This review contains significant spoilers. If you want a spoiler free reading experience, don't bother reading this.
This isn't going to be like my other reviews. I usually try to write them in at least a semi-formal way, without personal anecdote getting in the way of explaining wether or not it's good. Not this time. I have too much personally invested into this story to care about having a modicum of professionalism. To get something out of the way: I rate and review media on how much I, myself, enjoyed them. This manga was damn near a subjective 10, issues and all, before the final act started. For me, personally.
So give way to terrible formatting and personal opinions, because this review is going to be full of them.
To explain the plot in simple terms: Natsuo is infatuated with his hot teacher, Hina. Yes, I said infatuated, because it's typical hormone-driven teenage lust and not love. He figures that it's not obtainable, so he goes to a mixer with a friend and meets this short blue haired (death sentence by anime rules) girl named Rui. They sneak off together, go back to her place, and have sex. That's it. Now because that's not the way emotions work, it doesn't make Natsuo get over the teacher. Fast forward, his dad is getting remairried and the woman has two daughters. I'm sure you know where it's going. Lo and behold, the two daughters are none other than Hina and Rui, the hot teacher and the girl he played hide the canoli with just, what, 10 pages ago? So hurray for outrageous storytelling!
Now for some reason, losing his virginity turns Natsuo into some sort of gigachad. Seriously, all of the sudden women start falling into his lap. He not only beds and completely ruins the life of Hina by nuking her teaching career, he meets several other girls that basically throw themselves at him. Do any of those matter in the story? No. Not really. That is, until Rui is one of them. Yes, one stepsister wasn't enough, he wanted both. And it was fine for over 200 chapters of romantic development. Until the last few, where Hina goes into a 5 year coma and suddenly he loves her instead of Rui (who he now has a daughter with, by the way) because manga.
So through over 200 chapters of some of the best romance I've ever seen in manga and anime as a medium, it's all destroyed in 5 minutes. Why? Who knows!
Notice how I ignored everything else in the story? That wasn't on accident. It all means basically nothing. Natsuo as a character doesn't have any character progression. He doesn't change or become a better person. He's a man in his mid 20s in the final chapters, and he hasn't grown up since he was a high school student. He's still the same fickle, spinlesss teenager he was at the beginning. This time, however, he has a daughter.
So before I go and give this manga the serious thrashing it deserves, let's get what I like out of the way.
Now, onto the thrashing.
Domestic girlfriend has so many issues that it's hard to know where to start. Not the least of which is the lack of anything having consequences. Natsuo, our main character, suddenly turns into gigachad the moment he loses his v-card, and he absuses that power to every end possible. Not only are the two sisters into him, he also gets other girls interested in him over the course of the story. Of course, instead of taking the logical course and taking a girl isn't his stepsister, he goes for them anyway. That I can handle, manga and all, what I can't handle is how nothing ever matters for out protagonist. He goes through so much over the course of the manga that would change someone. But at the end of the day, once an arc ends, it completely dissapears and nothing matters. Yep. Nothing. At the end of the manga, Natsuo is a grown adult in his late 20s and he still has the emotional intelligence of the teenager he is when the manga starts. He never asserts his desires in a straightforward, masculine manner. He instead hurts himself and everyone around him by being passive.
Hina is the same way, and ironically enough these two are the ones that end up together. Hina may be protrayed by Sasuga as a little angel full of self sacrifice, but Hina isn't an angel by any means. She starts off the story in a relationship with a married man, throws herself, her family, and Natsuo under the bus by being in a romantic and sexual relationship with him, a student. I'm all for following your heart, but there are lines in the sand for a reason. She spends the rest of the story, up until the last chapter, in silent agony as she watches the person she loves get pulled away from her. Hina is a poorly written character with shabby motivation that serves no narritive purpose other than having Natsuo being a sterotypical harem character.
Rui... Rui. Rui. Rui. She starts off the manga as a moody loner who comes out of her shell thanks to Natsuo and others helping her be more social. She learns to pursue her career goals, chase what she wants out of relationships, etc. Of course, Sasuga throws this in the trash when it's time for the end of the story. Calling off a marriage with a man she loves, and she has a child with, all for the sake of an ending that makes zero narrative sense. Rui effectively has no real character progress in all 276 chapters of this manga because of this. Sure, she is different, but it has no real impact because the focus isn't on what her career is, or whatever. It's the romance. This is a romance story.
I could talk about the other characters, but there's no real point. All of them play little to no purpose in the grand scheme of the manga. Most of them are forgotten until its convenient for them to be there, or are forgetten entirely. Save for Momo and Rikkun appearing at the wedding, all of them are forgetten. Why? Why write characters that you have no intention of expanding on? What happenet to drug-chan, what happened to the college crew, or the rest of his high school friends other than Momo and Rikkun? Why?
The overall plot just seems to fly by without consequence, especially at the end. I get it, life happens, people come and go. But this is a work of fiction about a love triangle involving his step sisters. This isn't meant to be realistic. And that's big issue here. Nothing of consequence actually happened. The fact that Rui and Natsuo were together for huge, unbelievable changes in life in their crossroads (early 20s) and that suddenly gets ignored for the sake of a plot twist? Why?
So, there's not much else for me to rant about. Should you read the manga? The short answer, no. The long answer is more complicated. If you're into crazy soap operas with drama out of this world, go for it. If you're into really good romance, just stop reading before the reporter's arc. Otherwise, read it if you're the kind of person who just wants to watch the world burn, because that's really about it for this one, folks.
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