Haruna Aizawa knows just how far someone can fall - her father was a rising political star until he was arrested on corruption charges. Among the fallout from this was being forced to transfer from her expensive private high school to raucous Kita High, which in her cynicism she sees as a monkey troop on a mountain, constantly struggling to be on top.
And that's before she meets Masaru Yamashita, or Macharu to everyone else. He's carefree, goofs around, and even resembles a baby monkey to everyone. He's also the only one who reaches out to Haruna, at first - while others are put off by her aloof personality, he keeps trying to connect with her.
While nobody else can quite understand it, she ends up falling for him.
Known as Saruyama! in Japan, by Shouko Akira. The manga ran from 2004 to 2008, starting out in Deracomi before moving to Betsucomi in 2005.
This series has examples of:
- Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Subverted. The student government is depicted realistically. Meaning candidates have to be dragooned into running for office.
- Accidental Public Confession: Haruna is sometimes so focused on Macharu that she doesn't pay attention to her surroundings, and lets everyone around see just how she feels under her stoic exterior.
- Aloof Big Brother: Haruna's.
- Animal Stereotypes: Obviously, Macharu and monkeys (down to his name: the Japanese word for monkey, saru, is in there).
- Arranged Marriage: The final arc kicks off when Haruna's father arranges for her to be married off to his assistant, Gotoda. She responds by staying with the Yamashita family.
- Big Eater: Kobuhei
- Book Dumb: Macharu. He is not shown to be all that intellectual but is remarkably emotionally mature when the situation calls for it.
- Broken Bird: Haruna qualifies with her family problems.
- Butt-Monkey: Macharu gets the short end of the stick from his classmates frequently. Dating Haruna might be Fate deciding to Throw the Dog a Bone.
- Captain Ersatz: The principal was deliberately patterned after Albert Einstein.
- Cassandra Truth: When Haruna first visits Macharu's family, his mother smacks him upside the head for lying about them dating. Haruna shocks her by confirming that she is. The rest of his family reacts with various levels of disbelief over the prospect. Most extreme is Macharu's father, who wants to take a picture to have photographic evidence.
- The Casanova: Atsu, specifically referenced repeatedly.
- Deadpan Snarker: Haruna, who often plays the straight man by snarking on what the others are doing.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Haruna, oh so much.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: This is slightly debatable but Haruna and Macharu are put through some trials and tribulations in order to stay together. Also, Macharu has to really study hard to get into the university of his choice.
- Everyone Can See It: In the side story about Macharu's younger sister, pretty much everyone besides her realizes that the trombone player in her band is Tsundere for her.
- The Fool: Macharu. Haruna even comments on it - despite being a bit of an airhead, she's sure that he will succeed based on his drive and his sunny attitude.
- Generic Cuteness and Gonk: Both surprisingly subverted. Some cast members are just plain-looking, and while both Macharu and Kobuhei aren't cute, neither is outrageously ugly (Macharu is goofy-looking, while Kobuhei is just paunchy). Oddly, the closest the mangaka comes to producing a Gonk is her depictions of herself in supplemental materials.
- Genius Ditz: It's strongly implied that Macharu is actually pretty good at science and mathematics, as his school places students with no college ambitions into the liberal arts track while he gets placed into the science track. Much more attention is paid to his struggles with history and language courses.
- Graduate from the Story: The last pages happen as Macharu gets his university acceptance, with he and Haruna going to join their friends at the graduation celebration.
- Happy Ending: One of the least ambiguous happy endings in the manga.
- Hidden Depths: Kobuhei's musical talents.
- Insecure Love Interest: Despite what one would initially think, Haruna wrestles with this. Sure, Macharu occasionally gets down about the relationship, but he quickly redoubles his effort to show his dedication. Haruna, however, worries that Macharu could easily leave her behind and succeed at his dreams, and this gives her doubt as to whether she could really keep up with Macharu, his dreams, and most of all his feelings. Gotoda figures it out and plays off of it to try to convince her to go along with the Arranged Marriage.
- Keet: Macharu, he is very energetic and genki.
- Large Ham: The student council president, complete with Hot Blood and Manly Tears.
- Loving a Shadow: Haruna believes that this is why Atsu continues to make passes at her.
