History Manga / KaijuGirlCaramelise

'''''Kaiju Girl Caramelise''''' (乙女怪獣キャラメリゼ, ''Otome Kaijū Kyaramerize'') is a manga series by Spica Aoki that started being serialized in February 2018 in Monthy Comic Alive, with collected volumes printed by Kadokawa Shoten starting in June 2018 and an English translation published by Creator/YenPress starting in June 2019. Although Monthly Comic Alive is a {{seinen}} publication, the author has called ''Caramelise'' a {{shoujo}} series.

!!Trope examples:

* GenreMashup: It's a fairly typical shojo romance story, except that the girl occasionally turns into a {{Kaiju}} and prompts the same kind of action seen in Kaiju movies.

** Arata's little sister says that he is a "tardy-monster" usually, so she's surprised when he leaves a half-hour early to meet up with Kuroe. She then makes this observation: "Your girlfriend's power is incredible!"

** When Kuroe Akaishi starts transforming into [[{{Kaiju}} Harugon]], only her mother Rinko knows that she and the monster are one and the same. Downplayed with [[HonoraryUncle Koutarou Hibino]], who knows about the InvoluntaryShapeshifting she has been subject to since childhood but not that she is Harugon.

* BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine: In middle school, Raimu "Rairi" Kouno took advantage of her apelike face by filling the "Boke" role opposite her classmate Yuu Okada, who filled the "Tsukkomi" role. We don't hear any specific joke they made at this time, but a panel showing Okada giving a sheepishly grinning Rairi a Dope Slap makes it obvious what they were generally doing.

* AdmiringTheAbomination: Manatsu Tomosato grew up as a big fan of Kaiju media, and she becomes captivated by Harugon as a result, praising "him" for his monstrous appearance and even expressing a willingness to be ''crushed'' by him.
* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: As a small child, Kuroe was shunned because of the freaky {{Partial Transformation}}s she would go through. Even years later when interacting with people unaware of her condition, she still gets shunned because she's a socially awkward [[LonersAreFreaks loner]].

* BaitAndSwitch: Rairi's introduction. Kuroe is getting bullied by three of the numerous girls [[GreenEyedMonster jealous of her relationship with Arata]] when Rairi walks into the classroom. Kuroe notes that Rairi is both very pretty and very popular, and that it would be bad if someone "in the very top caste" became her enemy. Then Rairi is informed by another girl that Kuroe and Arata are dating; she promptly rushes over to Kuroe and knees her in the back. She seems like an abnormally violent AlphaBitch...but it turns out she just wanted Kuroe to stop slouching because "bad posture will make anybody look ugly." Rairi then proceeds to give Kuroe an impromptu makeover before cheerfully introducing herself.

* BioluminescenceIsCool: Harugon's horns and back spikes glow a pinkish-red. This is directly pointed out when the spikes emerge at Destinyland; Arata assumes that they're part of a costume and speculates that they're lit up by L.E.D.s.
* BlindingBangs: Zigzagged with Kuroe. She's initially portrayed with these when she's still in her "who needs friends" phase, but as she starts opening up to Arata her eyes are more frequently visible.

* CatchPhrase: Rairi has "Happy peace!" (or "Posi-peace" in the original Japanese).

