly enjoyable. Let’s talk about it!
We know that Nao wants to uncover the truth about her mother, and that’s the reason she puts herself in a strange situation surrounded by people who don’t particularly like her. However, as she sticks around and proves her worth and abilities, Tsubaki begins to fall for her.
Because of this (and because he decides to trust that Nao is not the “Sakura” he once knew) Tsubaki reveals what he actually saw the night his father was killed—his father and Nao’s mother weren’t fighting, but kissing. Which means that he lied during the report, and framed Nao’s mother.
Even though Nao finds out her mother was accused because of Tsubaki, she can’t seem to hate him for it. He was a child, after all, who wasn’t very loved and must’ve been shocked to find out he wasn’t truly family—as we often see in his flashbacks.
Nao (shockingly) seems to have had feelings for Tsubaki the entire time anyway—but wasn’t in too deep yet, and hadn’t realized that her lies about her identity would pose problems until it was practically too late.
The story becomes increasingly suspenseful as the two main characters continue falling in love, and Nao continues to lie about her identity; especially since Tsubaki made it clear he wanted nothing to do with “Sakura.” I actually loved this suspenseful aspect of the story.
The plot becomes even more interesting once it reveals that Tsubaki’s (fake) father didn’t properly separate with his wife (Tsubaki’s mother) or end his previous relationship. This causes the proprietress to basically go crazy, as well as reveals the true identities of both Tsubaki and Nao.
This is a huge plot twist for the story, as Tsubaki and his mother are originally framed as horrible people (which is still not completely wrong). As the story unfolds, we learn they truly weren’t the only ones to blame.
All of these secrets and the characters affected by them made it impossible to guess who was the “true” culprit, although realistically the whole family was at fault.
Something’s Wrong With Us was incredibly dramatic and over the top, but I loved the layers of mystery and drama throughout the story. At no point did I know what to expect or who was the murderer, but it was a fun journey to reach the conclusion.
The story starts off very strange in terms of romance, but slowly allows you to root for the protagonists more and more, as you witness their true selves and their backstories. Overall, it was fun, exciting, and suspenseful!
Final Thoughts
Something’s Wrong With Us is a very entertaining and memorable read. It’s a wild ride, that’s so bizarre that it’s actually really good. The story is soap-opera level dramatic, and the plot is delightfully unpredictable.
The characters are crazy, but they kept the manga very engaging. I think it makes for a very interesting romance, and an incredibly enjoyable read overall!
Disclaimer: Any images used for this blog are for illustrative purposes only, are not owned by me, and are under ownership of the artist or publisher.
Images Credit: Ando, Natsumi. Something’s Wrong With Us, Kodansha, 2020.
