Plot/Story
“Akiko Hayashi has soaring but strangely specific dreams: to make a successful manga debut while still in school, have her favorite actor star in its adaptation, and end up marrying him. However, she is far from having the motivation or skills to realize these hopes. When a friend introduces her to an unorthodox, backstreet art class taught by the strong-armed Kenzou Hidaka, called simply as "Sensei," Akiko decides to enroll, expecting an easy ride and an automatic improvement in her art skills. To her chagrin, what she gets is something else entirely—a tough, demanding, and uncompromising teacher with absolutely no interest in manga.

But when Akiko takes up Sensei's challenge of an intense schedule, she comes to recognize how much he cares about his students and forms a close bond with him. With Sensei's guidance, Akiko learns what is necessary to become a successful mangaka as well as what it means to be an adult.” That’s the synopsis of the manga you’d read on MAL. Yet it fails to mention one specific aspect of this story that makes this manga stand out: it’s autobiographical.

In knowing this, at least personally, the story gains far more emotional weight than one that would be fictional. I don’t know for sure why that is, but it probably has to do with the empathetic responses that occur when knowing a story is real. This particularity of the story helps it resonate with readers, or at least it resonated with me. That also has to do with the settings and themes of the story: high school and college and having high ambitions but not wanting to put in the effort needed.

Characters
Kakukaku Shikajika has a very easily digestible cast of characters, cause there are only three real characters in the manga. However, this instance is very much a case of quality over quantity, and had the author attempted to include more fully fleshed out characters in an auto-biograpghy it would have ended poorly. We the main pair, Hidaka Kenzou and Hayashi Akiko which form the mentor-mentee relationship. Akiko is our main character, an insufferably whiny and lazy teenager who is our author/artist Higashimura Akiko. She has her best friend Futami, who is the best support Akiko could’ve had, in that she puts up with her.

The dynamic of the mentor-mentee relationship is what makes this manga for me. It feels so real and genuine, and despite the attitudes they outwardly show to each other, they truly care about each other. That is especially reflected in the best character, the mentor Hidaka Kenzou. You really can’t hate the guy, because no matter how insensitive and harsh he may seem, we alongside out main character Akiko come to realize that he behaves like this out of genuine care for his mentees. He’s the kind of character in life you never realized you needed until he’s gone. This manga’s great.

Drawing Style
The drawing style is interesting in a meta sense and in giving even more depth to the connection our pair has. Akiko’s artstyle is anything but what’d you’d expect a student who took those art lessons and went to an art college would create. And in that, it reflects the sort of attitude she had towards her mentor. The art is very different from anything that expected of manga, and I think its good. I personally saw it to be too different for my taste, and because the story doesn’t have as strong a connection to art as her other breakthrough work: Kuragehime, it can be a turn off for some people. I think that this particularly has to do with the way she draws her characters, its not in her lines or her inking but her character design that she stands out. If anything, its because they look far more human than we are used to, or at that, far more imperfect than shoujo and shounen character designs where everyone is literally a 10/10.

Enjoyment
I really enjoyed it, in that I really was enthralled to read about this pair. It felt real, and because most of it was real, I always wanted to read more about it. The story doesn’t have any real turns, twists or hooks. Instead it pulled me in and kept me going by virtue of its characters, how they interacted with each other, and what they went through. It was also definitely an emotional ride, and it is likely that some people will connect with our main character Akiko by her being explored both in her angsty and hopeful teenager years, and then being thrust into the world when she goes to her college and begins her career as a mangaka. She goes through human hardships that a lot of people have also gone through, and it can move people in very specific ways; it can feel like the story doesn’t have to be about Akiko, but any teen with a dream, but no idea of how to fulfil it.

Overall
I think it’s a 10/10 overall, but I also don’t think its for everyone, particularly in that the main character can evoke frustration, specifically because she is a real human like us, and she makes a lot of mistakes and bad decisions. It’s really a story about regret, but it’s also an homage to her mentor. It’s the best biographical type literature I’ve read.