Futari Ecchi

Futari Ecchi (ふたりエッチ), also known by other names Manga Sutra, Step Up Love Story or Manga Love Story, is a manga series by Katsu Aki.

Futari Ecchi is a story about a newlywed couple in their mid-twenties, both virgins when they married. The story chronicles their sexual explorations. The manga combines pornographic elements with factual and informative statistics. The title Futari Ecchi ("two person ecchi") is a play on a slang term for masturbation, hitori ecchi ("single person ecchi"). This bestselling series is most famous for being a how-to guide combined into a story. So far, forty tankōbon have been released. Two other volumes are set around the sexuality of women, called Futari Ecchi for Ladies, and there is an art book entitled Yura Yura. A four-episode anime OVA series was produced in 2002 and 2003.

As of June 17, 2007, the manga series has been licensed in North America by Tokyopop, with the first volume released on January 8, 2008. Four volumes were released, with a representative of Tokyopop saying that the volumes were expensive to produce. Also, on July 2, 2007 at Anime Expo, Media Blasters announced that they had licensed the OVA series.

In Germany, both the manga and the anime are called Manga Love Story.

Main characters

 * Makoto Onoda (小野田 真), voiced by Yūji Ueda (OVA) and Mitsuo Iwata (radio drama)
 * The series' protagonist, a 25-year-old (26 by volume 7) foreign cosmetics maker and elite salaryman. He was introduced to Yura through an omiai. He is very critical of his own sexual abilities, but that does not hinder him from having sexual fantasies with any pretty girl in his vicinity (ultimately, though, he stays faithful to Yura). Nevertheless, after his marriage he attracts the attention of a lot of female admirers. In addition to his inexperience, Makoto suffers from premature ejaculation.


 * Yura Onoda (小野田 優良), voiced by Tomoko Kawakami (OVA) and Yumi Ichihara (radio drama)
 * Makoto's wife. Also 25 years old, Makoto is the first man she has ever kissed or had sex with. She is loving, but extremely naïve on sexual matters and too shy to try something new by herself (even through the series she is fully determined to overcome her limitations and be a better lover to Makoto), as well as insecure about her looks — she is unaware how beautiful and charming she is. She is also the target of attention by many men (although their behavior is — compared to the women who adore her husband — mostly passive longing). She additionally has the knack of befriending most of the women whom she should consider her rivals for Makoto's affections (Makoto's colleague Makie Sugiyama is a notable exception). Yura is, additionally, a big fan of undead-themed horror movies and when gets enraged by/towards Makoto she refuses to talk and even look at him.

Both Main characters are seen in chapter 56 of "Love Lucky", written by the same author.

Onoda Family

 * Mamoru Onoda (小野田 守)
 * Makoto's father. A 52-year-old company officer. He is overly sensitive about his sex life, and far too protective of his youngest child, Jun.


 * Akiko Onoda (小野田 明子)
 * Makoto's mother. A 54-year-old housewife. Akiko proves to be more liberal (and encouraging) than her husband is when it comes to the topic of her sex life.


 * Akira Onoda (小野田 明)
 * Makoto's older brother. A 29-year-old lawyer. He is very nosy and frequently pesters Makoto about his sex life and fancies himself as Makoto's tutor on the topic of pleasuring the wife. In order to appease his own sex drive, he frequently visits brothels.


 * Sanae Onoda (小野田 早苗)
 * Makoto's sister-in-law and Akira's 27-year-old wife. She is annoyed at Akira's habit of patronizing brothels.


 * Jun Onoda (小野田 淳)
 * Makoto's 17-year-old sister(currently 19). Initially she has a rather romantic look on a relationship, and her quest for true love lets her drift through a number of affairs before she finally finds happiness with her first boyfriend, Yosuke. Her experiences and introduction into the sexual world are followed throughout the series.


 * Kyouko Omiya (大宮 杏子)
 * Makoto's second cousin and an obstetrician and gynecologist. At the request of Makoto's mother, she moved in next door to the Onodas to encourage them to reproduce. A very dominant personality, she was still a virgin at age thirty and worries that she may be "running out of time". When she finally does get hooked up with Koichiro Matsuzaki, her new worry is that she may not be good enough for him.

Makoto's work colleagues
Makie Sugiyama, Mai Nagao, and Ikuyo Tonegawa
 * They form a trio of single women who are still looking for "Mr. Right". Makie is the most aggressive of the three; always targeting married men — she does not want to get "tied down" — she constantly tries to seduce Makoto, with little to no success.

