Erika Shinohara, an Ordinary High-School Student, is often jealous of her friends' boyfriends - so she lies about having one herself to be a part of the group. When her friends become suspicious of her having an actual boyfriend, she claims a handsome boy in the picture on her cellphone is her boyfriend (she actually just took a random picture of the guy on street).
The story gets interesting when said guy in the photo happens to be a classmate! And not just an average classmate, but the school prince, Kyouya Sata!
Overhearing the conversation, Kyouya proposes the idea of becoming fake lovers with Erika under one condition: becoming his dog.
Okami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji, roughly translated as "The Wolf Girl and The Black Prince", is a shoujo manga by Ayuko Hatta which was serialized in the monthly magazine Bessatsu Margaret from 2011 to 2016, wrapping up with 16 volumes and 58 chapters, not counting extras.
An anime adaptation by TYO Productions premiered in October 2014 and ran for a total of 12 episodes, with an OVA later bundled with one of the manga volumes. The anime adaptation can be watched legally at Crunchyroll. The series has also been adapted to live-action, released on May 28, 2016 (two weeks after the manga ended) and starring Fumi Nikaido as Erika and Kento Yamazaki as Kyouya.
This manga provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Kiss: Kyouya and Sanda have this once when a passerby knocks into Kyouya. Erika is so bothered by it that she spends the entire chapter Digging Herself Deeper.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Kyouya has shown on numerous occasions he's capable of being nice to Erika and does genuinely care for her.
- Babies Ever After: Nine years after the story ends, Kyouya and Erika are married with a little girl named Yuina. Turns out the child had been conceived out of wedlock, which Kyouya isn't proud of and hates being reminded of.
- Becoming the Mask: Despite all that's said and done, Erika begins to grow actual feelings for Kyouya. Same for Kyouya later on, showing some Clingy Jealous Boy tendencies and eventually realizing that he really does like Erika after all later on in the manga and admits he wants her for real.
- Berserk Button: Try anything even remotely romantic with Kyouya. Just try. Chances are, you'll just piss him off.
- Better as Friends: In the epilogue, Sanda mentions that she and Takeru started dating sometime after the main story, but they eventually broke it off and figured that they were fine the way they were.
- Big Little Brother: Played straight with Kyouya and Reika as well as Sanda and her little brother.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Oh, Kyouya. Being the charming school prince doesn't excuse you for being an absolute piece of shit to Erika behind the scenes.
- Terasaki as well. He initially appears as an average hopeless Dogged Nice Guy wanting to please his crush. If anything, he would become a certified domestic abuser to any girl he dates with.
- Boyfriend In Canada: How Erika starts off the series. She constantly tells her friends and peers about relationship troubles with her boyfriend, who naturally doesn't actually exist.
- Career Versus Man: Near the end of the series, Erika is faced with this. She loves Kyouya, but she also loves glass-making and has the chance to go to a great school to further excel in it. She doesn't want to give up her boyfriend nor her potential career. Kyouya is not helping either, bluntly telling Erika that if she chooses to study glass-making, they'll have to break up. It takes Sanda's slap to make him support her to go to Kyoto.
- Class Trip: The film adaptation has one to Kobe that serves as its climax. In the manga itself, while Erika does visit Kobe, it's a personal trip (she accompanies Kyouya to visit his mother), while the actual class trip doesn't happen until much later, when Erika is in senior year, and the destination is Hokkaido.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Erika doesn't take well to see Kyouya being touchy-feely with other girls, even accidentally (like with Sanda). Likewise, Kyouya can only tolerate exactly four guys to be close with Erika: her father, himself, Takeru, and Nozomi; everyone else is off-limits, and this is before he falls in love with her for real. They, however, don't hold a candle to Terasaki, who outright hits Erika to intimidate her to become his girlfriend.
- Composite Character: Nozomi and Kimura are merged in the film adaptation as one character, being a "friend" to Kyouya and the jerk who dates Erika just to take revenge against him for having attracted his ex-girlfriend.
- Contrived Coincidence: Who'd have thought that the photo Erika took one day of a random cute guy turned out to be the handsome mug of the school's hottest guy? The most popular guy that she, by coincidence, never heard of before?
- Curtains Match the Window: Brown-haired Erika with dark brown eyes.
- Domestic Abuse: While no explicit physical abuse is initiated during the relationship, Kyouya does pinch Erika's cheeks, thump her on the forehead and humiliate her when they're alone. It stops almost entirely after they start dating for real and are pretty much a normal couple after marriage.
- Epic Fail: One of Kyouya's attempts to confess to Erika on her birthday (as her birthday present) turns into "I love your 'do." Erika is still touched by the random compliment as Kyouya is comically ashamed of himself.
- Gecko Ending: Both the anime and the film adaptation, as they are produced before the manga had its ending (though the film adaptation was in fact released roughly two weeks after the publication of the last chapter).
- The anime ends after the conclusion of Erika and Kyouya's visit to the latter's mother in Kobe, with the final shot being their return to Tokyo. The manga still has a long way to go after that, but at least the two are already dating for real.
- Meanwhile, the film adaptation chronologically ends very early in the manga's timeline but creates padding (Erika's inexplicable singing after she does Kyouya's housework being a notable example) and a new resolution to balance them out. Specifically, it ends when Erika quits being the Wolf Girl in favor of a Relationship Upgrade, but instead of being resolved quickly, it takes place while the school is in vacation, with the associated drama. This makes the film feel rather shallow than either the manga or anime, as Kyouya doesn't get to show real affection for Erika, his confession looks as if it's made-up, and Erika actually loses her friends Marin and Tezuka, as unlike in the manga, they only tolerated Erika because they thought she had a genuine boyfriend.
