Manga

Spoiler warning! This page contains major spoilers for the whole series. Read at your own discretion!

P to JK (PとJK) is a shōjo manga series written and illustrated by Maki Miyoshi, which was released monthly in Bessatsu Friend (別冊フレンド, Bessatsu Furendo, a shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha Ltd.) since December 13th, 2012. The series is translated to English by Kodansha Comics USA, with its first volume having been released on August 7th, 2018. The series contains 16 volumes in total, and ended its run in 2020, on the 13th of February. The manga was originally intended to be a one-shot story with only four chapters, however, due to popular demand, it got extended to two volumes, and then became a long-running series.

Plot
Kako Motoya, a first-year at Oto High School, gets dragged into a singles' mixer intended for adults with her best friend, Mikado Yaguchi. The two were invited by Mikado's older sister, as the event was short on two girls. In order to disguise themselves, Mikado and Kako pretend to be 22-year-old college students. This facade works, and none of the grown-ups suspect anything. The act is further assisted by Mikado mentioning to one of the men present, that she considers her youthful appearance a weakness.

While Mikado is busy getting drunk, Kako tries her best to act decently, refusing to drink and treating the shop staff with kindness and respect. This catches the eye of one of the adults, Kota Sagano, who later during the night saves Kako from being forced into taking a shot of tequila. The two end up walking home together, and Kota hints that he might be interested in Kako. However, when she accidentally reveals her real age of 16, he quickly changes his mind, and sends her home with a taxi, ending their pleasant night coldly.

The next day Mikado and Kako share a bike (which is illegal in Japan,) on their way to school and happen to notice a cop nearby. Quickly, they try to cover their tracks as Mikado hops off the bike, however, they get stopped by the officer anyway. As it turns out, the policeman happens to be Kota. Kako tries to apologize to him for what happened the night before, however, he scolds them for breaking the law, and their interaction is ended quickly and harshly yet again.

What follows is a sequence of interactions between Kako and Kota, as they end up getting entangled into one another's business', with Kako not giving up on the prospect of dating Kota. After she saves him from a blow to the head, he ends up admitting his feelings for her, and the two decide to get married.

After this, the series mostly follows their married life. It explores how their age gap and occupational differences play into their relationship, how draining it can be to have to hide one's marital status, and how teenagers and adults often cannot see eye to eye on things. Aside from Kako and Kota's relationship, it also follows Kako's friends and their problems, which often require the help of the reliable local police office to solve.

Characters
A comprehensive list of characters can be found here.

My Boy in Blue features a relatively large cast of characters, who can be divided into the following categories:

Main Characters
The main characters of the manga are Kako Motoya (the protagonist), Kota Sagano (the romantic lead) and Heisuke Okami (the second romantic lead). Out of the three the one who gets the most character development is arguably Heisuke, seeing how a good portion of the plot of the manga is spent solving problems that are in one way or another related to him.

Despite the main sell of the manga being Kako and Kota's relationship and marriage, a surprisingly small part is spent exploring their partnership. Arguably, this could be because they are a stable couple who make slow progress in their relationship- Kota does not make many advances toward Kako, mostly because he wants to be careful around her (after all, she is still young and quite sensitive) and Kako seems to be happy keeping things the way they are, mostly because she is rather inexperienced. That being said, they do run into some problems throughout their shared lives, especially at the end of the series, where their relationship took such a big hit that they practically avoided each other for weeks.

Side Characters
The side characters of the manga are Mikado Yaguchi (Kako's best friend), Jiro Nagakura (Heisuke's best friend and Mikado's childhood friend) and Yui Sendo (Heisuke's step sister and Kako and Mikado's best friend).

Minor Characters
The list of background characters in My Boy in Blue is rather extensive, and can be divided into the following:

High School Students
Fuko Onozuka (Jiro's girlfriend), her best friend, Heisuke's old delinquent gang, Yui's ex boyfriend, Aya Nishikura (Kota's best friend in high school) and later on even Ichika Nagakura (Jiro's little sister) are just a few examples of background characters who are shown as high school students in one part of the story or another. Out of these, the most notable (in this role) are Fuko and Aya, who become somewhat major characters in the arcs they are introduced in.

Police Officers
Shuichi Yamamoto (Kota's senior), Fumi Komori (Kota's co-worker), Ryu Katsunaga (Kota's best friend) and Junta Sagano (Kota's father) are just a few examples of important background characters who work as police officers. Out of them, the one with the most active role is Yamamoto, who appears in most volumes, though characters with bigger roles in the story are Ryu and Kota's father. There are other officers of relative story importance shown in the manga, but they remain unnamed. These include Ryu's female co-worker from his previous station and his and Kota's co-worker who seems to be around their age and often interacts with them.

