(This review contains major spoilers for chapter 36 of Fuuka)

Fuuka was... certainly something, I suppose.

Though, I suppose did it to myself.

For any fan, there will undoubtedly be an anime/manga that will leave a mark on them; leave them with a lasting impression that they won’t quite be able to shake. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ranma ½, Cowboy Bebop, and Akira are just a few such anime for me, if you were wondering. That isn’t to say the impression is always a pleasant one. Fuuka is also an anime I just can’t shake, no matter how much I want to. It’s one of the few anime I’ve completed that just left a bitter taste in my mouth that no amount of mouthwash can erase.

This review isn’t for the anime, so I’ll give you the quick and dirty - Fuuka initially started as a slice-of-life about a shy, awkward boy and his outgoing classmate. The anime’s focus shifts onto music, but what will stick out more is a frustrating love triangle and the annoying two main characters. Infuriatingly, the lesser of the two love interests wins out.

Most notably, towards the end of the anime, Fuuka is seconds away from being hit by a truck. This would be the most dramatic, the most interesting moment for the show.

She inexplicably survives and the mediocre anime concludes predictably a few episodes later. Anyone who follows this anime knows that in the manga, Fuuka does indeed perish due to the vehicle, named Truck-kun by viewers.

I’ll make no bones about it. I picked up the manga so I could see Fuuka die.

And I was satisfied. She was, in fact, quite dead. The question becomes, what comes after? Is it worth reading until the end? Is it even worth reading up to the arrival of Truck-kun?

Fuuka starts off interesting enough. Sure, Fuuka may be annoying initially, but the premise of a socially awkward boy who’s obsessed with Twitter opening up to people is interesting enough. It’s surprisingly not too hamfisted either. Compared to the anime at least, the love-triangle is handled fine, and I care about the band members. The character dynamic is good and it actually doesn’t take forever for relationships to progress. The band aspect is interesting, there’s genuine conflict, and the characters are likable enough. I was actually surprised that I ended up liking Fuuka as much as I did. I hate to admit it, but I was actually kind of sad (in addition to gleeful) when her day of reckoning came. So over all, yeah, I’d say the manga starts off pretty solid. It's funny, it's interesting, it's fast-paced.

And the truck-kun incident is handled pretty well, too. It comes out of nowhere, yes, but I enjoyed seeing the grief that the characters dealt with as a result of Fuuka’s death. All-in-all, pretty good stuff.

What comes after is when things start to fall apart.

The main character, Yuu, soon decides he wants to carry out Fuuka’s dream of having their band perform at a famous concert venue where The Hedgehogs (their favorite musical group) played. After getting the band back together, they decide to start chasing the dream they shared in order to make it a reality.

Soon, Yuu runs into a singer who’s coincidentally also named Fuuka and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Fuuka we know. The two soon grow closer, and any reader who’s even a bit savvy can guess what happens next. This alone will make many roll their eyes, but there are even weirder plot points to come. I actually think plot points such as these are some of Fuuka’s greatest strengths. As insane and/or contrived as they are, they keep the story interesting and keep readers on their toes.

Unfortunately, these are few and far between and we’re left with more mundane nonsense plot points, which are great at irritating readers. Not to mention, Fuuka’s greatest weakness - poor plot progression. They say the journey is more important than the destination, but Fuuka wants to cross a country in a broken-down jalopy. We get nowhere fast and even as the band plays more and more concerts and gains notoriety, it always seems like they’re in dire straits, with no clout to speak of. This is my biggest problem with Fuuka: the plot seems to slow to a crawl and become cyclical in nature. Band is struggling and practically unheard of, band overcomes struggle and become more famous, band is struggling and practically unheard of. The manga can’t really seem to shake this until close to the end of its 195-chapter run. I don’t doubt this is how it is for many bands in the real world, but that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable to read, in my opinion.

It just really gets tiring after a while. With Fuuka, however, you’ll come to enjoy boredom, because when Fuuka isn’t boring, it’s infuriating, with idiotic plot points and characters acting dumb. You have no idea how many times a character frustrated me due to a stupid misunderstanding. In particular, one character acts nothing but horrible to the main characters, but they learn to love them and brush the behavior aside as “tough love” or something.

But...I don’t know, the series certainly has its moments. The last arc in particular was terrific and adrenaline pumping. The long journey finally seemed to pay off, with the main characters growing, their skills being shown, and all the friends they made along the way having meaningful roles in the end. It’s a little too late, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bring a smile to my face, make me exclaim in shock, and think the journey was pretty good in hindsight.

Do I think Fuuka is a good manga? No. The last paragraph might just be stockholm syndrome speaking. Fuuka, as the sum of its parts, is average at best. It has some genuine great chapters, but they’re grossly outnumbered by chapters that are “meh” at best.

It isn’t terrible, but if there’s merit to it, then who do I recommend it to, and how do I do it? As a general reader, the evolution of a band is a cool concept, but I’m sure there are other manga that do it better. The romance grows more and more lackluster as the series grows on. Really, the only person that might get something out of this are fellow viewers of the anime adaptation. If you saw the anime and for some reason want to see how things could have turned out, you could pick up Fuuka. Even if it’s not that great on its own, it still blows the anime out the water and perhaps you’ll feel that your time wasn’t wasted, after all (Koyuki’s still largely a joke, though).

But I try my best not to rate fiction in relation to other works. With this in mind, Fuuka simply isn’t worth the time investment. On concept, it’s great, in execution, it’s painfully average six times out of ten.

5.9/10