This review is a hard one to write. I say this because my experience with the series can best be described as a rollercoaster. To begin my review I should start from the top.
This manga started out really solid, establishing the foundations for our main leads, Haru and Shizuku. I must say from start to finish these two are easily the best written. Haru is a teenager who seems to have Asperger syndrome, a form of autism that makes social interaction difficult. The show makes this clear through his irrational actions, inability to read the mood, lack of social understanding, and eccentric actions and decision making when related to social interaction. Up until this point in his life, his way of expressing himself ended up being some form of violence. This how the story sets him up and he gets fleshed very well and in a progressive fashion. Next is Shizuku who is characterized as a loner who chose to isolate herself. She didn't feel like dealing with friends or basically any other people because she wanted to immerse herself in studying. Her family experiences caused her to develop a deep desire for financial stability. Similar to Haru, we learn a lot more about Shizuku progressively and see how big an impact the absence of her mother had on her. These two end up getting some great development that's spurred on by their dynamic with each other; Haru opened up Shizuku's world, while Shizuku broadened Haru's horizons. When they become an actual couple they were extremely cute and had good chemistry together.
The side cast was pretty solid too, Sasayan is an interesting case of the observant friend who takes a step back and looks at situations from an outside lens. Other than him we have Yuuzhan, one of the most well-written side characters in romance shoujo. In his limited time on screen, he becomes a great depiction of jealousy, envy, pressure, and how it can ruin your relationships and mental well-being. The rest of the side cast fits well besides Yamaken, who I will get to eventually.
Other than that there were some really nicely implemented themes pertaining to social ineptitude, unrequited love, personal mental struggles, self-worth, overcoming your past, and many smaller-scale themes too.
Now I will get into what drags this otherwise good manga: the love triangle, love rivals, Yamaken, and everything leading to the ending.
Let's get into Yamaken first; characterized as a narcissist with an elitist mindset. Nothing is particularly wrong with that portion(despite him already starting relatively unlikable) but how he gets implemented into this long-winded and useless love triangle is the biggest annoyance. The love triangle dragged this series by a lot; it always brought out the worst in Haru's character and some of the most infuriating dense Shizuku moments. We would waste chapters on end with Haru and Yamaken uselessly fighting for Shizuku, or waste chapters with Shizuku and Yamaken interactions that led to nothing but his ultimate rejection, TWICE. It was even more annoying the second time around because, with around only 9 chapters left, THEY BROUGHT THE LOVE TRIANGLE BACK FOR SOME USELESS DRAMA. And when I call it unnecessary, I don't mean it did nothing, I mean whatever it did could have been accomplished in a different and more efficient way. Let's just say, this love triangle almost made me drop the manga at times or bang my head against a wall.
The next big issue is the last four chapters excluding the ending. One chapter is a flash-through of their entire 3rd year, and the next three are events I really could care less about, maybe besides the Sasayan chapter but even that one didn't do much. It kind of felt like we wasted time despite Haru's character and the main romance needing a cleaner conclusion before the final chapter. The final chapter is half, a side romance I couldn't care about since it was fleshed out in 25 pages, and half the wedding. The wedding was cool and cutely wrapped up the story.
In conclusion, this was a very good manga, some of the best I've seen in the shoujo genre; a genre that is oversaturated with mediocre and generic reads. It tries to tackle several meaningful themes, give an interesting take on autism, a good romance plotline(excluding the love triangles), and a very solidly constructed cast.
Could this manga have wasted less time? Yes.
Could this manga have ended better? Yes
But did this manga accomplish and do things a lot of shoujo manga can't? Yes
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