Seriously, licorice says it all. But I'm gonna say it again, and add on.
What Makes it Unique
There is one thing that separates this manga form others, and that's that it has the all time most epic love triangle I have ever read in a manga (and that includes mangas like Vampire Knight and Nana, where I honestly couldn't tell who she'd end up with).
The reason this love triangle is so epic is because it's not your average shoujo where the heroine either:
a) only really likes one guy the whole time and the other guy is just there to make him jealous
or
b) kind of likes both guys, but then ends up picking one over the other.
Instead, the mangaka chose option c. There is no 'kind of' about the way this girl feels. Each time she loves, it's for real; you can tell she only loves one person at a time. And yet, she still loves both of the love interests at some point in the story, and they both love her. And she goes back and forth in such a way that it whoever she likes at the moment, you believe that that is who she is going to end up with. But her feelings change, and you realize that you really can't know who she'll end up with. Heck, the scanlation is on chapter 119, and she could still realistically end up with either one of them.
In a lot of mangas, there will be a situation where a likes b and b likes c, but this manga is great because it's more like sometimes a likes b and b likes c and sometimes c likes b and b likes a. So the train of unrequited love has a tendency to switch direction.
Which is why, no matter which guy you're rooting for, you're going to feel really sad at parts.
Anyway. Moving on.
Plot
Kind of just said. It's a shoujo romance, so not a lot of depth in the plot, but if you like romantic tension and love triangles and are tired of predictability and knowing that one guy doesn't stand a chance, then for sure try this out.
Art
I think the art is lovely. It's typical shoujo style, but the bodies are proportionate (I HATE unproportionate bodies) and the faces are spaced well and stuff, so yeah . . .
Characters
All of the characters (including side characters) have pretty good personalities, and none of them are super annoying.
Fuuko:
She's an average shoujo girl: bright, cheerful, short, a little dumb, etc. But even though she blushes and cries, I don't find it nearly as annoying as I so often do with shoujo girls. With her it feels less stupid and more real.
Daiya:
He's the class clown/playboy type character. I think it's funny, because usually those types of guys aren't the ones the girl ends up with, but in this case, as you'll discover in the first couple chapters, he's actually the one she starts liking first.
Anyway, he's also really cheerful and caring, though he doesn't believe in love (everyone has their flaws), but generally he's the sort of person you'd want to be around. And he isn't one of those unnatural characters who never do any work but then somehow magically get As in all their classes. He does even worse in school than Fuuko. 🙂
Also, he cleans and cooks (neither Ichi or Fuuko do)
Ichi:
He's Daiya's cousin and the other love interest. He does really well in school, but he can't cook/clean to save his life (he's clumsy). He's actually the one I'm rooting for, because to me he's slightly less stereotypical than the other two. By that I mean, he's mean. Not just to everyone, but to Fuuko (even when he likes her). I know it's common for male characters to act mean or whatever, but he's for real. He acts more than a little full of himself for being so smart, and when Fuuko gets really upset over how ugly she thinks she is, he doesn't try to tell her she's not (which I totally kept expecting him to do - I mean, he likes her, so you'd think he'd at least sometimes act like it). But he doesn't.
Also, he has a different way of liking Fuuko. By this I mean, while most of the time, no matter what they were like before, when a manga guy starts liking a girl he starts acting extremely nice to her and getting super worried about her, Ichi isn't like that. He'll occasionally treat Fuuko well, but usually he's just mean to her (she's mean back, though, so it's okay) and when she asks for his help with stuff like schoolwork or swimming, he won't try to be understanding, and he'll get annoyed if she can't do things. Once she was out in the ocean, and she couldn't swim very well, and whereas any other manga guy would have probably gone out to rescue her, Ichi just stood on the shore and told her to swim already, that it wasn't that far.
At the same time, though, he can act concerned if he wants to. It's just harder for him (he does show his affection - in weird ways, though).
Overall, this was really good, as far as shoujos go, and I would suggest it to any shoujo fan.
Edit: Also, the guys in the manga blush too, which I liked. I hate it when only the girls blush.
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