"Punch!" is drawn and created by Rie Takada, the mangaka for another series called "Happy Hustle High." Punch! focuses on the story of Elle Nagahara, granddaughter of a Japanese muay thai boxing world champion and daughter of a wrestling champion and lightweight world boxing champion; her fiance, Ruo M. Eschuck; and Kazuki Shindo, a tough street fighter. These are the three players in Punch!'s love triangle, a feature that seems to come standard with most shoujo manga romances.
Ever since she was little, Elle has been told that she will marry Ruo, the 17 year-old grandson of a close friend and rival of her grandfather's, as well as the prize fighter (and champion!) of the martial arts gym run by her grandfather. But at 15, Elle wants to be able to have a normal relationship with someone not involved in martial arts. All of her attempts to build such a relationship with the boys she meets outside of the gym end when they are intimidated by her fiance and the boys from the gym.
Kazuki Shindo enters the picture when Elle accidentally lets his name slip as her new crush--despite the fact that the two don't even know each other! Reluctant to have yet another fighter in her life, Elle at first views Kazuki as a means to an end of her engagement with Ruo, but later begins to find herself really liking him.
Kazuki himself is a typical shoujo manga male character. He's a pretty boy with a sad (but not too tragic) past and is not as bad as he seems, although he does have bad boy tendencies such as his love for fighting. He has a younger sister who is blind, and a cute little dog that resembles Elle. Kazuki and his sister grew up with just their mother, who ran off with a man and left her children behind. Now they all live apart, but Kazuki visits them often.
Ruo is also your typical character. He's attractive, strong, and possessive of the main character, Elle. Ever since he was little, he's been told that he and Elle would marry. He's accepted this much more readily than Elle and takes great care to protect his position as her fiance...and her position as his. He seems to really care for her, as the two grew up together. Despite the fact that he cares for her, he exhibits some aggressive behavior towards her twice in this volume, and the second time even results in Elle getting injured after she falls off the bed and hits her head against a nightstand. He wants them to be as close as a man and woman can be (since they are supposed to be married), while she just seems him as a brother.
Although Elle's situation is slightly unrealistic (after all, how many times have you been in the middle of a love triangle?), it feels easy to relate to her emotions and reactions. She goes into chibi form quite often, but there's always some kind of unique expression on her face and not just the usual :D expression. All she wants is to break her engagement with Ruo and have a normal relationship with someone unrelated to martial arts. So when she finds herself falling for Kazuki, she kicks herself.
There's no real meaty plotline here, just the lure that eventually Elle will have to choose between Ruo and Kazuki. Even though right now it seems like she's more likely to choose Kazuki, somewhere between now and the final volume there may be an incident that causes her to waiver. We'll also eventually learn if Kazuki has any feelings at all for Elle, or if he's really just trying to help her escape her engagement with Ruo.
Like any good shoujo manga, the guys are pretty. Ruo and Kazuki are both very attractively drawn, and so is Yuichi, one of the boys who was bullied into breaking up with Elle (although it was only for one scene and he wasn't as pretty as Ruo or Kazuki). I find myself paging through the book just to get another glimpse of Kazuki.
The mangaka for Punch! seems to rely mostly on screen tones than actual background scenes. Scenes where there is a background drawn seem bare and as if something is missing. It seems like there is just the bare minimum, and the backgrounds give off a sterile feeling when we should be getting the feeling that the area is heavily used.
There's one translation element that bothers me about this volume. Elle refers to and address her grandfather as "Gigi." Being familiar with the Japanese language, I'm assuming that in the original, he was called "Jiji" which is another way of saying "Grandpa." I don't have the original Japanese (yet) so there's no way for me to check if this is true. If it is, I don't understand why the translators didn't just translate it as "Gramps" or some other alternative.
Other than that and the sterile background scenes, it's a rather enjoyable manga if you have no problems with shoujo manga fluff. If you need a break from heavy and serious manga or just want to see pretty boys, this is a good manga to pick up.
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