* CherryBlossoms: A recurring motif meant to represent love, but in a more specific manner; Kuroe and her mother talk about how it's good that she avoided trampling the cherry blossoms, and this in turn represents how she didn't trample all over her own feelings.
* ClassClown: Rairi was this in middle school, being very good-humored about her gorilla-like appearance and having a general interest in comedy theater, where a lot of her humor came from making fun of her own appearance. This stopped when her crush making fun of her appearance behind her back traumatized her and made her ''very'' insecure about her looks.
* ColorContrast: Whenever Kuroe Akaishi turns into [[{{Kaiju}} Harugon]], she has mostly blue skin with her horns, claws, spikes, wings, and eyes being a pinkish-red.
* ComplimentBackfire: When Kuroe gets a makeover from Rairi, Manatsu compliments her by saying she looks like [[Series/UltramanTaro Astromons]]. This would be a pretty weird compliment for anyone, but Kuroe is so sensitive about actually being a Kaiju that being ''compared'' to one, even in a positive sense, is enough for her to want to immediately wash off the makeup.
* CrazyPrepared: Before her date with Arata at Destinyland, Kuroe thoroughly maps out which rides she wants to go on (no rides that would involve sitting right beside Arata), as well as the locations of bathrooms (where she can hide if she starts transforming) and food kiosks (sweets help her calm down).
* CreepyLonerGirl: Kuroe starts off as one. Due to her InvoluntaryShapeshifting, she avoids interacting with people more than is necessary and wears unappealingly baggy clothes with Hand-Hiding Sleeves to cover up any PartialTransformation she might undergo. She slowly moves out of this archetype.
* CuteLittleFangs: Kuroe occasionally sports these, both while she's a normal girl and while she's partially transformed.
* CuteMonsterGirl: While she's not very cute in her {{Kaiju}} form, whenever she does a PartialTransformation, the monstrous parts do nothing to detract from how adorable she is, especially when she's flustered. Even when she is a kaiju, her beautiful eyes being retained and the heart-shaped part of her wing still manage to be rather charming.
* DatePeepers: Rinko Akaishi disguises herself as "Mitchy" when her daughter Kuroe goes on a date with Arata at Destinyland. Initially, it was to confirm that it was in fact a date (Kuroe previously claimed she was just meeting some friends), but after seeing the date [[BadDate turn awkward]] thanks to Kuroe's efforts to avoid triggering her InvoluntaryShapeshifting, she decides to covertly cheer things up between the two of them.
* DoesNotKnowHerOwnStrength: As she undergoes her first transformation into Harugon, Kuroe runs away from Arata and catches her breath at a bridge. She absentmindedly grips one of the railings with a transformed hand, crushing it and falling into the river below.

* DullEyesOfUnhappiness: When Kuroe partially transforms at Destiny Land, a shocked Arata asks her if she's OK. She reads his expression as disgusted, and immediately rushes off to the bathroom, where [[HeroicBSoD she curls up in the stall and starts crying]]. She sports these while she [[MadnessMantra chants "awful" or "I hate this"]] to herself.

* EmbarrassingNickname: Raimu Kouno was known as "Gorirairi" in middle school because her face resembled a gorilla's. She initially took the teasing in stride, but when she overheard Okada making fun of her face she became much more sensitive about it. In the present, she has shortened it to "Rairi".

* ExpressiveHair: Kuroe has two large strands of hair that are shaped like and act like horns. Although it often becomes ambiguous as to whether they're her actual horns (as they grow longer), or are simply made of hair (as they're expressive). If she's particularly shocked or miffed, her ponytails will also fly up into the air.
* ExtremeDoormat: Kuroe starts as one, as she feels that it's not worth sticking up for herself if it means interacting with people long enough for them to see one of her transformations.

* TheFashionista: Rairi is an expert on makeup. {{Justified|Trope}} in that she put a lot of effort into practicing because of the trauma she went through in middle school due to her looks.

* FormerlyFat: Arata Minami used to be chubby in middle school, as seen in the picture he shows Kuroe. This is why he's reluctant to eat his share of the pancakes at Cafe Serizawa during their date. Kuroe convinces him to eat anyway, saying "whether you're a fatty or a beanpole...I don't care."
* FourFingeredHands: Whenever Kuroe Akaishi transforms into Harugon, her {{Notzilla}} form, she is shown to have just four clawed toes. Unlike its inspiration Godzilla, however, the Harugon form still has five fingers.
* FryingPanOfDoom: Kuroe wields one when confronting what she thinks is a caterpillar Kaiju outside her home looking for a [[BehemothBattle fight]]. She fearfully drops it the moment the thing twitches -- but luckily, it's neither a Kaiju nor is it looking for a fight.

* GirlishPigtails: Rairi used to have the braided variant of these in junior high. She eventually dropped them as part of her general self-reinvention.

* GoodParents: While she's barely able to do much about her daughter's transformation problem, Rinko always does her best to be as good of a mother to her monstrous daughter as she can.

* HonoraryUncle: Koutarou Hibino, Rinko's old colleague when they were traveling biologists, is like an uncle to Kuroe. He's one of the few people she feels comfortable interacting with, the only person besides her mother and Manatsu to be on a FirstNameBasis with her, and he's the one who helped her become a {{Metalhead}}.

* ICantBelieveAGuyLikeYouWouldNoticeMe: This is how Kuroe feels when Arata starts talking to her -- to the point that she is initially convinced there's some nefarious reason for it.

* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: Kuroe's transformations [[LivingMoodRing are triggered by strong emotion]]. She tries to get around this by avoiding socialization and public entertainment that might make her emotional... but her affection for Arata makes this increasingly difficult.

