The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

Super Morning Star

What's It About? 

At high school, Kaido seems to be a scary delinquent, but he's leading a second life as the star of a sentai superhero live show! When sentai superfan classmate Honda discovers Kaido's secret, Kaido will stop at nothing to make sure it doesn't get out, but despite himself, the charismatic performer finds himself falling for his biggest fan...

Super Morning Star has a story and art by Kara Aomiya. The English translation is by Andria McKnight with lettering by EK Weaver. Published by Kodansha Comics (October 10, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

What makes someone a hero? Honda's never really thought much about that, even though his younger sibling (and his mom) are into super sentai shows on TV. In fact, he's a pretty typical dismissive teenager about “kiddy” stuff, and he doesn't want to do a part-time job at a live performance for one. Imagine his shock when the scariest kid at school, Kaido, turns out to be the suit actor for The Yellow Ranger! As set-ups for romance manga go, it's a pretty good one because while it isn't really about heroes and sentai, it does force Honda to think about himself, his attitude, and what he wants in life, and that all makes Super Morning Star's first volume a lot more interesting than it might otherwise have been.

Underneath the various surface trappings, this book is mostly about Honda growing up. He's so down on sentai that he doesn't even realize that the main character actors and the guys in the suits are different people, but when he sees how much Kaido loves being a suit actor, he's forced to rethink. Kaido is nothing like any of the rumors say, and he's also incredibly talented, both traits that draw Honda to him. But when other people begin to be friends with Kaido, Honda starts acting out in ways he knows are wrong. One of the strongest scenes in the book is when Honda is saying all sorts of horrible things in class but has dissociated: his conscious mind is busy screaming at him from inside his skull, but his mouth just keeps saying awful words. He wants to stop, but he physically can't, and if you've ever dissociated, that's what it can feel like. Immediately after he does this, Honda has a sort of emotional collapse where he tries to sort through why he did what he did. In another notable moment, his friends are supportive and encourage him to recognize that he was jealous because he's in love with Kaido. I fully admit that I love seeing the people around LGBTQIA+ characters warmly support them because that wasn't the norm for so long, and for Honda, it's less an issue that he's in love with another boy and more that he's in love at all. It just didn't occur to him.

Kaido, on the other hand, is aware of his feelings, as we see in several of the between-chapters four-panel comics. This is a nice way to confirm things while still allowing the story to proceed smoothly, and when we reach the denouement, it's with the understanding that if Honda can get the words out, everything will be okay. Since I at least read romance for the happy endings (or happy to be continued), this is very reassuring, and it also, as a technique, allows the story to focus primarily on Honda while still acknowledging Kaido's feelings. The art isn't beautiful, but the story is very well done, and Kodansha's translation notes are helpful if you're not up on your sentai lingo. BL fans definitely want to check this out.