Life is hard when your parents remarry, although Issei thinks that he’s gotten the short end of the carrot when his mother re-marries a unicorn! Not only that but mere moments after meeting his new “step-dad” Issei’s mom has to jet and now the two of them are stuck at home together, trying to get to know each other and not letting anyone else find out about Masaru’s secret!
Living through your parents remarrying is tough. I for one started an eight month countdown from when my future step-dad moved in to when I would move out for college. So all things considered Issei is a good kid and handling things remarkably well. He’s actually talking to Masaru, not attempting to torment him, and is at least semi-game to go along with Masaru’s efforts to become a part of the family (like cooking meals for Issei). Frankly that’s an almost godly reaction from a high school student and admittedly I’m probably more miffed at Issei’s mother for dropping this bombshell on him and running than I’m supposed to be as a reader since, after all, this is a comedy.
I felt like a lot of the comedy fell flat however. You would think that there would be a nigh-infinite number of gags involving a beautiful man who can turn into a unicorn/pegasus/centaur without warning, but Monaka Suzuki’s set-ups turned repetitive rather quickly. There are a lot of gags over how Masaru is adapting to cooking for his new human step-son (i.e, less grass and more chopping) and a number of situations where Masaru almost reveals his fairy-tale nature to their neighbors, but that’s really most of the jokes.
The story does make use of some legends surrounding unicorns, like the purifying abilities of their horns and their attraction to “pure maidens” (which was actually handled much better and more sweetly than I expected), but it felt like Suzuki was already struggling a bit to keep coming up with really unique situations (and without a super unique or engaging art style that can sometimes distract a reader from writing that is flatlining). The setting is so insulated that the story can’t rely on generating a lot of situational gags that way and having more characters around instead may have helped; one of Issei’s classmates comes rather close to finding out Masaru’s secret and if the story had re-introduced Issei’s mom earlier I think Suzuki could have gotten some good gags out of their “newlywed” situation.
My Father is a Unicorn isn’t a mediocre one-shot, it’s just one that could have used a bit more pizzazz. The manga could’ve had possibly spent more time developing the story and really milking the situation for as many different kinds of gags as they could. As it stands, I won’t be rushing to read any future Suzuki titles released in English, although I won’t turn my nose up at it either.