, but as of late it's become a tiresome melodrama.
Like the poster before me stated, this series is actually about the antagonist of typical shoujo romance stories. Hatori is popular, pretty, and the classic "childhood friend". She sees her and Rita's relationship as a shoujo love story, but the problem is it's not that kind of story. Enter Adachi, the plain, dull, "Mary Sue", and she is the archetypal "heroine" in every way.
This series is pretty funny, Hatori's facial expressions are priceless, and she constantly rejects actual reality and injects her own fictional one. Her best friend (Nakajima) is the standard "voice of reason", but it works out well against Hatori's quixotic behavior. It pokes fun at classic genre cliches and even other series (most notably Strobe Edge).
The series does have it's drawbacks though. It constantly loses focus and Hatori's unwillingness to change has become tiresome as of late. Rita's the same way. I like "Kaki P" (Kousuke), he's like the voice of the readers, he points out the glaring motivations behind every character and it seems the Hatori likes him at least on the most basic level.
Still, this manga is young so there's still a lot of story ahead.
EDIT for finale: So happens I decided to return to this series right when the group translated the end. 🙂
I binged through all the chaps I missed, and I've gotta say the characters actually came out looking better than I remembered. I especially found a new appreciation for the story of Hatori. I'm glad the mangaka didn't feel the need to pull any punches with her character. She's snooty, arrogant, and abrasive (hell she even made a poor girl cry because she was pissed off), yet you can empathize with her.
Too often do we find ourselves rooting for bland, flavorless, sickeningly sweet heroine (Adachi) and despise the flashy, aggressive, self-assured villainess (Hatori). The mangaka actually quite adeptly turns those conventions on their heads.
Rita actually starts to become a better character as well. He did get annoying for a while, but once he finds his resolve, he's actually a really good guy.
As for the ending, it was really odd. I think the mangaka just ran out of ideas and ended it. All sort of character development is thrown in the toilet for random bits of drama; when there's an apparent silver lining, we're swerved into a weird haphazard finale that ends up being more confusing than rewarding.
I'd still recommend this, based on how rare the idea behind this is. Also, the artwork is top notch. Hatori seriously has the best facial expressions I've seen since GTO.