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: Rairi very briefly considers doing this to Okada (with a ''big rock'' of all things) when she fears he might recognize her from before her makeover.
* KingKongCopy: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] with Rairi. She might look and act like a gorilla without her makeup, and even performed a KingKongClimb when she snapped back in middle school, but she's a normal human otherwise.
* LivingMoodRing: Parts of Kuroe Akaishi's body transform in various ways, ranging from a scaly reptilian hand to spikes along her spine, whenever she experiences strong emotions. She tries to avoid this by being a loner, but her burgeoning feelings for Arata lead to her emotions kicking into overdrive and her sporadically turning into a {{Kaiju}}.

* MaamShock: Inverted. Rinko is visibly flattered when Arata refers to her as "onee-san."
* MadLove: Manatsu Tomosato is a {{Kaiju}} obsessed girl who has a crush on Harugon, a {{Notzilla}} who starts appearing around Tokyo. Unbeknownst to her, "he" is actually her [[SamusIsAGirl female]] classmate Kuroe Akaishi undergoing InvoluntaryShapeshifting at times of extreme emotion. Kuroe sporadically tries to urge Manatsu to give up trying to gain Harugon's affections without revealing her SecretIdentity, but Manatsu is such a CloudCuckoolander that it does no good.
* MadnessMantra: After her date with Arata [[BadDate goes poorly]] and she goes through a PartialTransformation in front of him in spite of her efforts throughout the day to avoid that, a distraught Kuroe runs into a bathroom stall where she repeats "I hate this" over and over.
* {{Metalhead}}: Kuroe Akaishi is one of these. One of the things she is shown doing when she is friendless and trying to shut out the outside world is listening to loud metal music with headphones on. It's later revealed that she first caught the metal bug from her HonoraryUncle Koutarou Hibino, who brings her metal album [=CD=]s as gifts when he visits and takes her to a metal festival.
* MightyRoar: Harugon has a distinct, loud roar whenever Kuroe takes that form. At one point when Rinko startles Kuroe in her room, Kuroe even lets out the roar despite being mostly untransformed, frightening the people in their neighborhood who think Harugon has shown up again.
* {{Miko}}: Manatsu thinks Kuroe is this, calling her "Harugon's priestess" and assuming she has some connection to the monster on that basis.

* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody: Kuroe shows shades of this whenever she transforms; while she generally avoids seriously harming people, she has trouble keeping herself from breaking stuff. When she transforms during the metal festival, she even comments that her (figurative) heart is becoming like a Kaiju's, and in general has trouble controlling her kaiju-ness.

* PartialTransformation: Most times when Kuroe transforms, only one aspect of Harugon appears, such as a scaly hand, dorsal spikes, or a tail.

* SamusIsAGirl: One of the rare examples where the reader knows the truth from the beginning. The public assumes that Harugon is male, unaware that the monster is actually a teenage schoolgirl. This is specifically relevant with Manatsu, who develops a crush on Harugon for "his" monstrous virility.

* ShapeshifterBaggage: Briefly brought up after Kuroe's first change into Harugon, when Rinko notes how odd it is that she can gain and shed so much mass so quickly.
* ShapeshiftingExcludesClothing: If Kuroe goes through a PartialTransformation, her transformed bits will make holes in her clothes. This is the reason she wears baggy outfits and HandHidingSleeves. If she transforms fully into Harugon, her clothes get totally destroyed, requiring her to [[ImprovisedClothes improvise]] an outfit until she can get properly dressed.
* SheepInSheepsClothing: Kuroe initially believed that when Arata Minami started talking to her and acting nicely, despite him being a ChickMagnet and her being an antisocial loner, he was just being a [[TheCasanova casanova]] wanting to expand his harem. She still held her doubts when they went on their first 'date", with her lowering them to allowing herself to be "fooled" by him after he opened up to her about his personal thoughts and feelings. However, what truly shows her that he's completely sincere is that even in front of a GirlPosse of popular girls, he doesn't drop the "act", instead reinforcing how he feels by [[HoldingHands holding her hand]] right in front of those girls' faces..

* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Arata admits his popularity is overwhelming and at worst annoying due to the unwanted attention. He's usually acting like a good sport about it, but it's later clear that a lot of this annoyance comes from him having to basically starve himself to maintain his attractive body shape.

