Line #97 Manga/Sumire16Sai


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_0017_001.png]]
2
3	A manga by Nagayoshi Takeru that takes quite a different spin on the usual high school comedy manga. Originally published as ''Sumire 17 sai!!'', an 18 chapter series running in ''Weekly Magazine/ShonenMagazine'' in 2006, it gathered enough popularity to be expanded into a 52 chapter comic in ''Magazine Special'' under the new name ''Sumire 16 sai!!''. The new series ran between 2006 and 2008, and was adapted into a 12-episode live-action [=JDrama=] TV series.
4
5	Ordinary schoolgirl Renge Ohyama is on her way to the first day of high school when her bike breaks down. A mysterious schoolgirl named Sumire Yotsuya offers to help her... but is she really just a schoolgirl? Who is the weird old man using ventriloquism and controlling the puppet? Wait, Sumire is a life-size puppet!?
6
7	''Sumire 16 sai!!'' follows the the Sumire-led four man band through three years of high school, including culture festivals, exams, holidays, typhoons, elections, delinquents, yakuza and even more insane meetings and events.
8
9	The main characters are as follows:
10	* [[TheHero Sumire Yotsuya]] - A 1:1 scale schoolgirl puppet controlled by a mysterious man. But aside from that, she is a [[GenkiGirl bright, cheerful and happy]] high school girl, prone to wacky hijinks.
11	* [[TheHeart Renge Ohyama]] - An OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent who always was [[TheWoobie bullied and never had any real friends]]. She almost gets drafted into being the gofer for the school's hoodlums, but gets rescued by Sumire, whom she befriends.
12	* [[TheLancer Akebi]] [[TheBigGuy Kiryuu]] - The [[MafiaPrincess daughter of a Yakuza boss]] who attends Satoyama high school to experience what it's like to be a normal high school girl, and not just a MafiaPrincess.
13	* [[TheSmartGuy Mizuki Tsukamoto]] - An [[TeenGenius excellent student]] but introverted and [[{{Tsundere}} cold girl]] who, like Renge, never has had any friends, and just finds the rest of the world boring.
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15	Don't let the creepy old man scare you away from this buried treasure!
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17	While the series had long since ended, Nagayoshi later released two full color doodle chapters featuring the main cast of both ''16-sai'' and ''17-sai'' on social media.
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19	----
20	!!This series provides examples of:
21
22	* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Lex and Sakura to Yamabuki, Yamabuki to the Old Man.
23	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Renge was bullied in middle school.
24	* AlphaBitch: Ageha Kuroki starts as this, and doesn't really let up until the end of the manga.
25	* AlwaysInClassOne: Only for the first year in ''16-sai''.
26	* AttemptedRape: Happens to both Renge and Ageha. Luckily, Sumire and Sakura, respectively, intervene.
27	* BeachEpisode: Akebi lets the gang come to her own beach house during summer vacation, with Lex and Yamabuki coming along to, er, chaperone.
28	* BlitheSpirit: Sumire (especially in the ''Sumire 17'' chapters). The fact that the cheerful schoolgirl who inspires everyone to become better people is not even a real person is part of the MindScrew.
29	* ButtMonkey: The Old Man's willing to suffer to keep up the masquerade that Sumire's a real girl. And boy, does he suffer.
30	* BystanderSyndrome: Basically the entire point of Takao's introduction story. He learns to ditch the attitude once he sees the Mysterious Woman being picked on.
31	* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome - Subaru Tamiya just disappeared after chapter 13 and was never heard from again. [[spoiler:He comes back during the epilogue, where it is revealed that he's been working as a theater actor]].
32	* CombatPragmatist - Raised by the Yakuza, Akebi has no qualms with striking beneath the belt, or putting brass knuckles in her boxing gloves.
33	* CuteClumsyGirl: Renge gets classified as a {{Dojikko}} by the Otaku at the MaidCafe.
34	* {{Delinquent}}: Ryuuji Sakura, a tough-acting puppet boy manned by the extremely meek Mysterious Woman.
