Like the story states, this is a series of unrequited love. This is definitely not a "feel good" manga so don't read it if you don't like the genre. In addition, I don't think a lot of people will like this manga due to its negative nature. I however will have to say that the author did a great job in making the audience feel what they are intended to feel when reading the manga. The hardest part of a manga is passing on the emotions that the author is trying to convey to the audience. He did a fabulous job with that.

However, his character development was poor and the way the story line flow feels a bit rush. Also, it is clearly obvious that the author has his own idea and concept of what love is. Obviously, he did not do a good job in persuading the audience to sympathize or empathize with his definition of love. So unless you have the same idea as the author, you will find yourself in conflict with the ideals and morality in this manga.

The author sets up a mysterious past for the main heroine, the titular Rooftop Princess, that ends up to be too obvious and without impact considering how long it took for the author to reveal it. The main male lead does nothing to earn the love either female love interest and bland even by most romance manga standards. This story could have been told in a single one-shot but it gets stretched out to 4 volumes, leading to lots of repetition. This situation repeats itself about 5 times: Male lead does sometime awkward, Main female lead mops and vaguely reminses, Secondary female lead mops about male lead not paying attention to her.

The art is fairly good but the author doesn't know how to write believable characters. The Rooftop Princess who is so prominent in the artwork never made me feel like she was the ethereal incomprehensible beauty that the author wanted. Angst isn't character development.

The image of puddles after it rains really fits this manga. Rain usually reminds people of melancholy. This manga has that feel throughout where it seems like something sad is about to happen or that it lies underneath the surface of everything.

It has a subject matter that forms an important part of the backdrop that I think is overused in manga in a bad way. This manga does it in a way that at least doesn't get in the way of the story most of the time, and you can see how it's affected the girl. Basically the story doesn't make light of it.

But that's not the important aspect to what's good about this story, as essential to the plot as it is. That comes from how concentrated it is, like the Ico games, the excess has been taken out. It's a pure story in that sense, and that let's the emotions stand out.

It's shockingly effective . It left a phantom feeling after I had finished reading it. The way the story is told is well done.

the artwork is wothout a doubt pretty good. The plot is good enough, the author tried to make the whole thing more realistic, the characters are kind of constants never really changing but still acceptable. The romance could have been one of the better ones but the pacing is just plain horrble.

It's not that nothing happens, there are a bunch of things, but the author took one "major" incident each chapter and diluted it with nothingness until the chapter had enough pages (this isn't too bad, but it feels stretched out). It takes ages for any consequences to appear. The MC's childhood friends are very nice, the boy has a good character and the girl is just cute and likable.

But here the problem appears: the female MC is the most unlikable female love interest I have EVER seen. The author doesn't even try to make her appeal to the reader. And the MC is made so that he still goes along with everything she does. I guess this would have been much better with a reason for him to fall in love with her - love at first sight simply isn't.
As for the drama - the main point of the story - it is there, all the time, it just isn't good enough, degrading the few good dramatic moments (which actually are in there).

Don't get me wrong, this manga is good. But not good enough to justify anything above a 7. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone.

the diluted plot, partially unlikable characters as well as too simple drama don't do the art justice - 7/10

... Last updated on May 4th, 2013, 6:31am

I am very fond of the artwork but... even if the plot in itself is interesting and I want to find out how it ends, it isn't well represented -making it plain and boring- if it weren't for the artwork I wouldn't [have] continueD reading this slow-paced and predictable love-square.

a surprisingly mature series in so far as destroying the cliché of perfect dream girl with flawless image that so lot of people seems to keep despite growing out of their teen years
the series don't need to be so deep or to have complex intricate storyline
just a simple story with the Madonna of the school having her own worries and the guy who loves(in reality admire her) is clueless about her real personal life and that's enough for me
in opposite of the current trend of idolizing and worshiping what people think are angels
but the aftershock of disillusion will leave them thunderstruck

... Last updated on February 26th, 2012, 3:55am

I have mixed feelings on this, for one we have that the series has a theme, which is the persona of the rooftop princess. Being more than "a main character" and being the theme of the series, she should have a huge charisma, big enough to carry the whole charm of the series by herself, kinda like how Yuuko alone can make Tasogare x Otome interesting. However her charisma is just "normal" for her character stereotype (perfect, responsible, considerate, gorgeous, polite oujo-sama); the same can be said about the rest of the cast, they are simply "normal" when it comes to their character traits, they are your "run-off the mill" characters and don't specially shine in a particular, special way.

