Natsu no Zenjitsu

Creating an irresolute character might be one of the greastest challenges a writer can set upon themselves. It's tempting to just blame everything on the character's inability to act reasonably — frankly, it's easy enough to do so with any kind of character — and as it is, too easy to derail the entire thing. At the end, though, Tetsuo was fleshed out enough that his aspirations, demeanor and incoherent actions could be taken seriously. His impotence before his own art, his incompetence at connecting with others, his unaware selfishness and immaturity before everything, all amounted to him as a character (if it amounted to him as a person, though, it's another story altogether). The only thing that felt out of place were his daddy issues, brought up literally two times as if they were a big thing but entirely forgotten otherwise. I wouldn't say it was anything remarkable as a character-driven story, but everything was in its right place for it to work.

I just wish I could say the same about Akira, though. She was nice, real nice, I like her, but I felt like her whole aspiration in the story was to love tetsuo and...not much else. The not-tetsuo-centred insights she had were too brief to grasp anything concrete about herself, and I left her as if she were still a stranger. Even the fact that she apparently wrote articles for an art magazine, which was something I was genuinely interested to hear about, was mentioned once and never brought up again.

I mean, it's a love story. It's supposed to have at least two protagonists, so it's kinda sad when only one of them remains in the spotlight while the other is allowed only to watch from afar. I get that her role was supposed to be that of an observer, but it's still not reason enough to suppress any character traits she might possess.

All in all, it was a fun read, though it's not something I wish to come back to. The art was messy sometimes but mostly agreeable, but it doesn't stand up to other romance manga.