Faster than a Kiss Faster than a Kiss

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Faster than a Kiss

The cover of the first Kisu Yori mo Hayaku volume as published by Hakusensha in
Japan on July 5, 2007. Art by Meca Tanaka.
キスよりも早く
(Kisu yori mo Hayaku)
Drama, Romantic comedy, Slice of
Genre
life
Manga
Written by Meca Tanaka
Published by Hakusensha
Demographic Shōjo
Magazine LaLa
Original run March 2007 – ongoing
Volumes 7
Anime and Manga Portal

Faster than a Kiss (キスよりも早く Kisu yori mo Hayaku?) is a shōjo manga series written
and illustrated by Meca Tanaka. The series is currently serializing in Hakusensha's
monthly shōjo manga magazine, LaLa since March 2007. As of April 2010, seven
volumes of the series have been published.

Contents
[hide]
 1 Plot
 2 Characters
o 2.1 Main characters
o 2.2 Secondary characters
 3 Media
o 3.1 Manga
o 3.2 Volume list
o 3.3 Drama CD
 4 Reception
 5 References

 6 External links

[edit] Plot
Fumino and her 4-year-old brother Teppei have lived with relatives since their parents
died in a car accident. Tired of moving from a relative's house to another, she decides to
drop out of school and find work to support her brother on her own. As they sit on a park
bench, her English teacher, Kazuma Ojiro appears in front of her and her brother. He tries
to convince her to go back to school. She jokingly asks him to marry her in order to
support her and Teppei, and he agrees. Now Fumino and Kazuma live together in
Kazuma's apartment. In school the two keep their marriage a secret from others. This
creates some drama in the storyline. The series is mainly about how Fumino and
Kazuma's relationship slowly buds.

[edit] Characters
[edit] Main characters

Fumino Kaji (梶 文乃 Kaji Fumino?)

Voiced by: Saeko Chiba
Fumino is a 16-year-old girl who is described as a delinquent in Kumaneko High
School, although she is not, and simply tries to stand up for others against bullies.
She has a strong personality and sometimes loses her temper. She cares deeply
about her brother Teppei. Her parents died in a car accident and so she had to
become responsible for her little brother. As a result, she has become more mature
and practical than others her age. However, she is terrible at cooking, so she relies
on Kazuma to cook for her and her brother. Even so, she cooked some porridge
with some spring onions for Kazuma when he had a high fever. While nursing
him with a mask on, he told her that when he was ill, nobody went near him, so
 they wouldn't get sick too. He also kissed Fumino through the mask, though when
he got well, he doesn't remember what he had done.
She once secretly worked in one of Retsu's construction buildings for two weeks
(cleaning floors) in order to earn some money to buy Kazuma a birthday present.
She bought him a green necktie. According to chapter 17, Fumino did nothing but
sleep in class for the 1st year of school, which causes other students to see her as a
bad student. Now she does well in her studies, only slightly poor in English.
Ironically enough, it is later revealed that she can quite accurately understand
English in conversation, which eventually causes her to start considering studying
the language more seriously. Kazuma calls her "Fumino-san". He's very
protective of Fumino and doesn't like when other men get too close to her.
Fumino loves Kazuma very much.
Kazuma Ojiro (尾白一馬 Ojiro Kazuma?)
Voiced by: Kōji Yusa
A 24-year-old English teacher who teaches at Kumaneko High School, Kazuma is
described as a "plain, glasses-wearing English teacher." Kazuma is the only one
who looks for Fumino when she runs away and ends up marrying her, supposedly
only to help her and Teppei. He is sometimes goofy and says he appreciates
seeing Fumino's rare smile. He asks Fumino to help him with problematic
students, although he is a teacher. He has a calm and caring demeanor and cares
for young Teppei more than Fumino does (according to her). He often gives
Teppei candy for his hard work or just for being cute. Kazuma cooks for the
family and usually sleeps much later than the rest of his family because of his
dedication to teaching. Kazuma has numerous costumes for both Teppei and
Fumino to wear and often dresses them up for cosplay. Even though they are
married, Fumino and Kazuma sleep separately. He occasionally sleeps in
Fumino's room, but only next to Teppei. Kazuma isn't open about his past, but
later in the story, it is revealed that Kazuma was once in a gang. According to his
old "gang" friends, he was called Jigoku no Mā-kun (地獄のまーくん?, Mā-kun
from Hell) because he beat up 100 motorcycle gang members without getting a
single scratch.
He still has formidable fighting abilities; shown when he beat up two guys with
one hand, while with his other hand he was holding Fumino. He sadly mentions
once that his family is still alive, only that they reject him because of his
delinquent past. His mother has died. His father is a politician as revealed by
Shōma. According to Shōma, Kazuma was an excellent student, as expected from
a person set to become the successor of his father. One day, however, he suddenly
turned into a delinquent and left home. It is mentioned that Kazuma was not close
to his family to begin with, especially after his father's second marriage.
At first, Kazuma holds no romantic feelings for Fumino. He marries her out of
sympathy for her and Teppei, and he feels strongly that he shouldn't be "touching"
her in case she leaves him for another man; which he would respect if she did. He
slowly falls in love with her throughout the series, and only his decision to wait
until she has graduated high school prevents him from touching her. He is
extremely protective and jealous of Fumino.
Teppei Kaji (梶 鉄兵 Kaji Teppei?)
 Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro
Teppei is the 4-year-old little brother of Fumino. Teppei's personality is bright; he
often makes people around him happy. Both Fumino and Kazuma love him.
Teppei views Kazuma as a brother or a father figure. He often gives Teppei candy
for his hard work or just simply for being cute. Though still very young, he often
tries to defend his sister when anyone bullies her. This is shown when Shōma was
criticizing her; Teppei defends her by punching him in the leg and saying, "Shō-
chan, you bullied Bun-chan/Buncha" with his fists balled up in anger.
When Fumino and Teppei leave Kazuma, Teppei leaves a trail of his collected
hard candy for Kazuma to follow. He was also the one who tried to convince
Fumino to stay with Kazuma when she tried to leave, which causes enough
distraction for Kazuma to catch up with them. He loves living with Kazuma. He
gave his first drawing to Kazuma as a birthday present. It was a picture of
Kazuma himself. Teppei goes to school with his kindergarten teacher Ryū, who is
Kazuma's best friend and neighbor. Teppei nicknames Fumino "Bun-chan" or
"Buncha" (ブソちや) and Kazuma "Mā-kun".

