This series drew me in quickly at first. The art is good, and the main character Maria's personality isn't like a normal heroine's. She is extremely perceptive of other people's motives, blunt in her expression of what she thinks, and hates herself. She is also strong and appears to be a good person, despite this. Her personality gives the series a comedic and dramatic element simultaneously.

The plotline itself is a fairly typical slow shoujo romance plotline and the drama is interspersed with some pretty funny comedy (Maria's "Lovely Transformation" and her like of frilly things). The series shows some (sadly very typical) Japanese school bullying, eventually develops a love polygon between most of the main characters and their friends, delves into Maria's traumatic childhood, introduces new characters as antagonists, and starts a musical subplot.

It is the unfortunate and well-documented case that most of the things happening in this series--tearing up uniforms, stealing things, messing with someone's shoes, shunning, causing mild injuries, inviting a person out and forcing them to pay for everyone's meals--are all things that happen on a regular basis in Japanese schools. Teachers do turn a blind eye or blame and punish the victim because it is better than causing a public disturbance and calling attention to. However, the series is not really about bullying, but about a smart but emotionally inept girl trying to form close relationships and to be true to her instinct for honesty and forthrightness, despite having an odd personality and a traumatic past. Bullying is just one obstacle she has to overcome, and she does it with "amazing grace."

... Last updated on December 23rd, 2010, 9:53pm

gah some of the characters are REALLY REALLY ANNOYING AS HECK! the art is beautiful and the main character is actually really good not those cliche klutz, weak minded, air-headed types. other than that i cant say much but i do like the overall plot but still the amount of annoying stupid idiotic characters are just ugh... -n- sorry not to offend those who really like this series

I wonder why all comment in this page really looks down on AtLS, this series is a great with such a beautiful character and story and development.
You've got to understand why there isn't such a pure friendship between all of your friends you've already known. This manga tells the story of a what you called "the truth is not always a happiness". The main character always tells what she really thinks about other people, and she isn't wear a mask like what we always think as goodness.
Even so, what disturb me the most is this seris' romance development, which kind of strange to me, kind of forcing the ideal of the main character with the 2 hot guys. Ok that's fine, besides the main char isn't a doormat kind. I like it when she make a confrontation against the teacher and all her friends. Really a strong female lead kind, and not in physically.

For real, her lips are ALWAYS PURSED!

Seriously, though.
It's kind of a classic shoujo manga. You've got your female protagonist and your 2 love interests: the dark moody guy and the cheerful bright guy. Then you've got your best friend and that's pretty much your whole main cast. Different things happen to the main characters, and slowly, the characters' friendships turn to romance and love triangles.

Characters: 4/10
One difference is that the protagonist is not some ditzy girl, who knows nothing, or some crazy strong girl, who knows everything. She's not your classic protagonist. Instead she's the sort of character that would usually be placed as the main character's best friend (kind of similar to Hana from Fruits Basket), calm, cool, and collected, not caring what other people think, not nearly as expressive or emotional as so many shoujo characters tend to be. In fact, not really expressive or emotional at all.

Personally, I didn't like her as the protagonist (I found her a little boring) and I think that sort of character is better off in the best friend position, but I appreciate the attempt to do something different, and I'm sure that there are some people who really like the main character.

Actually, I found myself connecting most with the best friend and the less likely love interest, which kind of sucks, because now the two relationships I ship are the two that are less likely to happen . . . but again, that could be just me. You might really like the canon romance.

Art: 9.5/10
The art is very beautiful, in a modern shoujo way, which I always find very important in a manga

Plot: 4/10
Like I said before, classic shoujo manga. Not much else to say, plotwise. It involves music, I guess, and musical performance, so if that's important to you, then you should like it. Um, it also has a bit of the classic "mystery past" going for it, which always makes a story more interesting. But in the end, it is what it is, and what it is is okay, but nothing unique. Read it if you've got nothing else to do, but don't expect to find any certain amount of depth or anything.

Rating so far: 6/10

By the way, I complete agree with fictionalscience's comment that the students and teacher are unrealistically mean. Especially the teacher. If a teacher acted like that in real life, he would be fired. End of story.

It seems very naive of the author to have the teacher act so childish and the main character act so adult, as if she's trying to make a statement about adults not always being right or something. I'm not saying adults are always right, because they're not, at all, but this does feel too similar to the mentality "I'm being a rebel for the sake of being rebel". In other words: "My characters are going to be unrealistically a million times more mature than their teacher so that kids today will connect to them!" Adults who write stories like that just annoy me.

