the female lead is just an annoying tsundere ...

I was thinking it would just be some romcom with some movie tropes thrown in, but it's much nicer than that. The characters grow throughout and the plot moves along nicely. Be wary about reading other reviews because they kind of tell you about the experience that the characters go through when it's nicer to see it for yourself in real-time.

The thing that sets this series apart from other romance series is that it's not really about the romance. It's about the characters. (I'm joking, but not really)

From the start, Tasuku seems like he's pursuing a doomed romance. Because of this, the author's able to explore Tasuku's crush in greater depth, and in turn explore that part in any adolescent's life when you start to become fully conscious of the world around you. Tasuku's crush on Shia comes about because for the first time in his life he's realized this older girl who he's known all his life and has barely spared a thought for is a living breathing person with an inner world separate from what his lifelong impressions of her have been. And as Tasuku struggles to understand this inner world, he and Shia both deal with their own personal shortcomings, maturing into adulthood in their own ways.

This is a story where it's perfectly understandable if Tasuku's romance realistically fails, because the way his crush serves as a vehicle for his and Shia's character developments is perfectly satisfying on its own.


It's understandable that some people would want more out of a story like this (more timeskip content, more fluff, just more in general) but I think it's perfectly fine in its short format and does everything it sets out to do without branching off into the unimportant stuff that turns a lot of SoL romances into total drags. It's a focused work, with no distracting side romances and filler arcs. That said, the supporting cast in this is hilarious. This author knows exactly how to populate a cast with quirky characters that never waste an appearance, and I particularly liked seeing Tasuku's brother and sister and their goofy family dynamic. If there's anything I wanted more of, it's them!

I honestly love the dynamic of femc and mc. I love the journey mc goes trhough, as he tries to learn "why" he loves her. I love how they were able to unconciously help eachother achieve certain goals they had been struggling on achieveing on their own

The only issue i have is

I enjoyed the character dynamic a lot in this manga. More so because you can read through and tell how the two characters, Tasaku and Shio, cause change for each other throughout the manga (written at ch. 38).

They're total opposites in an interesting way. Tasaku being this dense, straightforward, blunt, yet innocent and earnest guy that's unable to really pick up social cues or human emotions; who is trying his best for his crush in order to understand her. Shia on the other end being an overthinking and generally complicated girl with low self-esteem that hides her feelings a lot. The beginning interactions generally start with Tasaku fumbling the bag in trying to understand Shia, and over time as Shia shows her *cough* complicated side it prompts change for Tasaku to slowly pick up her subtleties behind her actions/words in order to do so. He very earnestly does so, trying his best even though Shia tries to show her negatives to deter him. Each moment of either her self-loathing thoughts or maybe rude interactions is always met with a child-like, innocent acceptance of her, and in such a characteristically blunt and straightforward way; It prompts her to change too to open up her feelings a little more, slowly improving herself later on.

While it can maybe be difficult to read at the start because you can witness their flaws in full force, those flaws end up complementing each other to create a positive change for the other person. And I think that's what makes it truly shine because you can fully witness that, resulting in great chapters where I felt this accomplished feeling for them as their work really pays off.

btw, I did enjoy the beginning too cause I found it pretty funny how Tasaku can fumble the bag in so many ways lol. There's some room to say he's neurodivergent, but either way he shapes up pretty well later on imo.

Just a reminder that Demographic labels have have nothing to do with actual content.
This is a Shounen manga as categorized by the publication it is being published in:
https://mangacross.jp/comics/negasuki

See the Category (カテゴリー):
It's Shounen (少年) and not Seinen (青年)

... Last updated on March 21st, 2023, 1:54am