Happy Happy Clover by Sayuri Tatsuyama – review

Happy Happy Clover might be the most adorable manga ever.  Clover is – you guessed it – a happy bunny who lives with her animal friends in Crescent Forest, including her best friend Mallow, and bunnies Shallot and Kale.  Rambler, a rabbit who wanders around the world but stops by to visit Clover and her friends, and Hickory, Clover’s flying squirrel neighbor, keep their eyes on the adventurous group.  Clover thinks Kale’s six tiny brothers are the sweetest bunnies she has ever seen, until she babysits them.  It doesn’t take long before she realizes why Kale thinks they are annoying and pesky.  I have a little brother, too, so I understand how Kale feels!  Professor Hoot, the owl schoolteacher, has his hands full with the energetic bunnies, and has a model student in Shallot, who loves to read.  He always says “hoot hoot,” so if you read this manga out loud, which I like to do, it is a lot of fun to call out “hoot hoot” whenever Professor Hoot appears.  The bunnies don’t always behave, and sometimes they do things that can get them into trouble, but Rambler and Hickory usually save the day, and the bunnies learn a lesson or two.  When they try to hide their tests in a tree, because they have bad grades and are afraid to show their parents, they discover that their parents used the same tree to hide their own bad grades, because the old tests are still there!  Happy Happy Clover is also an anime and a Nintendo DS game, but only in Japanese.  Hopefully both will be available in the United States soon.