35	* DemonHead: Akebi brings out her "Yakuza face" sometimes.
36	-->'''Renge: '''Sorry! She hasn't made that yakuza face in a long while!!
37	* {{Determinator}}: '''''NOTHING''''' will keep the old man from keeping the masquerade. The '''one''' time when he was even ''implied'' to have broken masquerade, something that took Yamabuki's life being endangered to acomplish, he (''IF'' he really broke it) did it ''off-panel''.
38	* DirtyOldMan: Invoked. Seeing how far he goes to keep up the masquerade, it's hard for people to not see the Old Man as one. He even gets taken in when the police suspect that he's a ''chikan''. However, even though he never speaks his mind, he doesn't take a lot of advantage over the fact that he puppets a sixteen/seventeen year old girl.
39	* DistantFinale[=/=]FastForwardToReunion: The entirety of the final chapter of ''16-sai'' is devoted to the actual reunion of Renge's class, with her catching up on what Akebi and Mizuki (and everyone else) had been doing since then:
40	** Renge is working as a designer at a toy company. She designed the same talking phone strap that Mizuki and Akebi coincidentally also use.
41	** Mizuki apparently is working for a law firm, and is on the way to becoming a lawyer herself, with a focus on divorce cases, particularly those where there's a child involved.
42	** Akebi manages a chic clothes boutique in the city. Oh, and she's apparently engaged to Hiiragi Kazuma, who survived his operation and has returned to Japan.
43	** [[spoiler: We finally get an answer to what happened to Subaru Tamiya: apparently he's been working as a stage actor since he suddenly disappeared.]]
44	** Suzuki became a member for Japan's Olympic swim team (!!), though he only got as far as the preliminaries during the actual Olympics.
45	** Lex returned to England and became the apprentice of a famous ventriloquist.
46	** And while Ageha herself couldn't make it to the reunion, we see a big billboard for the movie she's starring in as the three friends barhop across the city.
47	** And as for Sumire? [[spoiler:The old man and Sumire are seen walking to school with the three girls introduced in ''Sumire 17-sai''.]]
48	* DoWrongRight: Sumire decides to use the hot springs with the other girls, despite the problems that would raise. Akebi is angry with the Old Man...not because he's a man in a hot spring with naked high school girls, but because he's wearing clothes at a hot spring.
49	* DudeMagnet: Sumire's pretty popular with the guys, in spite of (or sometimes ''because of'') the fact that she's a doll.
50	* ElectionDayEpisode: As part of Ageha's latest scheme to charm the male student body, she decides to run for class president. Sumire joins the fray, however, but Ageha takes the lead due to her [[MsFanservice campaign assets]]. Sumire's friends fire back with their own brand of {{Fanservice}}-- the ''Old Man'' after they've cleaned him and suited him up. Sumire wins by a [[LandslideElection landslide]] thanks to the female student body's larger presence in the school.
51	* EmptyEyes: A phenomenon common to ''any'' adult (be it teachers or [[spoiler:former classmates]]) who mysteriously fail to notice that Sumire is a puppet. Often noticed, discussed [[spoiler:and eventually invoked]] by Sumire's friends, who wonder what's this is all about until they realize [[spoiler:the Old Man has been puppeting Sumire for ''years'' and]] they all were people who knew of, and were willing to keep, the masquerade; [[spoiler:at that point, ''they'' do it themselves, even discussing who had done the EmptyEyes better afterwards.]]
52	* EnfantTerrible: Ringo Hime. She may understandably not want the Old Man in elementary school with her, but the steps she takes to try and kick him out are downright cruel for a little girl.
53	* {{Expy}}:
54	** The wrestling team's [[Wrestling/AndreTheGiant Ando the Giant]]. The girls wonder if he really is a high schooler.
55	** The cast of ''16-sai'' is a CastOfExpies to the one from ''17-sai''. Justified since [[spoiler:the Old Man repeatedly goes to high school with a different generation each time.]]