* SpoiledSweet: Manatsu Tomosato is a rich girl who lives in a big mansion with a walk-in closet full of nice dresses and monster costumes and has many servants resembling [[Franchise/UltraSeries Ultraman]] at her beck and call. She's also [[CloudCuckoolander pretty crazy]], being obsessed with {{Kaiju}} to the point of harboring a MadLove for the monster Harugon and having her servants ferry her out on speedboats and helicopters dressed like Film/{{Mothra}} in attempts to catch "his" attention. She's nevertheless a kindhearted character, becoming fast friends with and a RomanticWingman for Kuroe (who she thinks is Harugon's "priestess") despite the latter [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer being shunned by their other classmates]].
* SuperStrength: Whenever Kuroe transforms, whether it's [[{{Kaiju}} fully]] or [[PartialTransformation partially]], it always comes with a superhuman amount of strength. While she's effectively TheJuggernaut in full-Kaiju form, she's still capable of denting metal with her fists and slapping fully-grown men away with her tail in her partial form.

* SweetTooth: In the very first chapter of the series, Kuroe ogles a picture of gourmet pancakes served at a restaurant called Cafe Serizawa. She's wistful about the fact that she won't get to eat any herself because the place is invitation-only...until Arata shows up with two invitations. When she takes a bite of one pancake, it's the first time she is depicted as genuinely happy.

* ThatWasNotADream: The first time Kuroe transforms into Harugon, she thinks she's just having a cathartic dream. Her mother tries to maintain this illusion the following morning by turning off the news and coming up with a hasty excuse for why her school uniform feels like brand new (which it ''is'', because the transformation destroyed the original set). Unfortunately, Kuroe turns the news on herself and finds out the truth.
* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Kuroe briefly feels this way after she transforms in front of Arata at Destinyland and thinks that he was freaked out by this. She's on the cusp of willingly transforming fully into Harugon to destroy the Destinyland castle out of spite, saying "If I'm not allowed to live like a normal girl, then I'll live like a Kaiju." Luckily, Arata shows up and reveals that he was ''not'' freaked out by what he assumes is her cosplay of a Destinyland character, which manages to calm her down.
* ThousandYardStare: Kuroe sports one after she transforms in front of Arata at Destinyland and runs off to a bathroom.

* TwoPersonLoveTriangle: After seeing Harugon kiss Arata while knowing he's in a relationship with Kuroe, Manatsu, in all her {{Cloudcuckoolander}} wisdom, comes to the conclusion that he's being a two-timer. Unknown to her, however, is that even ''if'' Arata actually had feelings for Harugon as well, Kuroe and Harugon are the same person, so there wouldn't be any two-timing regardless.

* WhatDoesHeSeeInHer: When the Ginjuuji High student body discovers that Arata is dating Kuroe, they're almost universally stunned (and in the case of the girls, [[GreenEyedMonster extremely jealous]]). One classmate even asks Arata if Kuroe is ''threatening'' him. The only two classmates who aren't shocked and/or disappointed are Manatsu (who [[RomanticWingman helped set the two up]]) and Rairi (whose insecurities about her appearance and painful experiences with a boy she liked make her naturally sympathetic to Kuroe).
* WhenSheSmiles: Kuroe happily enjoying her pancakes seems to be what cemented Arata's love for her.

* AndCallHimGeorge: When she catches Arata in her hand as Harugon at the metal festival, a relieved Kuroe squeezes him so hard that he passes out.

* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: Kuroe's transformations are triggered by strong emotion. She tries to get around this by avoiding socialization and public entertainment that might make her emotional...but her affection for Arata makes this increasingly difficult.

** Kuroe herself becomes one for Rairi and her gorilla face, as Rairi feels that Kuroe's similar background and insecurities mean she can be trusted with a secret like that. [[spoiler:This comes to an end when Rairi accidentally outs her face to everybody, including her old {{Jerkass}} crush, during a school trip, causing it to no longer be a secret, especially once she gets enough confidence from her followers' proceeeding support to show her true face on social media.]]

* ExpressiveHair: Kuroe has two large strands of hair that are shaped like and act like horns. Although it often becomes ambiguous as to whether they're her actual horns (as they grow longer), or are simply made of hair (as they're expressive).
** If she's particularly shocked or miffed, her ponytails will also fly up into the air.

* WhamShot: TheReveal of Rairi's real makeup-less gorilla face after she and Kuroe are splashed with water.
** All the way back in Chapter 1, Rinko looking at an egg that's been taped back together while saying "mommy's worried about you" after Kuroe comes home surly.

->''Sorry, Minami-kun. It really doesn't look like I can have a normal romance. But...I do want to treasure it. This emotion you've given me, that is. I just hope I don't stomp it into the ground myself --''

* InkBlotCartoonStyle: When Kuroe and Arata go on a date to Destinyland, the theme park's mascot, Mitchy, is portrayed as a rabbit-like animal with a predominantly black body, white face/muzzle, BlackBeadEyes, WhiteGloves, and vaguely 1930s clothes -- basically Mickey as a rabbit.