Deduct 1.5 points for unrealistic bullying

... Last updated on November 3rd, 2010, 7:40pm

I think its a pretty good manga except the part

... Last updated on October 2nd, 2010, 6:00am

I'll admit it - I mostly read it for the art.

Not that the story is bad (it's certainly not great; it's just not bad). But it's not a manga that leaves me on edge, constantly hoping for a new chapter to satisfy my craving. It's also a bit of a dark series, which isn't really my thing, with just barely enough seemingly random bits of humor thrown in to make you keep reading.

But the art. . . I just love it. It's really like nothing I've ever really seen before; the way Maria is drawn is especially beautiful. I probably would have dropped this by now, or never have picked it up, if it wasn't for the artwork.

Other than the art, the only thing I really liked about this series is that the male lead, for once, isn't blatantly obvious. I'm up to volume three, and it still isn't really clear to me which of the two boys Maria will end up with - in most shoujo, you can tell who the ending couple will be from the first chapter. That doesn't happen in Akuma to Love Song.

All in all, it's an alright manga. It's not perfect, and I agree with everyone else that it's getting more and more annoying as it drags on, and it's certainly not up there with, say, Ouran or 1/2 Prince, and it's no where near Hana Kimi. But, it's alright. Read it for the art ^-^

Update: Okay, I got to chapter 45 and just couldn't bring myself to keep going. The characters were annoying and had no depth or development, the plot was predictable and boring, and all in all, it was a stretched, cliche manga that spiraled downhill after the first few volumes. Horribly disappointing, especially because of the fantastic artwork and the promising beginning, both of which are the only reasons this doesn't end up with an even lower rating.

... Last updated on April 1st, 2013, 8:28pm

For gods sake people.
MANGA ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE REALISTIC.
-----

Anywho, this manga is quite interesting for the first few volumes, then loses its apeal later on. Its still a great read if you're looking for something to interest you, but don't expect it to become one of your favourites.

I used to LOVE this manga and read the scanlation as soon as it was out, but now something's changed in the manga that I'm not as obssesive about reading it. Consequently, I can no longer give it a 10. If the quality continues to decline, my rating will drop accordingly.

I hope the Japanese readers voiced something similiar so that by volume 8, the quality goes back up to its original awesomeness.

... Last updated on August 16th, 2010, 10:28am

...then quickly degenerated to a heavy, gloomy, overly dramatic story saturated with the most annoying shoujo clichés on the face of the earth (i.e. crying every five minutes, love rivals with a huge vendetta against the main character, random comedic moments thrown into random sequences in an attempt to lighten the mood BECAUSE OF all the drama, etc.).


As far as the bullying goes, I'd like to just throw a few things out there. The likelihood of an entire class plus the teacher turning against one student is pretty non-existent. Many of things that were said and done to Maria, however, are actually pretty spot on when compared to some of the actual bullying that goes on in the Japanese school system. That's not to say that Japanese students are horrible, because bullies are bullies no matter where they come from. However, group conformity and cultural homogeneity are both very important aspects of the Japanese culture (which actually isn't a bad thing majority of the time), so standing out too much or being 'different' can result in some pretty severe treatment. Bullying there is on an entirely different level than anything that most people are used to--and becoming progressively worse as of late. Than mangaka did a really good job with this aspect of the manga. The bullying that she suffers is a bit on the light side when compared to the real deal. I'm dead serious...

Also, Maria's odd mindset and questionable tolerance towards mental, verbal, and physical abuse basically stem from some serious trauma that she suffered as a child. I've been reading the releases in Margaret magazine, so at least that much makes sense to me now. What's killing me is that the author totally could have used all those events to her advantage and made for an exceptional story--had she stuck with her original formula. But she instead opted to take the standard shoujo drama route and put a damper on Maria's unique demeanor and outlook on life. How disappointing...

... Last updated on September 7th, 2010, 6:54am

It's very unrealistic how nasty her teacher & classmates are. The school quarrels are pretty over the top and silly. But I like some of the themes in the manga and the level of complexity/twistedness of some of the characters. Sometimes the "burn the witch" attitude is pretty unbearable for me to keep reading without getting overly upset though.