Relatives and Family Members
The previously mentioned Ichika and Junta are two family members of the core cast with significant roles in the story. Others include Kaoru Sagano (Kota's sister) Mr. and Mrs. Motoya (Kako's parents), Akari Okami (Heisuke's mother), Saburo (Jiro's cat), Mikado's second oldest sister, and Natsuhiko Sendo (Yui's father).

Other family members and relatives who make brief appearances or are referenced include Mrs. Sagano (Junta's wife, Kota and Kaoru's mother), Kaoru's fiancé, Mr. Yaguchi (Mikado's father), Mikado's oldest sister, Heisuke's father, Akari's ex boyfriend, Heisuke's maternal grandmother, Mr. and Mrs. Nagakura (Jiro and Ichika's parents), Yui's mother, Yui's unspecified relatives, Aya's mother, Aya's husband, Yamamoto's wife and daughter, and Ryu's two younger sisters.

Additionally, in the last chapter of the manga, other family members include Tsuu-chan (Kota and Kako's daughter), Harada (Akari's husband), Yuu-kun (Akari and Harada's son, Heisuke's half brother), and Jiro's sons.

Criminals
The criminals in the manga with larger roles are the previously mentioned Natsuhiko Sendo and Akari's ex boyfriend (both were previously romantically involved with Akari and accused of forcing minors into prostitution, and shown to assault at least one member of the core cast of teenagers), and Tee-sensei (the murderer of Junta Sagano, later the co-worker of Kako and Yui). Out of these, only Tee-sensei is not considered an antagonist.

Other criminals who make brief appearances or are referenced include the man who stabbed Tee-sensei and Natsuhiko's accomplice.

Miscellaneous
Finally, some of the previously mentioned characters also serve larger roles in other form, that cannot be put under one label. These characters inlcude Aya Nishikura (who no longer is a high school student and serves the role of giving exposition to the reader by telling Kaoru about Kota's past) and Hajime Harada, whose primary role is to be the homeroom teacher of class D at Oto High, as well as the PE and Japanese teacher at the school. His class includes Kako, Mikado and Jiro, as well as Heisuke for a brief time.

Family Issues
The biggest reoccuring theme within the manga is the characters' family issues, and how they affect high schoolers in specific- Heisuke comes from a low-income family, and his mother keeps getting into abusive relationships, which led to him becoming a delinquent as a survival mechanism, Kota had a troubled relationship with his father as a teenager, which caused him to rebel in frustration, only to lead him to live in guilt once his father died protecting him, Yui's father abuses her and forces her into prostitution from a young age, which in turn led to her acting out and being rude to others as a means to protect herself and having trust issues.

This theme is contrasted with the characters who come from good families- Kako might have overbearing parents, but she communicates with both and is comfortable around them, willing to talk back and hold her ground. Her parents are even trusting enough of her to allow her to marry Kota at the age of 16. This loving background also means that Kako is an all-around stable person, and nice to those around her as long as they treat her well. Once she understands how sorry Heisuke is for hurting her, and how horrible Yui's life has been, she is willing to forgive and forget, even gladly offering her friendship, support and protection to the two. Similarly, both Mikado and Jiro are shown to have good relationships with their families, and also a level of comfortableness in their own skins where they do not feel the need to push people away and are self-respecting. The only drama they are involved in (which is not directly or indirectly caused by one of the three afforementioned characters) is when Mikado, Jiro and Fuko are in a love triangle, and Kako tries her best to support Mikado. This goes to show how carefree their lives are in comparison to the lives of Heisuke, Kota and Yui.

High Schoolers and Police Officers
It should come as no surprise that the Japanese title of the manga has a deeper meaning than just representing the main couple. Throughout the series, we see high schoolers getting involved with the police in one way or another; Kako and Kota being married being the most obvious example, but others including Kako's relationships with officers Yamamoto and Komori, Kota having known officer Yamamoto since he was a teenager, Kota and Kaoru being the children of Lt. Junta Sagano, Heisuke's delinquent background leading him to often interact with the police, him not trusting the police because of previous trauma, how Kota helped him get over this and his ultimate decision to become a police officer himself, Yui's equally as negative view on the police and distrust of them as well as Kota's positive impact on this, Mikado's ambiguous relationship with Ryu, Jiro's (surface level) admiration for the officers, and later down the line Ichika's crush on Heisuke.

