From "1 Meter the Love Starts" should be an example of sloppy writing. The premise starts off with a girl who cannot be closer than 1 meter to "dazzling" people because she'll start trembling and eventually faint. Enter stud muffin prince charming who now has a seat next to her and suddenly she's having daily trips to the infirmary (lol no; I kid, it only happens once and then she's over it, though the one-shot would be more enjoyable had this happened.).

What is a fairly standard shoujo premise (girl meets hot guy) somehow falls flat on its face. For one, most of the time the one-shot is spent with scenes of our protagonist shaking and talking about how she's in love with stud muffin prince charming but can't thank him for helping her when she fainted. There's a nice little element of how this girl finds a way to communicate with him through writing on each other's desk but it's developed in 2 pages before it stops and we race towards an ending completely unearned.



Given that, you wonder how did a girl who can't even be 1 meter near a hot guy suddenly do that (without fainting mind you lol)? You might make a case claiming that the character experienced change (i.e. she has an arc). She went from unable to talk to the guy to that. The problem still remains that the ending is unearned. It leaves the cause of the change as the guy and not the girl; it gives the impression that she couldn't change without the aid of prince charming. Thus, while we might have (1) a change, we do not have (2) an earned ending.

Furthermore, while arguments appealing to the inherent page limitations (since it's a one-shot) of the work are appealing, the problem isn't that it's pacing is too fast but rather that it has no focus. Ergo, no build-up. You go from (a) meeting a stud to (b) fainting to (c) pages of complaining on how our protagonist can't speak to hot guys to (d) talking to him via written messages to (e) not speaking to each other to (f) the above spoiler. First off, (c) is not even needed; we already know about this because of (b). (a) and (b) should have like at least a page or two then most of the pages should be focused on (d) with (e) driving the point home that she should talk to him (because she likes him and we want her to succeed) with (f) being a little less than what we got (maybe a word or two or even a kiss given (b)). The point is, if the (e), as modified above, occurs (that is, talk to the guy or at least try to) and then (f), as modified above, occurs, we have it that she grows as a character! Now we have a complete character arc and an ending that flows from the previous scenes!

I can't really say to skip it since it's so short (30 or so pages) so either read it if you're really bored, want to puff up your read list, or to study the one-shot as a case of poor writing if you're so inclined like me.

... Last updated on October 24th, 2018, 12:47am