Note: At the time of this writing, there have been 114 chapters of Horimiya, so this review is only on those chapters.
I know very little about relationships in real life, but I have consumed a large amount of anime and manga that deal with romance (maybe some causality here?). Over time, I've developed a sense as to how these stories progress, a sort of Hero's Journey of animanga. Many typical romance stories in this field cover a subset of these three fundamental steps: the encounter, the chasm of uncertainty, and finally the climb. Bear with me, I promise this will be relevant to the manga.
It is a common theme in the animanga world that the story ends soon after the characters cross the chasm of uncertainty, leaving the rest to fan speculation if the story was not conclusive. That's why, when I realized I wasn't even a quarter of the way through the manga when Hori and Miyamura became boyfriend and girlfriend, I was stoked! Those earlier chapters were excellent, with unique characters, a delightful vibe, and a plot full of emotion. The story wasn't altogether that original or profound, with many scenes that paralleled parts of other anime and manga I had consumed, but it was well executed, so I didn't mind. Many of the best romance stories are simple and seem plain on the outside. The mark of a great romance story is its ability to make me feel sad about my lack of romantic experience, and this one for sure did. If this was merely the exposition and it was already that good, I had high hopes for the remaining chapters, for "the climb".
What I got instead was a mediocre directionless story that undid much of what was built up earlier. It was far from terrible, and there were definitely aspects that were enjoyable, but I was simply astounded by how inconsistent the rest of the manga was. At some parts, I felt like the author had actually forgot about what had transpired chapters before. Miyamura, a formerly interesting and unique character both in personality and in design, got both his hair and his intrigue trimmed. Hori's parents, who were previously so absent from their children's lives that Hori had worried that Souta, her younger brother, would forget the words mother and father, had become two of the most prominent side characters just chapters later.
But those were all negligible compared to the biggest violation of character development of all: Hori. Once a person who loved Miyamura for who he was, she became his biggest critic of his tattoos, his piercings, his personality. Once someone who preferred to do housework than hang out with others, she suddenly became part of the popular crowd and is always seen with them. One moment she's jealous of anyone with a girlish name who texts Miyamura, the next moment she says she's not worried about other girls taking him. She gets violent at anything people do, yet she does things to intentionally infuriate others. There are many places where she contradicts herself, and it's extremely jarring to see her do out-of-character things like grope other girls to compare bust sizes. She is, as far as I remember, the most inconsistent fictional character I have ever seen. Hori seems to fill any mold she needs to in order for a plot to work out. When she needs to be loving, she's loving. When she needs to be a tsundere, well heck she's a tsundere now. There seems to be little to no rhyme or reason to this. The real shame is that individually, the scenes and chapters are executed quite well. The author should have maybe made some of those ideas into one-shots instead of trying to fit them into the Horimiya world.
An argument that can be made is that the inconsistency is really just character development, or that Hori's personality changes simply due to her nature. The author certainly takes these stances, as there are portions of the manga where they make weak attempts to explain why Hori's bizarre actions actually make sense. However, lets dig deeper to to analyze what the real fundamental flaw in the story is. Remember earlier, when I talked about what happens in "the climb" arc of a romance story? Specifically what's missing is the "significant plot and character development" that I was talking about. The primary plot stays pretty much dormant during the entire course of the manga after the two main characters start dating, and the character changes can hardly be considered "development". There's for sure slice of life stories where nothing really happens for long periods of time, where the enjoyment comes merely from the characters going about their daily lives, but those stories rely on the charm and consistency of the characters as they interact with each other through various situations. That's simply not present here. Moreover, the characters get into big character defining conflicts and there were places where the plot could be meaningfully furthered, but somehow, nothing really ends up happening. The manga is stuck in a strange dichotomy where it is neither a pure slice of life story nor a dramatic romance, but rather a poorly combined version of both.
That was a pretty major complaint but really that was my only one. The art is cute and high quality, the side characters are unique and fun, and disregarding the story as a whole, the individual chapters are actually quite enjoyable to read. It's a pretty typical, but good, school-life romance manga, and if you're willing to overlook Hori's massive inconsistencies, I would recommend it as a great slow burn slice of life romance manga, but I can't ignore them.
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