Tenshi O-Kudasai(Please Give Me An Angel)
Adorable little fluffy bunnies and kittens. Screwing each other. Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit far. There's no explicit sex in "Tenshi O-Kudasai," and what there is is just as cute and fluffy as everything else in this silly, sweet shoujo romp. Hardcore yaoi fans, angst fans, and serious-story fans, run far, far away. Diabetics, take your insulin in a double dose. Those of you out there who still have fond memories of the cutesy, silly stories you read as a child, however... maybe this series can give you a little of that same old warm and fuzzy feeling. In order to explain this series to you, I'm going to have to ask you to reach far, far back into those childhood memories. Try to access that imaginative, unreasoning part of your mind that started to shut down when you discovered bills and taxes. Think back... because I'm going to have to take you into the Land of Make-Believe, and tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a tiny land, only a few acres/kilometers wide, where two nice young men lived together in a nice little house. They spent a great deal of time together in bed, often naked. They loved to do fun and interesting things together. Hotaru was a tiny little boy who lived with these nice young men. He called them mother and father, but they really weren't his mother and father, because he was their pet. Hotaru, you see, was a cat. He looked like a little human boy no bigger than a foot tall, with cat-ears and a tail. (No, I don't know why cats look like people in this make-believe-land. He's not genetically engineered, he's not an alien, he's not a robot, he's not a Jungian archetype. Those are naughty-waughty potty-mouth words; they don't belong in the land of make-believe. He's a cat. It's cute. Deal with it.) Hotaru's life was a very happy one. He spent every day exploring his wonderful little
land, and meeting the other inhabitants of that land, who were all his friends. There were
several other kittens in this land, with whom he loved to play. There were the Nunuru, a
pair of twin kittens who spent lots of time talking to the audience and basically filling
the role of a Greek chorus in an ancient play, but oops, those are naughty-waughty words
again, bad storyteller. There was Hanako, who was a And there was Taki, another handsome grown-up boy cat, who lived with Hotaru in the little house. Taki was Hotaru's favorite friend. He acted like Hotaru's big brother, playing with him and going exploring with him, and protecting him from all danger. Hotaru didn't know it, but Taki was in love with him, and was only biding his time until Hotaru got old enough to do grown-up things. That's why Taki kept getting into fights with Hanako, and having nosebleeds whenever he looked at Hotaru, and sometimes imagined himself doing a really interesting thing involving Hotaru's tail in the air, him on top, and lots of sweat. But we won't call Taki a lolicon. Nosiree. That's a bad word. And then there were Rai and Shio, who were also Hanako's friends. Rai was a scarred old tomcat who lived in a little hole in the ground. Shio was a pretty boy-cat who became a stray after his human died and left him all alone. Shio was hurt when he wandered into Hotaru's little land, and Rai took him in, so Shio finally had a home. They were a very sweet pair of roommates. Shio beat up on Rai a lot, just because Shio was a cat and everyone knows all cats love torturing the people who love them. He was always kicking Rai out of the little hole---literally. But Rai would always sweet-talk Shio into letting him back in. And sometimes they'd close the little doors on their hole and then all the kittens would hear really interesting sounds coming from inside. What were they doing in there? It always sounded like lots of fun.
Don't ask me to explain why I like this series, by the way. I just do. Maybe it's a cat-lover thing. Maybe it's just that there's something irresistible about fuzzy ears and a tail. I could analyze the fact that the cat-people's behavior is based on the sorts of things that real cats do everyday, anthropomorphized. I could ramble on about the way the shounen-ai elements of the story are seamlessly and subtly woven in, yet still stand out as one of the major plot devices of the story. I could rave about the art, which is shoujo-pretty and playful, or rant about all the bishounen and bishounen-cats who just don't spend enough time screwing each other for my tastes. But I won't. It's cute. I like it. If you like cute things, you might like "Tenshi O-Kudasai," too. Oh, and for those of you rabbit-lovers out there, there's a short romantic side-story called "Made in Heaven" involving a man and his pet rabbit (little girl with rabbit-ear-shaped hair) in volume 2. |
by Mashiro Minamino 
handsome grown-up boy cat who
liked Hotaru lots. Yes, I said he was a boy cat. Poor Hanako, like many cats, was cursed
with an owner who couldn't tell he was a boy when he was a kitten, and who gave him a
girl's name. Since he's now a lovely bishounen cat, it's still hard to tell, but we won't
tell him that. (He's very sensitive about it.) 
Hotaru had lots of fun adventures in his little land. There was the time he
and Taki discovered fish growing out of the sand in the desert. Yes, fish. And there was
the time that Hotaru's father dressed him in... a kitten outfit. And then there was the
time Hotaru broke a glass in the house and ran to hide with Rai and Shio, just as Rai and
Shio were getting ready to do their interesting thing. (Gee, Rai and Shio's smiles looked
just like snarls...) And there were lots and lots of other adventures, some sweet, a few
sad, and most absolutely hilarious. And they all lived happily ever after, or at least
they will until Hotaru gets old enough to go into heat. The end.