- Also, Emi pines fruitlessly for Atsu. Kobuhei points out all the issues with that to her. The conversation about this instance gains extra significance in the post-script, because Kobuhei has been crushing on Emi, so he may feel on some level that he's also doing this.
- Moment Killer: Atsu, rather intentionally.
- No-Respect Guy: Kobu is regularly put down by all his friends, who can't believe that he's capable of anything beyond eating. That said, he passes all of his exams, gets into his college of choice (barely, by his own admission), and he's a great musician (even while his own bandmates bemoan his appearance). Also, if the result of the pool the students took about Macharu's meeting with Haruna's father are any indication, he's probably got the best read on romance of all his classmates, which nobody can believe, except possibly Yuko, the one character who knows about Kobu's crush on Emi.
- Not So Stoic: For all that Haruna acts like she's aloof and above it all, she has several moments where she lets down her guard to show others her insecurities, her compassion, and of course her love of Macharu. Lampshaded near the end by her friends, who by that point are used to Haruna's cold facade, even among her closest companions.
- Odd Friendship: Macharu and Atsu.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Haruna discovers quite early on that her classmates are apparently masters at it.
- The Ojou: Haruna acts a bit like one at times, though no longer in such a position.
- One Head Taller: Subverted, Macharu and Haruna are exactly the same height, around 5 feet 3 or 4 inches in American measurements.
- Gotoda, on the other hand, is precisely one head taller than Haruna.
- The Reveal: There are multiple hints throughout the series that Kobuhei, much to the surprise of all his classmates, is quite the romantic. The details aren't revealed until the post-script to the series: Kobu's in love with Emi, the girly girl of their social circle. It puts a whole new light on several of Kobuhei's scenes earlier in the manga. In particular, the conversation he has with Emi about Loving a Shadow becomes much more tragic for Kobu, since Emi won't give up on Atsu.
- Right-Hand Hottie: Gotoda, Mr. Aizawa's assistant, is clearly meant to be the much more standard shoujo-style love interest: clean-cut, tall, elegant, and most importantly insightful as to the heroine's true personality. However, even if Haruna wasn't already with Macharu, she finds him way too presumptuous about pretty much everything.
- School Festival: These happen to mark major turning points for Haruna and Macharu. Their first-year festival is when Haruna first shows and realizes her affection for Macharu, the second-year festival is when their relationship starts to truly blossom, and the third-year festival is the climax, as Haruna learns to stand up for what she wants and makes it clear that she can love her father and Macharu. Also, the end of the third festival is when Macharu proposes to Haruna. While she makes it clear a wedding isn't going to happen until after college, she accepts.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Haruna and her brother, although both share a snarky attitude. It's humorously compared to a much more lighthearted version with Macharu and his sister, Misato.
- So Proud of You: Played for laughs, with Macharu's dad displaying Manly Tears when he discovers that his son is dating Haruna.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- All the Yamashitas look like monkeys to some degree. This could be avoided by Macharu's younger sister, but she regularly gets her hair cut because she's crushing on Atsu, who does her hair.
- The Aizawas have this too - Haruna looks like a younger version of her mother, and her brother looks like a younger (and punkier) version of their father. However, it's not as obvious as Mrs. Aizawa only appears once and Haruna's brother and father only appear in the same chapter once (and the brother for only a couple of panels in said chapter).
- Their First Time: Guess whose.
- Title Drop: The original Japanese title gets mentioned multiple times, as Haruna compares high school life to being on a mountain with monkeys (making parallels to the social structures) multiple times. Somewhat Lost in Translation; the series' title was changed, but the references to a "monkey mountain" remain in the manga's text.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yuko and Emi, respectively.
- Urban Legend Love Life: Atsu, as noted in the author's notes of the final volume.
- What Does She See in Him?? Nobody can understand how Haruna and Macharu got together, although she does try explaining it to her father and Atsu to some extent. Played for Laughs when Haruna's classmate Shrinking Violet Sakura reveals to Haruna that she loves the Hot-Blooded Large Ham student council president. Haruna briefly questions Sakura's taste, then quickly notes that she really isn't one to talk about unlikely relationships.
