Ugh, I have two huge problems with this series.
1, It's a fact, okay, that it's women, not men, who are overwhelmingly affected by body image issues. I am not interested in a body issue manga about a guy. A body issue manga about a guy is probably the least compelling and least necessary story to tell in the world. And Takeo doesn't even look ugly. He looks "manly" for whatever that's worth and he doesn't have a girlfriend despite being such a nice guy? Allow me to fetch the smallest violin.
2, This is basically a shoujo series that's acceptable to guys, and I can't tell you how much I care about being acceptable to guys. The manga doesn't speak at all to female desires and experiences and in doing so doesn't challenge men at all. It's not that a shoujo manga has to do that, it's that a manga, period, can't just engage in all of these very gendered tropes without having at least considered the female perspective.
The sensibilities of it all are so incredibly male. Making Takeo "manly" is just opening a can of worms about what "manly" means and frankly, I think the question is worthless in the first place. The manga seems to be making a case for "manly" as a blend of the traditional whole nine yards of muscles and clumsy bluster, sprinkled with the occasional heroics and being kind, which is the sort of thoroughly unexciting, conventional thinking that I roll my eyes at. The girl what's-her-name is being tested by the story at every step: does she fall the the handsome friend instead?--even though she has every right to--and watching her try to pass becomes the tension of the story. Takeo doesn't expect her to date him just because he saved her, but the story does. If she falls for the friend, she fails, and becomes just another one of the flaky background girls who the friend what's-his-name constantly dismisses. Note how the friend approves of her, which signals to us that she's not one of those other girls. See, this one is special because a guy approved of her.
And saving the girl from a groper on a train? How original and not condescending.
And then she bakes them pastries. What a good little wife.
Ugh, you can always tell which perspective the story is from by who is being tested and what fantasy is being fulfilled. The guy can be ugly and blustering. The girl has to be pretty and a good cook. The guy makes badly observed assumptions. The girl has to recognize the hidden depth in the guy.
Look, it's nice that you guys like the manga, but it's utterly BS that you think this is better than the "typical shoujo" fare because it just means that you don't read shoujo at all. It's absolutely depressing when I see stuff like "I was skeptical as always being a guy and it being a shoujo manga" and "Looking for palatable shoujo?" (UGH) because it just means you went looking for shoujo so watered down and sterilized that your world views are not challenged and that you are not made to sympathize with--God forbid--a teenage girl. You looked for shoujo that's not about girls at all and that's what you found so congratulations, I guess.