56	* FestivalEpisode: Complete with MaidCafe and HauntedHouse attraction!
57	* FirstNameBasis: Sumire seems to be like this with everyone in her class, even after only meeting them.
58	* FourTemperamentEnsemble: Sumire (Sanguine), Mizuki (Melancholic), Akebi (Choleric), and Renge (Phlegmatic).
59	* FreakyFridayFlip: Sumire and Sakura accidentally switch puppet masters during a thunderstorm. The Old Man takes the opportunity to run with this trope. The Mysterious Woman controlling Sakura is not amused.
60	* FunnyForeigner: Lex Begonia, the English teacher, whose knowledge of Japan could [[CloudCuckooLander not match reality]] any less.
61	* TheGenericGirl: Renge had a lot of fears about being this in her [[{{Ventriloquism}} circle]] [[TheSmartGirl of]] [[MafiaPrincess friends]], and later chapters had her express a desire to make herself more "useful" to them. However, they don't mind her either way.
62	%%* GenkiGirl: Sumire, Akebi as well.
63	* HeCleansUpNicely: Downplayed with the Old Man. For the election, Akebi just slicks his hair back and gives him one of her guards' suits, but combining that with Sumire's natural kindness and helpful attitude sent the female school population into a tizzy.
64	* HighlyVisibleNinja:
65	** The Old Man's simple, form-fitting plain black clothes are deliberately evocative of what inspired the stereotypical ''ninja costume'' - that of a Kabuki theatre prop handler, or Kuroko - which are by convention to be simply ignored by the audience. Said convention is continuously and humorously ignored as ''everybody'' notices him.
66	** If the Old Man's clothings are reminiscent of the ninja outfit's origins, the Mysterious Woman's attire (basically a [[InnocentFanserviceGirl slightly see-through]] version of his own) are reminiscent of the fishnet-heavy ''kunoichi'' stereotypical attire.
67	%%* HilarityEnsues
68	* HypocriticalHumor: About 95% of Sumire and Sakura's interactions will have this trope involved. Whatever weird thing one calls out, the other one also invokes because they're a weird-acting puppet as well.
69	%%* InnocentFanserviceGirl: The Mysterious Woman should ''really'' consider wearing thicker clothing.
70	%%* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Mizuki Tsukamoto, before Sumire and the others befriend her.
71	* JapaneseDelinquents: Quite a few in the manga. The Mysterious Woman even builds up a gang of ''sukeban'' during the FreakyFridayFlip!
72	%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Ryuuji Sakura.
73	* KarmaHoudini: Ageha doesn't really change her ways (despite being saved by Sumire ''twice'' in situations where her vamp-like tendencies land her in serious trouble) and yet, got a reasonably happy ending.
74	* LaserGuidedKarma: Takao chides Sakura for going out of his way to get himself involved in other people's business, such as molestation and bullying, and thinks he's better than Sakura because he doesn't bother himself with that. Afterwards he gets beaten up by a thug, with tons of people passing by and watching, but nobody doing anything. It's especially driven home when he looks out to crowd to help [[spoiler: only for him to see other Takaos walking around.]]
75	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The Old Man does it, exactly ''once'', in the penultimate chapter, with Sumire looking at the graduation picture: "Oh my! There's a ghost of an old man in the picture!!"
76	* LetsGetDangerous: The old man never fights back when attacked (other than using Sumire's arm for any slap that RuleOfFunny might demand), as he never breaks character. However, when forcefully separated from Sumire and held down in an arm lock, he's able to ''dislocate his own shoulder'' to break free and get back to puppetering.
77	* LosingYourHead: Sumire's joints aren't shaking-proof.
78	* LoveConfession: In ''17-sai'', after finding out that Sakura was in love with a popular boy named Shuuji, Sumire pulled out all the stops to make him available for her to confess to on Valentine's Day. However, in the process, Shuuji ends up confessing to ''Sumire'' during that exact same confession, having fallen in love with her through her antics and mistaking her friend's confession for her own on ''her'' behalf.
