Starting with the positive, I like the way it approached a student-teacher relationship in this context. It was shockingly realistic and everyone’s behavior was self-aware and above board. It lends itself to the slice of life feeling and passage of time. I also enjoyed the introspection of the FL, which is why I originally decided to read it. I love reading “women’s manga” that deal with the day-to-day lives, thoughts, concerns, and struggles of women in their late 20s and older. This manga is also 6 chapters, so it’s a breezy read.
Now the stuff that made it just ‘ok’ to me. One, we never get a resolution to her workplace issues and I would have really liked to have seen her acknowledge how she will progress in that area since that’s been an issue for her since she was a student teacher. Two, I don’t really understand the point of her relationship and the lack of acknowledgement of how weird her relationship dynamic is with her current female student. It takes away from the realism as it’s unprofessional. It’s also pretty underdeveloped — one place where this manga suffered was focusing on more than just the relationship between the FL and the ML. It’s only six chapters and more characters takes away from the central plot. Three, the romance didn’t really have a spark/chemistry. It felt like she was at a point where she wanted to have a boyfriend and date (the opening setup) and she was willing to take anyone
(acknowledged when she figured out the guy she’s supposed to meet is married, but still considers seeing him…all this despite knowing all he wants is to hook-up and definitely nothing serious.)
The romance took away from the introspection and self-reflection pieces and quite frankly, made me wonder what the point of the student-teacher relationship was in the grand scheme of the story. Essentially, I am confused: is this a story of introspection and the self-reflections of a woman at a crossroads or is it a story about a love connection that took years to click? You might say it can be both, but they seem to come in direct conflict…the romance seems to try and connect to her professional problems as a teacher but that connection falls flat and imo, undermines the story including the student-teacher relationship years later. The reason why I feel this is that
the ML as a student had saw the FL as a student teacher was being bullied by some girls because a popular boy said he found her cute. The bullying caused her to lose control of her classroom and made her superiors question her suitability as a teacher, outright saying to consider if this is the right job for her. So the ML, a student in her class, in an attempt to help her out began to ask a lot of questions in class despite being the quiet kid. I personally thought the ML having a crush on her as a student and still liking her years later was a little too…just classic shoujo cliche and it doesn’t help he’s so head-over-heels for no reason, too. In the flashbacks, we don’t see them interacting very much. It reads as a teenage infatuation to me and to top it off, the ML is almost too perfect in the present…which solves the FL’s man troubles and more, I guess, while finding love gives her confidence to solve her professional issues? Full circle.
All that to say, one or two tweaks to the story could have improved it a lot and made it less of a ‘that’s it?’ at the end.
Not sure if it got axed or if the author just got bored, but the end is abrupt (it’s a happy one though.)
(-26)
