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Description
From VIZ:
Shy Ichitaka has a crush on his high-school classmate Iori, but ever since she posed for semi-provocative swimsuit photos in a magazine, she's had a lot of sleazy guys hitting on her. Ichitaka's afraid to make his feelings known for fear Iori will think he's just another creep.
I'm sorta bad at writing a comment, so I'll just say, that it has a rather good ending and one can really enjoy reading this manga, if it's your cup of tea, that is.
PS: It sort of does resemble Ichigo 100%, but I can't say, which of them moved me more... PPS: Ah, just remembered: The ending that moved me the most was from the GTO-Manga. To sum it up, I's made me a little teary-eyed, I shed a tear at Ichigo 100% and I cried at GTO.
Compared to a lot of shoujo manga, I felt that this one was much more realistic in its portrayal of a guy and a girl who like each other. I thought a lot of developments were spot on. The art was really nice, and the story was a nice deviation from your standard battle manga and your standard shoujo romance story. I definitely recommend this series to anyone who wants a break from either, and well, to anyone in general actually.
I liked it be the ending needed more details of what happen after. All in all, a very good read if you just finish reading something with a heart wrenching ending. Eventho I like some of the other girls alot more. I didnt hate Iori but she is a cold fish until about half way through the series.
Spoiler (highlight to view)
Also, I didn't like the fact that he seem like a completely nobody, the could as have made him and ronin after he fail the 1st time I looks better than someone working in a convenience store, but I guess this added more effect to the that fact of them being a world apart
I really have to say I was surprised I merely started this on a whim and didn't expect to like it at all but I was deeply surprised how engrossed I became with it. It was a wild rush of romantic fantasy from beginning to end and it sadly did end but I really would have liked to see a bit more from the ending itself, it ended how I wanted it to but I would have liked a bit more detail in the epilogue.
I can't rate it, because I had read it many years ago, being a student. But it was a first voluminous manga that impressed me so much, I thought - "Oh, that's what manga is." I was hooked, I cried a lot ^___^, I laughed a lot. I liked Ichitaka and his friends, all this "caring about each other" atmosphere. Sometimes they were silly, Iori was self-centered, and Ichitaka was liking her mostly because of her beauty and reserved nature. But they are kids after all, and their attitude towards love was rather realistic. Maybe I should rate it after all)
You have to first of all understand that these stories you refer to are usually about virgin kids who have never experienced love, so admitting their feelings is hard for them to do, especially when they are not sure how the other person would react, as they might lose them. Now, in our case here, Ichitaka is particularly careful of expressing his love for the girl he likes since long ago, another (the first) girl he fell for turned him down, making him insecure. He does not want to do anything that would make her hate him. I think we read such stories because we want to put ourselves in the main characters' shoes & have a great experience of our own. After all, it s nigh-impossible to find such perfect girls in real life.
If you want to see what happens when the protagonist does not care about the girls & goes all the way with them, I suggest watching the anime version of School Days. The ending is a lesson about the result of apathy.
I needed a romance manga to cure the ache in my heart left by Suzuka, and this manga did a fairly great job of doing just that. Art is really good, and unlike what some others said, IMO the comedy moments have great art too. The hotsprings scene was so funny. I would also be lying if I said some of Ichitaka's fantasies didn't get me hot and heavy myself hehe.
The ending was good but just felt a bit abrupt. I definitely saw it coming though. I mean, from the beginning of the last chapter, I had a feeling things would end that way. Anyway, I definitely recommend this manga to others.
The ending was a bit sudden, and the whole "famous girlfriend" thing was kinda weird. Even so, it was a great manga overall, and I really enjoyed reading it. The artwork is pretty good, and so's the plot, I'd definitely recommend this to someone.
To be fair to my title, the *really* bad stuff I usually quit long before the end. I did actually read this one to the end but then I looked back and couldn't help but think, dear god why did I waste that much of my time. So I think it's a pretty fair assessment (and I've been reading manga for 15 years or so...).
The manga's biggest (but by no means only) problem is the main protagonist who is completely unlikeable in every way. I'm not complaining about the fact that he takes years to finally get around to confessing. Heck, that's pretty much normal in these kinds of manga. I'm more concerned about the fact that he is a selfish asshole who treats other people like shit, always demanding things and doing nothing in return. The amount of time he sits around wallowing in self-pity far outweighs the time he spends actually doing anything productive. What I can't figure out is why any of the girls in this series want to date this loser in the first place.
I sort of like to compare this to Love Hina, because although they have pretty different tones (Love Hina can be quite goofy), they're still popular contemporary ecchi shounen titles of similar length. But for all his faults, Keitaro has infinitely more character growth than Ichitaka. That's not an exaggeration because Ichitaka has *zero* character growth. Scratch that, he might actually have negative character growth. He starts out shy and awkward but by the end of the series he's shy, awkward, self-loathing, and always ends up just doing whatever other people tell him to. Grow a friggin backbone. I may have to redo my math.
That said, Iori has her problems too. She's far too passive and has trouble saying what she's actually thinking. Perhaps the most extreme example of that was the whole "I thought you dumped me moment". I'm not saying that sort of thing can't happen, but the way it was done here was seriously hard to swallow. No normal person would reach that conclusion from that conversation...
The supporting cast is mostly filled with one-dimensional forgettable characters. I actually liked Izumi at first but then she degenerated into a bland rival-you-know-has-no-chance-but-never-gives-up character. It would have been much better if she moved on or something rather than falling into such a pigeon-holed and repetitive role. But I guess that would mean acknowledging that there are guys out there besides Ichitaka. It's like the only supporting male characters are blatant perverts and rapists, which is the only way the author can make Ichitaka look decent. I mean, I *guess* he's better than a rapist...
What baffles me most is why people like this manga. I guess to be fair the first few volumes weren't that bad. I did make it all the way to the end for a reason. I didn't truly start hating this manga until the later (post high school graduation) volumes, and by that point I figured I was committed. Even so, it's not like the early stuff is particularly great. I would rate it OK at best.
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