Inagaki and Okahama
 * A duo of two male colleagues who are rarely called by name. While Inagaki is rather easy-going and collected, buck-toothed Okahama is an obnoxious lecher who constantly pesters his female colleagues to go to bed with him (of course, this does nothing to endear himself to them).


 * Miyuki Kikuchi (菊池 みゆき)
 * A secretary at Makoto's office. She had a long-standing crush on Makoto while he had been working as her home tutor, but never told him (at least not in a way which was easily understandable; she tends to lapse into intellectual jargon when being nervous around men). She still longs for him in secret, but maintains a rather distant front. In turn, she is the object of affection by her lesbian co-worker Arisa, much to her annoyance.


 * Arisa Miya
 * Works as an accountant in Makoto's firm. Arisa is a rather fluffy-headed joie de vivre persona with a great degree of optimism. She is also a lesbian. Ever since she has heard that her co-worker Miyuki is seemingly not interested in men, she incessantly flirts with her, hoping to win her affection. They have become sort-of friends, but Miyuki's repeated rebuffs have done little to dampen Arisa's hopes.


 * Koichiro Matsuzaki
 * Originally appearing as a macho man trying to seduce any women he comes across, handsome Matsuzaki found his true match with Makoto's cousin Kyoko. While she rules him in everyday life, he is the more dominant in bed; but he also cares much for Kyoko and has resisted the temptation to conduct any more affairs.


 * Misaki Manaka
 * The firm's first new receptionist. She (both physically and emotionally) suffers from an overly large breast size — a trait shared by her mother and her younger sister Kotone — and is therefore quite self-conscious and shy. Because of Makoto's kind treatment towards her, she had for a time hopelessly fallen in love with him, even though she knew that he was married; but finally she finds a new love in Muroi. She has made friends with Yura (despite her affections for her husband) and Miyuki, and is also close to her fellow receptionist Suzuka.


 * Suzuka Takahashi
 * The firm's second receptionist, who joins the firm some time after her friend Misaki. Like Misaki, she is rather self-conscious about her bust size—which is (in stark contrast to her friend's) very small. She is also very affectionate and prone to hugging people she likes (including Makoto) when emotionally upset.


 * Kurumi Maki
 * The new head of Makoto's department is a very stern and (outwardly) unforgiving woman. It is revealed, however, that she is actually emotionally and sexually frustrated since her fiancé had left her ten years ago to further his own career; she vents this by lashing out at others. She is still interested in finding someone for a relationship, though she never shows this.


 * Yoshiyuki Muroi
 * An executive from a partner firm, who has fallen in love with Misaki. With his help, she has finally managed to get over her unhappy affection for Makoto.


 * Nao Komatsu
 * A young new employee at Makoto's firm who is a care-free, optimistic joie de vivre. Her resemblance to a lost childhood crush of Makoto has almost led him into his first extra-marital affair, which he however held back from due to his feelings for Yura. Still, Nao retains some feelings for him.


 * Marimo Ishiguro
 * Nao Komatsu's friend and colleague. A fashionable young woman, she spends most of her free time making herself up.

Neighbors
Mika and Takeshi Yabuki
 * A couple who met Makoto and Yura while they still lived in their old apartment. Mika has suffered from a sexless year, which caused her emotional frustration and insecurity, thinking that she was no longer attractive to her husband. In fact, Takeshi's refusal came from a medical problem, which was solved after Makoto was able to give a hint. Ever since the Yabukis have restrengthened their relationship, and Mika has even managed to get pregnant. Just before the Onodas move into their new apartment, the Yabukis moved out to a larger domicile to raise their growing family.


 * Narumi Ogata
 * This dreamy-looking young woman is the first of the neighbors Makoto and Yura meet in their new apartment. She is the lover of a business executive who visits her regularly. While she is rather absent-minded and behaving strangely (which includes openly talking about sexual matters or answering the door in her underwear), she is also very friendly.


 * Shoko Shiina
 * An author of erotic novels, Shoko is the token lolita of the series; while she is in her early twenties, she looks like a 10 to 12-year-old, and even dresses and acts the part. She has come to be friends with Rika, who shares her sexual experiences with Shoko for new inspirations, but Shoko is quite knowledgeable about sexual matters herself.