So, basically, this series has very little character appeal; thus what's more interesting is what's actually breeding between them and how things are expressed, simply, the plotline of this romance story is the one that catches more of the reader. For one side we have the princess and her feelings, she is very different from the rest of the cast because she is a more prominent entity within the story; not only because she has a bigger aura than the rest of the characters, but because she knows herself perfectly and her own character is strongly self established (well, that's only a first glance impression, there is a little more beneath her). Being a stable character we have that it's more the situation that she is in the one that is a mystery and has been unveiled slowly as the story progress and with every detail that it's unveiled about her circumstances the more that things make more sense.

The rest of the characters feel the opposite, their situation and circumstances are known to us and are pretty simple, but are their feelings, resolutions and their expressions the ones that are changing as the story progress, and how those things conflict with each other what makes the story, along with the mystery of what is the true self that the princess has locked within her heart.

The pacing of the story is also conflicted as things are portraying really slowly and softly, personally I like that since it builds up the simple "slice of life" air of the story with aid of the art and location settings, but a side effect of that is that not many things are going to happen in between a few chapters, even after reading 5 chapters in one go there is still the feeling that nothing important is being build up, that coupled with the monthly release I can understand why many just dropped this one in their early stages.

The plot is simple, albeit is very hard to foresee as many details are being kept from us, there are some twists that could happen here and there thanks to that but it's still too early to make suggestions. The character that has changed the most since the beginning of the story is the princess, however those changes had been very slight and I'm sure that she doesn't realize them. Basically this is a very soft story with good art and some mystery facts that could be unveiled further and could change everything. The story can potentially get more interesting if Tobi knows how to properly unveil what's to come next, however he seems more naturally gifted to comedy by judging from "Megane na Kanojo" and that's actually one of the problems of the story, if Tobi would have been a veteran writer by the time he started this story probably would not have any "ifs"; but has it stands now some of the evaluation problems come from character & story portrayal, and thus if he happens to gets better as an author as the manga progress, the manga is going to get better as a result. Right now is a simple story with some charm points where one has to stand for some bad characteristics to be able to enjoy. Personally I'm interested in the story's future and if Tobi can improve more and more as an author, I'll stick through his work till the bitter end.

... Last updated on January 30th, 2012, 1:42pm

I think my main problem with this series is it simply is nothing special. If I had to sum up my feelings when reading, it is boredom. The art is pretty and the main character isn't a complete dunce. But, there's nothing here that is captivating. In the end, what a waste.

Look over this story, there isn't much here. The characters, in the first 5 chapters, have nothing established to them. They have no personalities, not to mention there is a lack of coherency in what they say and what's going on. The characters' relationships are boring and not to mention terribly awkward. It's like I'm actually following around a couple of high school kids, watching every monotonous procedure of "going out". Who wants to see that? Right, no-one. What makes stories about "school romance" interesting is due to the differences from reality, and here, aside from some over-used cliches I won't mention due to spoilers, there is nothing different. Don't read it, move on.

The first chapter is really nice and I like it a lot. I would give it a 9 out of 10 if it was a one-shot.
However already by the beginning of the third chapter it becomes clear, that this manga is just another mainstream love story, the male lead is quite boring and generic, badly done even. He has no depth, as far as I can tell.
The female lead is rather intresting, but that doesn't really make up for the frustration of seeing another nice beginning being bogged down by the most common mistakes Shounen authors like to make.

Why do writers keep thinking people enjoy makeshift male leads, that are incapable of just doing stuff instead of sitting around and moping all day. BORING!!!

I'll continue reading this manga for a while, since the latter half of the third chapter showed some potential. Let's hope the plot actually goes somewhere. Maybe it won't just be treading the same pace and place as every single other love story out there.


Edit: A few years later I read through the entire thing once again and I'm glad to say, the manga is not as bad as the second and third chapters made it seem. While the pacing is a bit slow and this manga would have benefited by omitting some of the "filler" material, it is not excessively slow. The story is slightly twisted and I suppose that is the thing that kept me reading and will probably keep you reading too.
Then it all kind of turns around with the ending. The lead from the apex into the end is somewhat rushed. Slightly too convenient. Here the manga could have been a little bit more fleshed out. The end itself however is satisfying enough to qualify as such and doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth.


All in all, go ahead and read the manga, it's not that long and will give you something to think about.

... Last updated on April 2nd, 2016, 9:07am