On that note, specifically the (potential) romantic relationships between officers and high schoolers became a repeated theme with not only Kako and Kota being married, but Ryu being quite open about his fancy for Mikado and being seemingly quite persistent with his wooing of her, showing a somewhat uncharacteristic commitment to her, and Ichika having not only a massive crush on Heisuke, but an actual advantage against other potential girlfriends, as she goes way back with him (though this also works as her weak point, as Heisuke mostly sees her as another little sister).

Finally, the series explores the questions of how much a high schooler can do to help their, or a friends' situation, without getting the authorities involved, and what is actually within the scopes of the police's legal capabilities within the given situations. Additionally, it sometimes showcases the importance of having connections to and within the field and how those can help things move smoother- things seem to sort themselves out faster for both Heisuke and Yui once they get involved with Kako, whose marrital status to Kota (an officer with good connections in the field) helps immensly in getting things to run along faster.

Teenagers and Adults; Generational Gaps, Age Gaps & Maturity and Immaturity
Finally, another theme can be found in the ages of the characters- outside of work and school the characters are just people belonging to different age groups, and there are multiple occasions when this shows:

Kota often feels his age around Kako and her friends, which can be contrasted with how natural it seems for Ryu to be around them. By no means is Ryu childish (actually, he might be the more mature one out of the two men), but he is more in touch with the younger generation and a more open person, capable of interacting with them in a way that makes them feel comfortable without putting himself down on their level, making it easier for him to interact and empathise with the kids. Kota on the other hand seems most at home around Kako and Heisuke, and to some degree Yui, as he seems to have a better understanding of his wife and the troublemakers. That being said, he sometimes has moments when he feels old even with them.

Kako and Kota often butt heads on topics that they cannot see eye-to-eye on because of their age gap; something which might seem to have an obvious solution for Kako might be more complicated from Kota's point of view, and the other way around. Luckily, the two are also mature enough (most of the time) to talk things out, help each other to see one anothers' viewpoints and come to mutually benefitial agreements.

Officer Yamamoto is another example of someone who is seemingly more in tune with the younger generation than others around him. This can be seen in his treatment of both Kota when he was a teenager, and Kako. He was and still is very understanding of the former and is very friendly with the latter, which often leads to hilarious interactions between the two. He and Kako even message one another occasionally, showing that they keep in touch even outside of Yamamoto's work hours.

The series also highlights how immature adults can be, despite their age. This is often shown in contrast to the teenagers acting more mature and level headed in certain situations, and the adults making rash decisions and not being able to control their emotions.

Arcs
The series can be divided into seven arcs:

Arc 1 (The Newlyweds Arc)
Covered in volumes 1-3, in which Kota and Kako meet, get married, and Kako finds out about the death of Kota's father.

Arc 2 (Heisuke Okami's Case Arc)
Covered in volumes 2-4, in which Heisuke and Kako become friends, the issues of Heisuke's troubled homelife are revealed and solved, and Heisuke confesses his feelings for Kako.

Arc 3 (The Aya Nishikura/Kota's High School Years Arc)
Covered in volumes 5-6, in which Kaoru suspects Kota is cheating on Kako but finds out he was only interacting with an old best friend from high school, Aya Nishikura. This leads to Aya telling Kaoru about her relationship with Kota.

Arc 4 (The Mikado-Jiro-Fuko Love Triangle Arc)
Covered in volumes 6-8, in which Mikado comes clean about her crush on Jiro. Despite this, Fuko and Jiro end up together instead.

Arc 5 (The Fateful Trip to Tokyo Arc)
Covered in volumes 8-9, in which Kako goes on a class trip to Tokyo, and finds out Heisuke's class is there as well. Moreover, she ends up in a conflict with Yui Sendo.

Arc 6 (Yui Sendo's Case Arc)
Covered in volumes 10-12, in which Yui and Kako end up befriending each other, and Yui's secret is revealed. This leads to Kako and company, alongside with Kota and the police force, working together in order to save Yui.

Arc 7 (The Tee-sensei Arc)
Covered in volumes 13-16, in which Kako starts volunteering at a local children's care home and befriends one of its workers, known as Tee-sensei. Unbeknownst to her, Kota and Tee-sensei aren't on the best terms with each other, and when Kako and Tee-sensei's friendship is revealed, it causes a rift in Kota and Kako's relationship.

Volumes
A list of volumes can be found here.

Chapters
A list of chapters can be found here.

Gallery
All related images can be found here.