 * Ken Shiina
 * Shoko's husband, Ken, is a stay-at-home since Shoko is rather busy writing one piece after another. Tall and hulking, he is often mistaken for a yakuza at first glance, but he is actually a kind gentleman.


 * Rui Tsutsumi
 * A sixteen-year-old student at an all-girls school who lives with her divorced father and has yet to experience her "first time", she has taken the mother/wife figure role for her insecure father and therefore was annoyed that he was getting close to Mrs. Ichijo for a time, but she has come to accept her as a surrogate mother. Rui models her image of romance and love on the Onodas and falls in love with her teacher Keisuke Watanabe, who has recently moved into the same apartment building.


 * Hisao Tsutsumi
 * Rui's father is a very nervous and depressed person, especially since his divorce. With a lack of intimate company he has taken to peeking in on his daughter (mostly in improper situations) and had a very bad outlook on life. Recently, however, he has become close to Mrs. Ichijo and eventually marries her.


 * Kaho Ichijo
 * A piano teacher in her late twenties, she represents the stereotype of a Japanese noblewoman: beautiful, dignified and quiet. Her most distinctive habit is obscuring her mouth with a handkerchief when she feels bashful. She is a divorced wife and suffers from a weak constitution, which also makes her highly susceptible to alcohol. She has (more or less accidentally) harassed Makoto on several occasions, but she eventually marries her neighbor Hisao Tsutsumi. To him, she later reveals that her divorce was caused by her own extreme lecherousness, which made her husband have an affair with a less "stormy" woman and which also made her bashful in her relations with other people from that point on.


 * Kiyomi Mizuhara
 * For some time after her introduction, Mizuhara represents the frustrated housewife in the series, mostly because her husband Masatoshi, who works at a commercial agency, rarely helped with the house chores, and when they did have sex he did not care much for her satisfaction; Mizuhara therefore had taken to vent her displeasure by collecting and spreading bad gossip. Some time later, however, their marital life has improved considerably. She has two little daughters at ages four and five.


 * Keisuke Watanabe
 * The new tenant at the apartment complex. A teacher at a girls' school, he is quite shy and also a parasite single — two factors he is very conscious about when dealing with women. He eventually falls in love with his student Rui Tsutsumi, who lives in the same complex.


 * Atsushi ("Akkun") and Momo Kubota
 * They are a young married couple who have recently moved into the apartment complex. They are very devoted to each other and are not afraid to show affection in public (which was, until recently at least, considered a social taboo in Japan; this fact was hinted at in previous issues of the series).


 * Sachiko Minami
 * A 26-year-old single mother who lives with her 11-year-old son Kazuhiko in the apartment complex. She is first featured in the first volume of the special Futari Ecchi For Ladies, but in the mainstream series she has only a small cameo in volume 34.

Other characters

 * Taku Yamada
 * Rika's "number-one boyfriend", who is a rather self-centered sexist. And just like Rika, he is not very concerned about having more than one relationship, although he does react jealously when he finds her involved with other men. In the OVA, he is voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi.


 * Yosuke Inoue
 * Jun's first and current boyfriend; also her former classmate and now fellow student. Jun had her first time with him, but due to their then differing views of a relationship they broke apart for a couple of years before finding each other again. They have since moved together and are exploring (and deepening) their feelings for each other.


 * Shiori Tetawaki
 * A young porn star and a former classmate of Makoto. She actually had a long-standing crush on Makoto, but he has been too oblivious to realize it. She has a few cameos in the series; her movies are a favorite of Makoto's when he feels the need to masturbate.


 * Kotone Manaka
 * Misaki's younger sister (and like her, endowed with overly large breasts) and one of Rui Tsutsumi's best friends. Aggressively flirtatious, she has even tried to seduce Makoto (her sister's love interest at that time) on one occasion.


 * Shiho Shouji
 * The second of Rui Tsutsumi's best friends. With her shyness, she rather sets a strong contrast to her two friends. She quiets with Makie.

Style and theme
There are many scenes in the series that look like they are actually happening but are then revealed to be the sexual fantasies of Makoto or another character. This means there are many scenes of Makoto having sex with other characters, while in truth he only has sex with Yura.

One of the fetishes explored in the series is cosplay.

Though most of the first volumes focus on Makoto and Yura's relationship, the later chapters deviate to other characters' love/sex lives and their development on it to cover more events to teach the readers with (about sex).