Imadoki! ("Nowadays!") is a manga by Yuu Watase. It ran in the shoujo magazine Shoujo Comic from 2000 to 2001, and was collected into five volumes. The manga is licensed in English by Viz Media.
Stubbornly cheerful country girl Tanpopo moves to Tokyo to attend high school, but has trouble fitting in among her rich classmates. In an attempt to change the school's social hierarchy, she starts the Planting Club (despite live plants being banned at school), and through sheer persistence manages to win over some of her classmates, like popular but cold Koki Kugyo and ambitious, insincere Tsukiko Saionji.
This show provides examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Question:
- Yoji asking Erika if she truly loves Koki or if she will fall out of love with him the way she did with Yoji.
- Tsukiko gives one to Erika, asking her "And what are you without the Yanaharas?!"
- Arranged Marriage: Koki and Erika. Erika was originally engaged to Koki's older brother Yoji, but after Yoji disappeared, she and Koki became engaged instead.
- Attention Whore: Erika, at least toward Koki.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Tsukiko, for about the first volume. Since Tanpopo doesn't pick up on it, Tsukiko eventually gives up the subtlety and it becomes Bitch Alert.
- Erika as well, though it doesn't fool anyone for that long. When Tanpopo leaves the gardening club, everyone immediately realizes that Erika was involved. Although she insists she didn't have anything to do with it, Koki eventually manages to get the truth out of her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tanpopo decides to leave all her friends in Tokyo and move back to Hokkaido to care for her grandfather after his heart attack, but she and Koki are finally together and promise to wait for each other until they're reunited.
- Bungled Suicide: Erika slits her wrists after Koki breaks off their engagement, but survives. In Hokkaido she tries again by breaking the ice of the pond she's standing on, but Tanpopo drags her out and slaps some sense into her.
- But Now I Must Go: In the end, Tanpopo decides to return to Hokkaido in order to care for her ailing grandparents.
- Butt-Monkey: Tanpopo initially, although she eventually makes friends and manages to win over the rest of the school as well.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Tanpopo to Koki, and vice-versa.
- Claustrophobia: Tanpopo has a huge fear of small spaces. It turns out to be as a result of the car accident in which she lost her parents.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Erika and Tsukiko for Koki. Even cheery Tanpopo shows signs of this at times.
- Driven to Suicide: Erika attempts this after Koki breaks off their engagement. She survives the attempt.
- False Friend: Tsukiko to Tanpopo, although they eventually become friends for real.
- Friendless Background: Averted. Tanpopo had plenty of friends in Hokkaido, but knows no one in Tokyo and is immediately looked down on by her schoolmates for being a Scholarship Student.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Arisa is initially set on an abortion and even gets the money for the procedure from the baby's father, but changes her mind and decides to keep the baby.
- Gossip Evolution: Rumors flew around when Yoji left the Kugyou family. Aoi admits that the rumor he heard was that the older son of the Kugyous ran off to get a sex-change in a foreign country.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Tanpopo spends a while denying her feelings for Koki. Unfortunately for her, she realizes them around the time that she learns there's a fiancee in the picture.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Tanpopo has plenty of friends back in Hokkaido, but wants to make friends in Tokyo too.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Averted with Tsukiko, who wants Koki and his riches and doesn't care about Tanpopo or Erika or anyone else in her way, although she eventually lets it go. Played straight with Yoji and Tanpopo.
- I Will Wait for You: In the end, Tanpopo has to move back to Hokkaido to help care for her ailing grandfather, and Koki promises to wait for her return. The final page shows them reuniting.
- Matchmaker Crush: At the Valentine's Day festival, Yoji tries to help Tanpopo confess to Koki, but after it fails, he ends up revealing his own feelings for Tanpopo.
- My Parents Are Dead: Tanpopo, when Koki asks her about her parents.
- Oblivious to Love: Tanpopo. Yoji has to spell out his interest in her, and later, when Koki follows her to Hokkaido after she confesses to him over the phone, she honestly has no idea why he's come to see her.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Tanpopo quits the planting club, it sends out a GIANT red flag to everyone that something is amiss.
- Pair the Spares: Arisa winds up with Ogata, her baby's father, while Aoi and Tsukiko get a bit of Ship Tease from Tanpopo at the end.
- Parental Abandonment: Tanpopo's parents died in a car accident when she was eight.
- Poor Communication Kills: Koki goes to confess to Tanpopo but finds Yoji hugging her, and misinterprets their relationship despite them not yet dating at that point.
- Raised by Grandparents: In Hokkaido, Tanpopo lives with her grandparents because her parents died when she was a child.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: In an attempt to get closer to Koki in an early chapter, Tanpopo replaces a garden of fake flowers with real ones, which lands her in hot water because real plants are banned from school property. When Koki arrives on the scene, he declares that Tanpopo is allowed to have the garden, and because his father happens to own the school, Tanpopo's punishment is erased.
- Settle for Sibling: Two examples.
- Erika, who was originally engaged to Yoji, ended up getting passed off to Koki after Yoji disappeared. Although later, when Yoji came back, the Kugyos offered Erika the choice to reinstate the engagement with Yoji and she chose to stay with Koki.
- With her affections for Koki going unacknowledged, Tanpopo dates Yoji after he confesses to her. Yoji breaks it off after realizing that Tanpopo still loves Koki.
- Sibling Triangle: Koki, Tanpopo, Yoji. Tanpopo actually does date Yoji for a little while, but Yoji breaks up with her when it becomes apparent that she still loves Koki.
- Undressing the Unconscious: An already-ill Tanpopo overworks herself in the rain and collapses, and Koki finds her and takes her to her apartment. When he gets her inside, he realizes that her clothes are soaked... but by this point she is unconscious, forcing him to take her clothes off for her, while Poplar glares at him.
- Unknown Rival: Tsukiko considers Tanpopo a huge obstacle getting in her way of being with Koki, and is extremely obvious about it, but Tanpopo takes a very long time to realize it.
