Rec (manga)

Rec
Aka Onda, the heroine
レック (Rekku)
Genre	Drama, Romantic comedy
Manga
Written by	Q-Tarō Hanamizawa
Published by	Shogakukan
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Monthly Sunday Gene-X
Original run	December 2002 – April 2013
Volumes	16
Anime television series
Directed by	Ryūtarō Nakamura
Studio	Shaft
Original network	TBS, BS-i
English network	PH Animax
Original run	February 2, 2006 – March 30, 2006
Episodes	9 (List of episodes)
Original video animation
Directed by	Ryutaro Nakamura
Studio	Shaft
Released	2006
Runtime	13 minutes

Rec (Japanese: レック, Hepburn: Rekku^?) is a Japanese manga about an aspiring voice actress by Q-Tarō Hanamizawa. A nine-episode anime adaptation by Shaft aired between February and March 2006; an original video animation episode was also produced.

At the beginning of the story, Fumihiko Matsumaru is outside a movie theater waiting for his date to arrive. When it becomes obvious that he has been "stood up", he crumples his tickets in frustration. As he is about to toss the tickets into a trash can, a girl approaches, and in the "voice" of the tickets, implores him to not waste them. Dumbfounded, he sees the movie with her, which is Roman Holiday.

During the movie, he notices that the girl is reading the subtitles out loud. When he asks her about this after the movie, she says that she was practicing the lines, and that she wants to be Audrey Hepburn. At dinner, she explains that she is a 20-year-old novice voice actress. Going home, they find that they live in the same neighborhood before they part ways. (In the anime, she recites appropriate lines from Roman Holiday.) Matsumaru goes to bed, but he can't sleep. In the darkness, he hears the sounds of sirens; there is a fire in the neighborhood. When he goes to investigate, he discovers that the girl's apartment has burned down. Since she has nowhere to stay, Matsumaru asks her to stay at his apartment; she dazedly accepts.

The next day, Matsumaru learns at work that his marketing concept "Nekoki" (ねこキ^?, a cat-tree) has been approved as the mascot of a snack product called "Ha" ("leaf"). Furthermore, Aka is chosen to voice Nekoki. They decide to keep their live-in relationship a secret from their employers due to Aka's worries about an appearance of impropriety. She also insists they are not a couple just from having slept together once in a moment of weakness, and that she will merely be lodging with him. The series is heavily concerned with the developing dynamic of their relationship.