Love at Fourteen

Love at Fourteen started extremely well. I was hooked by the themes of 'maturity' and 'one true self' and frequent discussions of 'social masks'. The relationship of the main leads being very close friends that can show their true 'immature' self with each other was refreshing. The author writes these 14-year-olds well; they get mad over stupid stuff and have trouble communicating their feelings, but their feelings for each other pull through and in the end, their real thoughts are conveyed and communicated. The coming-of-age aspect was very well done, I can feel the characters maturing with the story when faced with an obstacle, and the lines in this manga were literal gold. This manga is a pure, simple romantic coming-of-age story that does things well. The main couple is recommended for any RomCom manga readers. This story would've been perfect if there was only one couple.

The problem arose when age-gap couples were introduced. Let me start with Nagai and Hinohara, I am honestly really uncomfortable with their relationship, considering the 10-year age gap (14 and 24 years old respectively). Nagai started as a delinquent, he represents the 'rebellious' mindset of teens, disrespecting teachers and hating facades who have a nice singing voice which leads to the music teacher 'taming' him, her methods were questionable, to say the least, I was very uneasy reading their chapters but I read through all the extra and intermission chapters (these focus on the side ships). Nagai is introduced as a dick and stayed a dick for nearly all of the book, he does get character development, gaining maturity as the book went on and I thought this was well done.

Next is Ichinose and Akemi, Ichinose is a character that was introduced as a transfer student and that is his only trait. He also seems to know everyone's secret relationship at a glance for some reason. He is also in an age-gap relationship with an older lady he frequently stares at on a bus. This creepy behaviour is further amplified when he starts counting her sighs on the bus. Ichinose doesn't seem to have a personality, he's just a character to progress the main lead's relationship by giving sound advice when he's struggling to even talk to a girl.

There's also Kaito and the 5th grader (3 years age gap), I don't know if this is Japanese Culture but I literally do not think 8th grader and 5th grader dating is acceptable, they're operating in different states of mind. Thank god they weren't focused on as much.

There's also a character that is written so well that her character is actually annoying to me. Aoi likes the FL and has often had monologues regarding her attraction towards another girl, when she finds out that the FL has a mutual crush on a popular guy (the ML) she tweaks out and comes out with schemes to break them apart and all that, typical stuff. Her realization of not thinking about her crush's personal feelings is touching, and her character develops from there. Also, the female nurse showed up during this time to comfort the girl but I was autopilot reading at that point.

To conclude:
If you enjoy a good romance between characters of similar age, read the main 50 chapters. It's a gem.
If you don't mind age gap couples read the whole thing.

If this was only the main couple then it's a 9.5/10
Overall, despite the uncomfortable couples I would give it an 8. I enjoyed reading this manga.