[edit] Secondary characters

Ryū Shindō (進藤 龍 Shindō Ryū?)

He is a happy-go-lucky guy who is Kazuma's best friend as well as his neighbor.
He is also Teppei's kindergarten teacher and is one of the few people who know
about Kazuma and Fumino's marriage. Ryū takes care of Teppei a great deal
(while Kazuma and Fumino are being lovey-dovey), and also poses as Fumino's
distant relation and guardian, which is their official lie to conceal the relationship
between the two. He also tells Fumino about Kazuma's past. In one chapter, Ryū
shows Fumino a picture of Kazuma and himself back in high school. Kazuma's
face looks dark and demonic in the picture and he had long hair with insane
demonic eyes. He added that Kazuma beat up the cameraman after taking the
picture. Ryū also helps Fumino dress sexy for Kazuma, How he managed to have
women's lingerie is a mystery but it was revealed that he previously worked as a
host in a club.
Ken Kurosawa (黒沢 健 Kurosawa Ken?)
He is one of Fumino's classmates and has a crush on her. Although Ken doesn't
know that Kazuma and Fumino are married, he originally sees them together
hugging, when Kazuma was telling Fumino that her life was more important than
their marriage ring. He later walks in on them right when they were about to kiss
after Kazuma had whisked Fumino away into a classroom to watch the festival's
fireworks together. Also, When he confessed his love to Fumino, Kazuma steps
in.
Retsu
The third generation of the Higuma Gang, Retsu is Kazuma's old friend. He gave
Kazuma pudding as an apology for his men because they almost raped Fumino
without realizing that she is Kazuma's wife. When he invites Fumino to his home
so that he can apologize again, he tells her that she is stupid for believing that he
is a good person. Kazuma then busts into the scene, kicking Retsu in the face and
 causing his nose to bleed. It is revealed he was just joking around with Fumino
and is actually a nice person. He is known as "The Pudding Person".
Shōuma Ojiro (尾白翔馬 Ojiro Shōma?)
Shōuma is Kazuma's younger brother. He's also a student at Kumaneko High
School. He's very popular among the girls at school. Though due to his cold and
rude attitude, they call him "Ice Prince". Shōuma originally didn't believe that
Fumino is a girl. He finally believes it after seeing her underwear. He once tried
to bribe or supposedly give Fumino money to live comfortably until she
graduates, in exchange for leaving Kazuma. However, she smacks it away and
called him an idiot for thinking that she will leave him for money. Despite being
brothers, Shōuma and Kazuma have different mothers, but they do talk to each
other in polite terms. Since Kazuma had left the family, Shōma had to take over
his responsibilities. He also insults Kazuma for becoming a teacher, claiming it's
below his social status.
Apparently, he doesn't know when Kazuma's birthday is, which shocked Fumino.
He goes on to tell her that it isn't celebrated in the Ojiro household. While
Shōuma is supposedly dating Meg, he is confronted by Meg to have feelings for
Fumino. He had denied it, however. But as of chapter 36, Shōuma is seen kissing
Fumino while she was asleep, as shown from Meg and Teppei's point of view. He
had even taunted his brother that he and [Kazuma]'s princess (aka, Fumino) had
spent the whole day together afterwards. He loves his brother very dearly
although he doesn't really like to show it.
Margaret Denton
Margaret or simply Meg, is one of the students of Kumaneko High School. She's
17 years old. She recently transferred there from overseas. She is the daughter of a
hotel mogul. She also constantly hitting on Kazuma. It is implied that she was
only doing so because she wanted to make Shōuma jealous or show a reaction.
She was "bullying" Kaji when she first arrived, but eventually became friends
