I'd never read a manga in the Seinen/Ecchi vein, and a friend of mine suggested I read Girlfriend. You know, I really wish he hadn't suggested it. Girlfriend was a real disappointment to me. The characters have some depth, but the author has some obvious issues with relationships and women.
What's really lacking in Girlfriend' characters is their ability to reason and act with maturity in any situation.
Quite obviously, the author has a point to sell, and he does his best to sell it. This manga series is strife with inferiority complexes, sexual promiscuity, unrequited love ... You think of anything negative about a romantic relationship and it's in this series.
That being said, Betten Court did a good job; though her characters are hard to distinguish between. Of every aspect of this series, the art is the most enjoyable.
In the end, Girlfriend is for men. As a woman, I really couldn't enjoy it. It frustrated me and I didn't understand just how any of the characters could be presented in the way that they were. Enjoy it for the ecchi, but don't think too hard because it just won't live up to your expectations.

Hi, I have been reading Girlfriend very enthusiastically since stumbling upon it on the stoptazmo forums, and after reading some of the reviews here... I feel that some people aren't viewing Girlfriend in the 'right light'. When I started reading I certainly did NOT get the impression that this was a manga about love and viewing peoples actions without the concept of consequences. What I did think is that it's very simply a manga about really screwed up people. Now when I say this please understand that I don't think that the manga means to say that everyone is like this... or inversely that anyone is like that(however I'm sure some people are), I only mean to say that I feel that GF is meant to show us extreme circumstances where such acts of promiscuity may press onto bounds of acceptability. Now before the interwebs start ranting and raving about the nonsense that just spewed out of my hypothetical mouth, I by NO means would consider any sort of behavior in any of these circumstances to be acceptable, but the fact that it can persuade anyone into giving it a second thought(if only just that) is all that the writer is trying to do. I'll say it plainly and proudly; that even I myself occasionally feel sympathy for these characters, but that still does nothing to justify their actions. And fyi to some of you out there, there are plenty of people much more 'whore-ish' than this out in the world, so don't let your naivety fool you, but back to the point. GF is a good manga for those hypothetical novella stories that apply more to teenagers and those of us on the older side. I mean Jesus at least I can read it and say to myself 'At least my life's not that screwed up.' Anyways, lastly I'll say... give it a shot, like it or don't, but please understand what the stories are... extreme circumstances in a dramatic teenage world... but facing the fact that as fictional as these stories are, kids are gonna do what they're gonna do... especially when they're confused and emotional. I mean come on, don't you remember those imbalanced teenage hormones? Thank you for your time.

... Last updated on April 14th, 2008, 12:34am

I've had my eye on this one for a while but have been afraid to pick it up b/c of the comments. Going into this I was expecting to have a bunch of crappy hentai stories w/o the hentai. You know the formula: girls are nympho sluts and the guys are either violent pricks or complete pushovers.

But that's not what I got. What you have is a portrayal of young love and how oftentimes it's fleeting, misunderstood, and more complicated than we think; and pretty accurate IMO (or more accurate than most). Sure some of the stories make you roll your eyes and groan w/ disgust, but I felt that, for the most part, they were accurate in their portrayal of the fickleness of puppy love.

I like how the relationships are more life like.
(Except the one with the twins who would share the boy. I'm sorry that just doesnt happen)
They also make the women out to be more then just innocent little girls. And sometimes the guy is the victim. Sometimes he is the naive one.
I like it how it showed that girls can take advantage of guys just as much as a guy can take advantage of a girl.
It shows a lot of different senerios of relationships and it shows that odd things can happen. The guy can fall in love with the younger sister. The girl can use the guy just because she can.
I recomend it for sure.

I love some of the stories, but I HATE others.

The special chapters that focuses on a popular girl and her otaku boyfriend are really cute. But a downside is that they are repetitive.

I hate the story that involved the glasses girl. If anyone has read the raws then trust me, you will hate her too! The glasses girl and that push over guy with the popular girlfriend pisses me off, and how the manga choose to finish (with them) pisses me off as well. Arrgh.

All in all, some of the oneshots in this story is really good, and some are reallyyyy bad. There's so many that I forget the names... But I can say that liked the chapters where the girl is NOT a two-timing slut.

I'm split on this.

Bettencourt is a fantastic artist and the stories sparkle from her efforts.

Hokazono Masaya on the other hand didn't write his best work here.
The stories are realistic but that's not always a good thing, particularly since in the real world teenagers and young adults are often egomanical psychopaths or crippled by ridiculous insecurities. So we're given a lot of callous, promiscuous slimeballs and pathetic, simpering geldings; just like real high school and college. And who wants to read about that.

... Last updated on September 14th, 2013, 12:09pm

i really liked this manga most of the stories characters and situations were really interesting and the art is pretty good. the only problem i have with this is some of the guys views on there situation is so depressing a lot of them should have been happier ideally and a some of the girls were just kinda loose with bad morals but over all this was great.

I also just wanted to state may favorites and least favorites. for my top 3 favorites i would say
(1) act 10. with the perverted girl it was funny and over all good.
(2)act 20 with the bickering child hood friends
(3) act 23. i really enjoyed this overall and i admit i do like the happier endings

I cant say i hated really any story but the worst to me were these two and only because of the heroines involved:
(1) hands Down like every one said Act 7(and on) with the glasses bitch shes a really depressing bitch with and awful attitude
(2) act 9. (and the rest involving her) with the cry baby clumsy little girl that constantly makes a fool of they guy with her messed up wishy-washy attitude. over all these two characters sucked to me cause they were stupid not to appreciate what they got, the guys in there stories were really good an loyal guys.

... Last updated on February 12th, 2013, 4:53pm

Story/Plot
This is a romance manga made up of really smutty stories on different teenage relationships. The problem is that after the first volume only some of the stories were revisited later on but at least the good ones were revisted.

Artwork
The artwork is pretty decent for this romance, and was really good ind depicting the explicit sences however the characters were very indistinguishable.

Final Thoughts
The problem with this being on different stories is that it's easy to forget what just happened in one story however at least you're not burdened with learning the character's names. One serious problem I had with this was the sheer amount of sex and it was just missing one thing to be classed as a porn. ^_^

Collection of one and two chapter stories. Basically in every story, the guy is being used by the girl or vice versa and neither one of them really thinks very much about the others feelings. Characters are super quick to hurt each other. When the chance for a healthy relationship presents itself, the other character usually runs away. Reading this leaves you with an empty feeling on the inside. People keep calling the series realistic, however, I don’t think people are quite this warped in real life. The kids in this manga are super promiscuous and sexually self-destructive. When I was in high school, there were plenty of kids having sex, but there are also plenty of kids not having sex, or only having sex a few times, but not at the level of this manga. If you’re looking for a feel good romance, then don’t dare read this. Also what I hate most about this series, Too many of the stories are left feeling incomplete, or open ended and it’s frustrating.

... Last updated on September 10th, 2019, 1:33pm

I really liked the manga...I got hooked up right after reading the first 5 stories...It was hard at first (considering that every chapter had new characters) but I really liked how they put effort to make each chara unique...I got really angry with the Glasses girl and guy but in the end they made the story a bit unique )