Hot Gimmick, Vol. 12

Neighbors in Love!

In company-owned rabbit-hutch apartments live tenants who can't afford to live anywhere else, and the apartment complex in which high-school girl Hatsumi Narita lives is ruled over by the rumor mongering, self-righteous Mrs. Tachibana. Get on Tachibana's bad side, and life becomes hell. When Hatsumi has to buy a pregnancy test because her popular sister Akane is late, Mrs. Tachibana's son, Ryoki, who used to bully Hatsumi as a kid, promises not to tell the world about Hatsumi's secret only if she becomes his slave. Suddenly Azusa, Hatsumi's protector in their youth, reappears to save her again! He's moving back into the neighborhood! Despite the budding romance between Hatsumi and Azusa, Ryoki has control over her through the secret that could ruin the lives of everyone in Hatsumi's family, and he hasn't forgotten who his slave is!

Final Volume!

Normally, most teenage girls would be beside themselves with joy to have not one but three hot-as-they-want-to-be men in their lives, and if that were all that mattered, Hatsumi Narita would have been crowned Queen of Happiness a long time ago. But such is not the case. Her hunky childhood friend (now an über-studly male model) has tried to ruin her life on several occasions, her dreamy older (and adopted) brother wants to run off with her, and her cute on-again, off-again ad infinitum boyfriend continues to be the world's biggest jerk. Who on earth will she finally choose? Or will Hatsumi remain hopelessly hapless to the bitter end?

All this and more in the heart-pounding final volume of Miki Aihara's Hot Gimmick, one of the most talked-about shôjo manga in both America and Japan!