with her. She gives Fumino a makeover for a date with Kazuma At the end of
chapter 19, she told Shōma that she would be leaving for America to marry
someone that her father chose for her, but she didn't want that because she was
really in love with him (Shōma). So she stayed in Japan with him. Even though
she is supposedly dating Shōuma, but had confronted him in chapter 35 for having
feelings for Fumino. Later, on an study session in library with Fumino and
Shōuma, Meg witnessed Shōuma kissing Fumino.
Kaji Tomoyuki
Appeared in chapter 22, Tomoyuki made his first appearance through a voice
message in his father's answering machine. He indicated in his message that he
wishes to take care of Fumino and Teppei since his work has became less busy. It
is revealed in chapter 23 that he is the younger brother of Fumino and Teppei's
father, and is therefore Fumino's uncle. He wanted to take away Fumino and
Teppei from Kazuma so that the secret of their marriage will not be revealed.
Tomoyuki forces Fumino and Teppei to leave Kazuma's apartment and live with
him. He believes that Fumino and Kazuma will grow apart since they won't be
seeing each other as often. He is relatively short for a guy and has a slim build,
and he's extremely baby-faced; He looks as if he's still in high school even though
 he is 28 years old. Fumino has stated that she has spent time with him since she
was a little girl, and in all the time that she's known him, his face hasn't changed.
Despite his appearance, he is very strong, and is something of a legendary Judo
practitioner.
Kaji's grandfather
He is Kaji's grandfather from her father's side of the family. He had cut off all ties
with Kaji at the funeral of her parents but made up with her in Chapter 22. Seems
to be attached to Teppei and gives him lots of presents.
Soraki Tomoe
Soraki Tomoe is Tomoyuki's student who he taught oversees, Tomoe has a crush
on Tomoyuki and wishes to become his wife. Tomoyuki made a promise to her in
the past saying that if she managed to pin him on his back by any means, then he
would marry her. Although Tomoyuki meant this as a joke and didn't take it
seriously, Tomoe took the challenge very seriously and has since attempted to try
and floor Tomoyuki many times in order to become his bride. However
Tomoyuki only sees her as his important student. She, like Tomoyuki, is baby-
faced and is revealed to actually be 18 years old despite looking younger than 16
year-old Kaji. She first appears in chapter 25.

[edit] Media
[edit] Manga

Written and illustrated by Meca Tanaka, the chapters of Faster than a Kiss appear as a
serial in the Japanese manga magazine LaLa and are collected into tankōbon by
Hakusensha. As of April 2010, the series has seven volumes.

[edit] Volume list

No. Japanese release date Japanese ISBN

01 July 5, 2007[1] ISBN 978-4-5921-8471-3
02 December 5, 2007[2] ISBN 978-4-5921-8472-0
03 May 2, 2008[3] ISBN 978-4-5921-8473-7
04 December 5, 2008[4] ISBN 978-4-5921-8474-4
05 June 5, 2009 ISBN 978-4-5921-8475-1
06 November 5, 2009 ISBN 978-4-5921-8476-8
07 April 30, 2010 ISBN 978-4-5921-8477-5

[edit] Drama CD

A drama CD of Faster than a Kiss was included in the May 2008 and November 2009
issues of LaLa.

[edit] Reception
The third volume ranked seventh on the list of best-selling Japanese comics for May 6–
12, 2008.[5] For the weeks of December 3–15, 2008, the fourth volume placed tenth on the
list with an estimated 56,073 copies sold weekly and 125,759 total copies sold.[6][7] The
fifth volume stayed at the tenth place for the weeks of June 1–14, 2009, selling an
estimated 54,048 copies a week for total of 125,166 copies sold.[8][9] The sixth volume
ranked ninth on the list for the week of November 2–8 and 9-15, 2009 before dropping to
tenth place with 36,878 copies sold weekly, totaling 121,326 copies sold.[10][11]

[edit] References