We all know the gist of your typical romcom manga. The female lead bumps into the male lead, their eyes meet and it's love at first glance, they then meet again at school and so on.

It's a widely used formula which, don't get me wrong, can make for a great story, but usually just ends up in something mid-tier. That's why today I'm here to write about something a little more out of the ordinary.

Setting:

Kushuku Gakkou No Juliet, also known as Boarding School Juliet, is set inside of Dahlia Academy, a prestigious school where the students are divided into either one of two factions, the Black Dogs or the White Cats depending on their country of origin. While I did use the term "are divided", that does not get the whole point across, as the two factions actively hate one another and are constantly fighting. This does not only happen inside of the academy. The two countries as a whole also despise eachother, as they have been at war up until recently.

Story:

The manga tells its story from the point of view of Inuzuka Romio, the current leader of the Black Dogs. Inuzuka is always ready to fight, and actively does so everyday by picking fights with his arch-nemesis Persia Juliet, the leader of the White Cats. At least that's what he shows to others. The truth is, Persia and Inuzuka are actually a couple, but they cannot afford to let other people know, as they would be marked as traitors.

The two of them, while lying to the whole school and fighting on through all sorts of hardship, have only one goal in mind. To change the world and the society they live in.

Characters:

While the setting and premise of the manga are indeed interesting (at least for a RomCom), while reading it most of the characters did not particularly strike me as interesting. I'm not saying they're not more interesting than your average RomCom characters, but they are not revolutionary either. Let me give you a quick rundown of the main two characters, so that you can judge for yourself.

Let's start with the male lead. Inuzuka takes more than a few aspects from the mainstream female lead formula. To give you an example, he is really romantic and timid and will often fail at making advances because of that. That does not mean that he doesn't have a fair share of manly characteristics, but his womanly ones usually show up the most.

Moving on to the femal lead, Persia, ironically enough, would've been a better fit to be the male lead. She is usually the one to cheer Inuzuka up and motivate him. She is the one out of the two who shows her strong side the most, but she does also have her shy moments.

There are many more characters other than these two, but I'm not going to get into them, to keep this review both short and spoiler-free.

Thoughts:

Kushuku Gakkou No Juliet was definetly one hell of a ride. While not being extraordinary, this manga did leave me with a smile on my face every time I closed a chapter to go do something else. Reading this was overall a very pleasant experience and I do recommend it to anyone into RomComs looking for a change.