- Genre Savvy: Rena knows she fits the definition of The Rival in a shoujo manga. This is why she formally challenges Erika.
- The Ghost: Kyoua's father is referenced and mentioned a few times, but never makes it onscreen.
- Hypocritical Humor: During Chapter 58.5, which sees the married life of Erika and Kyouya, the two are watching a segment about abusive boyfriends that play with their girlfriends' feelings. Kyouya comments how he'd never want his daughter to end up with a man like that, even though his daughter came into the world with that exact coupling in him and Erika. Even Erika has to hang a lampshade on that one and gives him a look.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Kusakabe willingly lets Erika go after he realizes that she is still pining after Kyouya. Also Sanda, who in one side story is revealed to have had a crush on Kyouya, but keeps it to herself as she values her friendship with Erika more. Although, her crush dies quite a bit after learning of his true manipulative nature through Erica.
- Jerkass: Kyouya, the one and only. Over time though, he morphs into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. It's more noticeable after he graduates high school.
- Let's Wait a While: Averted yet also not, in hilarious fashion. Erika and Kyouya are about to leave for a private vacation (with Erika having her parents believe she's at a sleepover). Sanda brings up that it may lead to intimacy, but Erika admits she feels ready for sex. (Kyouya overhears her saying this and becomes oddly anxious.) When the opportunity presents itself and Erica is ready and waiting, Kyouya seemingly rejects her. Erika is hurt and confused until Kyouya explains that despite his past, this is his "first time" too; he's never been with someone he cares about and is very nervous. After coming to an understanding, they're ready to have Their First Time... only to get interrupted. After this, it becomes a running gag whenever Erika and Kyouya try to consummate their relationship, something always interrupts them. After this happens several times, Kyouya is both annoyed and amused by it. However, they manage to finally do it (off-screen) before their school finals while studying at Kyouya's house. Before they do, Kyouya lampshades how they normally get interrupted at that point. This makes the series one of the few shoujo mangas to actually feature (or at least heavily imply) the lead couple having a sexual relationship.
- Long-Distance Relationship: At the end of the series, Erika and Kyouya choose to settle down to this after the former's Career Versus Man dilemma. They manage it well before deciding to live together after college graduation.
- Love Martyr: Erika, after realizing that she's actually falling in love with Kyouya.
- Not Good with Rejection: Subverted with Rena, who initially seems like the typical ambitious love rival who will sabotage the protagonist through anything when they're rejected, but it turns that she's perfectly fine with being rejected by Kyouya in favor of her cousin. This is not the case with Terasaki. After being rejected by Erika, he shows his true colors by slapping her and demanding she accept him or face further physical assault.
- One Head Taller: Kyouya notably towers over Erika.
- Opposites Attract: Erika, a girl willing to do anything for love, and Kyouya, a boy willing to do anything to stay away from love. The attracting part comes later, when Kyouya realizes that he does love Erika after all.
- Odd Friendship: Erika and Sanda, Kyouya and Takeru.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In episode six of the anime Kusakabe delivers one to Kyouya after he finds out about how Kyouya treats her.“It’s clear to me now. Shinohara’s wasted on you. I love Shinohara! I told her yesterday how I feel. I’m waiting to hear her response. I’m not especially good at anything, and I’m rather pathetic as men go in a lot of ways, but I’ll do everything I can to make her smile. That wouldn’t make sense to someone who only uses her to sate his superiority complex, I guess.”
- Secret Relationship: Inverse. Everyone thinks Erika and Kyouya are dating, but they're actually not. At least, not until later.
- Shipper on Deck: Takeru for Erika and Kyouya.
- Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!: Kyouya doesn't believe in romance. Too bad he's the male lead in a shoujo manga.
- Solomon Divorce: After her divorce, Hitomi took Reika with her, while her husband took Kyouya.
- Stealth Pun: The café that Takeru, Erika and Kyouya go to is called "Canis lupus", which is the scientific classification for "wolf". Also doubles as a
Funny Moment. - Third Wheel: Nozomi fears this when Takeru and Sanda get closer, feeling that with them and Kyouya and Erika dating, he'd be left out. This is coming from someone whose daily life consists of being The Casanova. While the two do date, they break up rather quickly.
- Undying Loyalty: How Erika is expected to act for the price of being Kyouya's "girlfriend". She later willingly throws herself into the role.
- What Does She See in Him?: San often wonders why Erika is pursuing Kyouya. Even Erika finds herself thinking this on multiple occasions when his emotional abuse gets to be too much, declaring herself a masochist for it.
- With Friends Like These...: Played with. Marin and Aki can be annoying at times and Erika mainly puts up with them at first just to have friends to hang out with. However, it's clear as the manga goes on that the two genuinely care for Erika, as best highlighted when Erika reveals that Kyouya was a fake boyfriend when she first introduced him. She fully expects them to be outraged and ditch her, but they're instead impressed she actually pulled off such a scheme and also got the guy for real; excitedly begging for full story details of the relationship. Not so in the film adaptation, though, as the two quickly distance themselves from Erika the moment the facade breaks.
- Women Are Wiser: Compare Terasaki and Kasai, who are introduced together in chapter 39 as serve as love rivals for Kyouya and Erika, respectively. The two complicate the couple's relationship, but while Kasai is accepting of Kyouya choosing Erica over her (even making amends with her), Terasaki goes absolutely ballistic when Erika rejects him for Kyouya and has to be physically restrained from assaulting her. He never makes amends with any of them either and even declares his hopes their relationship ends in heartbreak.
