Deceit and dominance = delightful

What is the price of total obedience? Hot Gimmick is a 12 volume manga series by Miki Aihara, about the ways a teenage girl has to cope with emotional and physical subjugation to someone who she has feared since childhood. Despite the candy-coated appearance of this series, it contains very mature adult content, and flirts with topics of rape, violence, and normalized abusive relationships. What becomes a very striking feature of this manga series are the chameleon-like transformations of many of the characters, who reveal opposite personalities and trade places with their protagonist counterparts. Once you think you have someone deciphered, you discover something darker or lighter about their persona which jars the entire essence of the story.

Hatsumi Narita has never been very sure of herself and often comes across as timid when faced with things outside of her comfort zone. Living in a company housing complex, where your every move is watched by superior employees and their families, forces many people to walk on eggshells. Loose tongues could cost her father his job, and place her family in a dire situation. The reader enters Hatsumi’s life in a particularly risky situation. Her promiscuous younger sister, Akane, is in need of a pregnancy test, and convinces Hatsumi to purchase one for her.

Kindhearted and self-sacrificing, Hatsumi often places the needs of others before her own, which could be interpreted as a flaw or a virtue. This makes her seems especially adorable and vulnerable. But in this circumstance her good intentions are punished with an ill-fated encounter with Ryoki, the son of her father’s vice president and a solitary, unpleasant resident of her apartment building. His mother, the cruel Mrs. Tachibana, rules the building with an iron fist, and nothing escapes her eyes and ears or those of her vigilant, ass-kissing housewives.

As luck would have it, Hatsumi bumps into Ryoki on her way into the building, dropping her bag, which he retrieves. When he sees the pregnancy test Hatsumi is trapped. She decides to spare her sister the judgment and takes the blame in her stead. She isn’t prepared for the all encompassing consequences of that decision. Ryoki charges her with becoming his slave, a.k.a. his completely submissive girlfriend, in exchange for his silence. It turns out that the brooding, proud young man has never had sex, and wants to use Hatsumi as “practice” so that he won’t appear pathetic or unmanly in future sexual encounters. As twisted and horrible as this may sound, Ryoki turns out to be as insecure as Hatsumi, although much more angry and dominating than she is, and their encounters develop sporadically and haltingly on both sides.

To thicken the plot, Asuza Odagiri, Hastumi’s past childhood crush, returns to the complex. As a male model and actor, he attracts the attention of everyone in the building and at high school. Eventually Hatsumi realizes that her feelings for him have returned in full force, and could possibly be reciprocated, but Ryoki makes it his mission to keep close tabs on her. Asuza becomes suspicious when he witnesses Hatsumi bending to the will of the guy who was a nightmare to her when the three of them were children, and the situation gets messy.
In an act of rebellion, Hatsumi begins to date Asuza, despite feeling somewhat unworthy to be in the presence of such a disarming heartthrob. But the boy who wins over everyone is not what he seems. His true colors emerge when he reveals that his family left the company complex years ago because of an affair that he believes Hatsumi’s father had with his mother, and then abandoned her when she became ill. His return has been fuelled by his desire to get revenge on Hatsumi, who he has chosen to punish for her father’s indiscretion.

In an unexpected act of protective heroism, Ryoki comes to her rescue when she is cornered alone with Asuza and his cronies. This marks a turning point in this series, where Ryoki’s tough exterior begins to soften toward the girl who he seems to want control over but may just want to love and be with.

As the story develops we discover that Hatsumi’s older brother Shinogu was adopted when they were toddlers, and has hidden a growing love for the girl that he is convinced he can never be with. A quiet, loyal, determined and kind-hearted youth, Shinogu harbors very tender feelings toward Hatsumi, and never fails to protect her or do what is best for her, even if that means removing himself from the household.

As naïve and bumbling as Hatsumi can be, she truly has a good heart, which is what attracts the adoration of so many men in this series. She can be insecure and shy, but has moments of definitive purpose and passion, which increase as she becomes more aware of what she really wants, despite her slavery. She is as multifaceted as all the characters in this manga, and begins to realize that she loves Ryoki, as she grows to have confidence in herself.

Once the feelings between slave and master are revealed, their intimate moments take on a different dimension. Hatsumi begins to give in to the desire that she feels for Ryoki, and returns his caresses although she isn’t yet ready to go all the way. Needless to say, there are a lot of steamy moments.
Ultimately Hot Gimmick converts into an entirely different kind of story, with an ending that only disappoints because of the fact that we can’t follow the continuation of the budding relationship. Dark and full of twists, this series still contains a lot of warm, intimate moments, and glimpses into the good that exists where you least expect it. As strong and powerful as Ryoki wants to appear, he is as vulnerable and unsure of himself as anyone else, and secretly begins to love and care for Hatsumi, who he was fond of as a child. Underneath it all, appearances can be deceiving.