79	* LoveDodecahedron: Lex is in love with the Yamabuki, who has a one-sided crush on the Old Man. Sakura is in love with Yamabuki as well, and Ageha has ''some'' sort of infatuation with the Mysterious Woman. Sumire's friend Sakura has a crush on Shuuji, who has a crush on Sumire, who has some small crushes here and there. And that's not even getting into the rest of the many admirers she has across the two series...
80	* MadeOfIron: Getting stung by hornets, running around in the cold, dragged along by a car and skidding on pavement, getting set on fire (''multiple times'', even)... The more the Old Man suffers, the more surprising it gets that he hasn't died from it all yet.
81	* MaidCafe: The girls come up with one as part of the school festival. It doesn't do to hot at first, but after two {{Otaku}} take interest in Renge's clumsiness and Mizuki's [[CuteGlassesGirl bespectacled appearance]], they call in their acquaintances and make it a hit.
82	%%* MadMathematician - The math teacher, Reiko Yamabuki, is a mild version.
83	%%* MafiaPrincess - Akebi Kiryuu.
84	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Played with in Sumire. She acts like one, and would probably qualify if she wasn't a doll!
85	* ManipulativeBitch:
86	** Ageha Kuroki. All she wants is the [[AttentionWhore attention]] and servitude of the male student body, and she'll do anything to get it.
87	** Ringo Hime as well. As long as her parents are a part of the PTA, she has her classmates under her thumb.
88	** Saki Oomura in ''17-sai'', being the progenitor to Kuroki in personality and in looks.
89	* ManlyTears: Shed obviously by the Old Man, [[spoiler:when Renge, Mizuki, and Akebi finally meet him again, after six years.]]
90	* MisaimedFandom: In-universe example. The otaku-crowd that started frequenting the MaidCafe after they saw maid-Sumire and her puppet master.
91	* MindScrew: What is that old man anyway? [[spoiler: How many "iterations" has Sumire gone through?]]
92	** In the afterword of ''Sumire 16-sai'', WordOfGod says the old man [[spoiler: will never have his identity revealed, because he's in everyone's heart. Somewhat deep? Maybe. An obvious cop-out? Definitely.]]
93	* MysteriousPast: The Old Man and the Mysterious Woman. We don't learn their names, ages, where they live, how long they've been at this charade, or what they did before they started their ventriloquism. Some of the girls even tried to tail the geezer to learn more about him, but all they got was a small receipt. [[spoiler: It's likely we never ''will'' learn more about them, since the author doesn't give a concrete explanation in the series afterword.]]
94	* NoNameGiven: Everybody just calls the old man "Sumire", and likewise for Sakura's puppet master. [[spoiler:However, a single panel of ''Sumire 17'' addresses him as "underling Tsukushi Nobuhiko".]]
95	* ObliviousToLove: Mizuki and Shirakaba: "Why is it that when I'm around him I feel so at ease?". This despite vehemently denouncing having any relationships when asked by Sumire a few pages before.
96	* OnlySaneMan: Renge and Mizuki both fit this. Yeah, that's right -- with Sumire, you definitely need more than one main character to remind you how ridiculous it is.
97	** Ran, Yuri and Sakura Takano in ''17-sai''. Sakura especially.
98	%%* {{Ojou}}: Ringo "Are you trying to oppose me!?" Hime.
99	* OutsideContextProblem: Yamabuki [[DiscussedTrope states]] Sumire to be this for her.
100	* PaperThinDisguise: Sumire uses a wig to dress up as Mizuki to set the latter up on a date. Even Akebi can't ignore how badly it'll fail.
101	* {{Prequel}}: Guess which series is to which? [[spoiler:If you guessed that ''16-sai'' is the prequel to ''17-sai'', then you guessed right.]]
102	* PutOnABus:[[spoiler: Sakura gets expelled because he wants to "travel the world". Ageha drops out once a talent agency scouts her.]]
