Thank you, I had a great ReLife

When I watched the anime all the way back like 4 or 5 years ago or sth I think, there was just… something that held it back just in terms of me getting invested into these characters.
It was honestly just a really lukewarm experience, and the stiffness in its visual presentation didn’t make that any better, so going into this manga read on a whim when I was in the mood for a long romance manga - outside of a very few specific moments - I barely even remembered anything about this apart from its general premise, a few character details and the ending…
Hell, I didn’t even remember some of the main characters‘ names.

I knew from manga readers that the anime adaptation supposedly was incredibly subpar, but I’ve also heard that so many times before about other stuff where even the source ended up disappointing in the end, so I still went in with a little bit of an apprehension, lowering my expectations quite a bit

One which, I realized as early as the first ten chapters, was completely unfounded, because in this case I gotta have to agree and say:

From the very beginning all the way to the end this is such a fun read the entire time, and you can’t help but grinning at everything it throws at you.
The way this manga blends its humor with its occasional character drama - and oh my there‘s some heavy drama in here - is so well implemented that none of the toneshifts feel in any way forced or unnatural.
Everything plays out like it should, everything just feels
like you’re actually there and re-experiencing your teenage years together with this group of friends
Handling its drama in a much more subdued and down-to-earth manner than so many other romances I’ve seen and read, this one knows when to let itself breathe and let its moments talk for themselves, and it also knows when it’s appropriate to have its characters do the talking. Unlike the more anime-esque melodramatic approach (not that there isn’t ANY of that), ReLife goes for the more genuine portrayal of what people actually might go through in real life, and it works all the better for it, because under all of that maturity, all of that down-to-earthness, it still doesn’t forget the charm of the experiences teenagers go through that we as adults now look back at when trying to fall asleep and cringe at that were once either incredibly precious or incredibly painful at the time, and conveys it in a way that just leaves me both in awe and tears of joy and laughter every single time I see it. Or the charm of awkward first teenage relationships like with Ohga and Kariu…

In part because of the setting of adults-disguising-themselves-as-highschoolers (god it sounds so wrong put like that xD) it seems to me a much more mature approach than what I’m used to, and one that I can connect with on a little bit of a spiritual level here.
I mentioned earlier that I thought the anime version of some of these characters were quite forgettable, so in contrast to that I wanna say that I probably won’t forget what I read in here any time soon, just because of how much it impacted me - or how I could identify with it here, being a 28-year old guy who’s had (and sometimes still has) his fair share of problems and anxieties himself.
Personally in this read, as indicated from my ongoing notes(sorry there's a lot more comments than the one in my last review here), I was very much drawn to the character of Ryo Yoake this time around, mostly because I personally do love to occasionally annoy and tease the people around me like my friends but in the end will always lend my support and let myself affect and be affected by them in turn in the most wholesome way possible. But at some points I also let the more negative feelings in that regard get to me.
I’ve also noticed that he has this tendency to tap his fingers onto himself repeatedly a few times, haven’t exactly figured out which precise circumstances he does it under, but that struck me as something interesting, because it kind of became a habit for me as a way to distract myself from some kind of pain or uncomfortable situation like at the dentist or some shit - a bit similar to Kaguya putting her hand on her chin in Kaguya-sama love is war, if you will…
Actually I noticed most of the characters have that kind of thing like with Ohga and Kariu touching their earlobes (or probably more likely their earrings) when pondering aböut or feeling bothered by something…
Either I actually turned more perceptive over time or the manga does a VERY good job of showcasing this stuff.
I’ll go for a little bit of a combination of both ^^

Cherish your friends and don’t take them or the time you spend with them for granted. These times building up your connections with them are gonna be some of the best and most important ones of your life, and you never know when you might have to part with them because of whatever circumstances.
Appreciate the beauty in the fleeting moments of youth and the little things in life that make you happy.

I am extremely glad I decided to read this - especially also in part because it was to spite a friend I asked if I should read this or another romance manga I heard was good and more mature and he said
„ReLife‘s premise isn’t appealing to me at all, I’mma delete it from my planned-list“
or something along those lines - and have found one immediate new entry for my favorites list.

Communication is key, something ReLife almost understands a little bit too well

ReLife understands humans.

Is it in any way an extremely deep, complex, philosophical tale about human behavior and how it affects you and others around you?
No it isn’t, not really, it’s simple, it’s fun, it’s relatable, it’s realistic, and that is all it needs to be.

With a poignant subtlety to it - and a bombastic display where it counts - this is a story about what it means to live in the moment.
And to take your past experiences and connections with you as you walk forward in life.

In a way, it does remind me a little bit of both
/manga/86639/after-the-rain

and

/manga/109285/skip-and-loafer
with how it manages to convey its characters‘ emotions in such a genuine way (like the latter), and is able to form such a mature take on its subject matters and deliver such a beautifully striking ending (like the former), letting pretty much everything come full circle in the end.

I just read more than 200 chapters of a single romance manga.
And I don’t regret even a single second of it.
I expected an 8/10 much improved experience of the anime, and a nice fun time while reading, but what I got instead was 238 chapters of (almost) pure perfection.

Read to the OST of the Monogatari Series, because I’m also reading through the novels of that at the moment and I was too lazy to change the background sounds in my ears (and my youtube tab) to something else.

For the closing line of this one, I’ll have to quote myself here for what I said about the manga „Chikan Otoko“ when I first read it at the beginning of last year, or maybe the summer the year before that, I don’t remember quite well when exactly:

This is everything I want from a romance manga.

and also so much more.