103	* RedLightDistrict: When the trio of ''17-sai'' tries to spy on the Old Man to see what he's like outside of school, he see him enter a building here. At first the girls think that he's getting Sumire into seedy situations, but it turns out that he just helps at a daycare that's situated here, for some odd reason.
104	* RiddleForTheAges: Invoked by the mangaka in the last chapter's epilogue, where he actually states he's ''taking to his grave'' the secret of [[spoiler:who the Old Man is, why he's puppetering Sumire, how many times he's puppeted her through a new school year with a different generation of classmates, and how long he's been doing that]].
105	* TheRival - Ryuuji Sakura.
106	* SelectiveObliviousness - Teachers and adults in general (save for the occasional odd one) seem to purposely ignore the fact that Sumire is not a real girl. We do not learn the reason for this until the very last chapter.
107	** Some of Akebi's lines are chock full of disturbing implications that nobody (except Mizuki) seems to realize.
108	%%* ShrinkingViolet - Renge Ohyama.
109	* SnowedIn: During the ski trip, Sumire and Sakura get lost in a snowstorm, only to find an empty cabin for them to warm up in. When they discover that they don't have any more firewood to heat up the fireplace, both the puppets ''and'' the puppeteers decide to burn their outer garments in order to keep the fire going. It eventually leads to a NotWhatItLooksLike for the puppeteers and a bit of [[ShipTease awkward tension]] on the part of the puppets.
110	* SmashingWatermelons: The cast does this on the BeachEpisode of course, but the melon is smashed on the second person by Lex, who didn't fall for the girls' misdirection and sliced it in one go. He owes it all to the kendo practice.
111	* SpearCounterpart: Sakura is this to Sumire, and even comes with a DistaffCounterpart handler in the form of the Mysterious Woman.
112	* StealthSequel: [[spoiler:Despite being published first, ''Sumire 17-sai'' is revealed to be set six years '''after''' ''Sumire 16-sai'' in the epilogue to the latter.]]
113	%%* StoicSpectacles - Mizuki Tsukamoto.
114	* StupidSexyFlanders: Throughout both series, Sumire has her fair share of admirers. More than one of them are fully aware that she's a puppet controlled by an old man. One of them likes her ''because'' she's a puppet controlled by an old man.
115	* TeacherStudentRomance: Part of the LoveDodecahedron, from Sakura, a doll, to the math teacher.
116	%%* {{Tsundere}} - Mizuki gets classified as one by the Otaku at the MaidCafe.
117	* UnusualEuphemism: Akebi mentions Renge's two greatest "talents".
118	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Averted for most of the cast, except those the principal has spoken to... who somehow are forced to accept Sumire as a normal high school girl.
119	* TenderTears: InvokedTrope for Sumire, thanks to the little bottle of [[PracticalEffects theatrical tears]] the old man [[CrazyPrepared carries in case she should cry]].
120	* TheVamp - Ageha Kuroki, kind of. She just wants to control all the guys because it's [[ForTheEvulz what she does]].
121	* VerbalTic - Sumire tends to add "Super" to sentences even when it's not appropriate.
122	* WeWillMeetAgain: Akebi promises this to Kazuma, who was leaving Japan to get heart surgery overseas. [[spoiler: They do end up meeting again, and even get married along the way.]]
123	* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Taken to a whole new level: Three of the chapters are dedicated to Sumire's musing about her earlier childhood. These chapters are named, quite aptly, ''Sumire 10 Sai!!''. Hilariously, Renge and Akebi go from balking at the obvious FridgeHorror that the Old Man has been doing this for six years,[[note]]albeit the last episode reveal that he [[spoiler:"resets" Sumire to grow a year after ''six'' years]], meaning that he might have been at this for ''36'' years instead[[/note]] to eagerly anticipating the third flashback.
124	* WoundedGazelleGambit: In ''17-sai'', Saki tried to do this to the Old Man and frames him for attempted rape by seducing him and making him fall over her. He ''does'' go on top of her... but only because [[SubvertedTrope there was a hornet's nest]] above where they were sitting and he was going to protect her from the stinging.
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Context Manga / Sumire16Sai