Last Game

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Quickie Review: Slow first few chapters, slowest of slow-burns, Not an SA copy, despite how it appears at first glance.

Detailed Review: When I first started reading this, I picked up some serious Special A vibes. It has the same parallels. The guy in love with the girl who is completely oblivious, both are smart, and both are superhuman... but where this and SA differ would be the characters. Yes, they have the same overall plot points, but it's a romance manga; they all have similar plot points.

The overall plot is that Yanagi is in love with Kujou, who is completely oblivious as expected. He's ... been in love with her since they were children, and it was under the guise of a rivalry... for the most part. He does genuinely want to beat her, but he also wants to capture her heart. Kujou is... bland, blank, boring. BUT the manga does a great job of showing her slowly coming out of her shell, making new friends, experiencing the world outside of just studying and going home, and of course, dealing with falling in love for the first time.

Kujou also has an issue with change; she wants things to stay as they are forever, which leads to a slow-burn plot that's actually well done. One of the major critiques I've seen of this manga is that it's slow, but I think that's better than the "oh I like this person and we're together now" plot. A slow-burn MAKES SENSE here. Especially considering that Mikoto is going through emotions, she's never had the chance to experience before. It's very in character for her to take it slow and fully absorb what she's feeling.

That being said, the first few chapters of this manga are sloooooooow. Like, really, really slow. I almost got bored with it. I'd say things started to finally get interesting when Yanagi and Kujou joined the Astronomy club. More characters are added at this time, and I think it's around this time when our two leads get more personality. They stop hanging around only each other, too, which I found nice and surprisingly lacking in romance mangas I've read.

There are two love triangles that kind of morph into a love square, but I didn't find them obnoxious, and I think both of them helped further the plot along and didn't just serve to keep the two leads from each other.

The last few chapters are clearly the best in my humble, unbiased, and correct opinion.

If you're in the mood for a slow-burn, predictable, yet heartwarming story, I'd absolutely recommend this. Once you're past the slow, uneventful first chapters, it becomes a fluffy ride that I really enjoyed. I'll probably re-read this someday.

Spoiler free

"Why '6'? Why did you only give it a score of 6? " is what you are probably thinking right now. (Especially, if you are a fan of this series)

I followed Last Game from the VERY BEGINNING of its serialization. I then got updated on its chapters like a student waiting for a vacation, suspension of classes and early dismissals of profs. ( In literal sense, it means I really liked Last Game )

Let's talk about the manga.

Last Game is about a guy named Yanagi who was very proud of himself because his family is rich af. Then, a girl named Kujou enters the ... story and told him that he shouldn't brag about something he didn't achieve on his own. Yanagi's ego got hurt and decided to get even with Kujou by making her fall in love with him and dump her the second she confesses.

The characters aren't deep but they aren't that bad either. The thing I like about this shoujo manga is that the guy, Yanagi, is the one getting flustered most of the time because of Kujou and the POV of the story is mostly from his side.(Considering this is a shoujo manga, it should be the girl doing the job right? But nah, it's the guy this time. That's why it's kinda like a breath of fresh air for me)

It may be from the guy's POV but the story does not in any way, lack sweetness and cuteness when it comes to execution. The pacing is slow, really slow, but the sweet moments and funny reactions of Yanagi and Kujou's denseness make up for the slow pacing.

We have already established that the pacing is slow, and the slowness will continue...until one of the most cliche thing happened. ( I won't mention the chapter, but you'll know it when you get to that point. It's kinda like "I've been expecting this to happen, but not THIS early!") That's the point where everything became faster than a jet plane flying. ( Seriously.)

I hate rom-coms which the male protagonist are always willing to scarifice his career, dreams or even his life to win the lead female's affection and what makes it worse when the female protagonist into dense character who is oblivious to everything around her and doesn't even remembers the poor guy's first name until much later into the story. (Yes, it actually happens)

Plot:-3.5/10 It is painfully slow, the romance itself never progress only much much later when the story is almost about to end. I hate it when that happens, it is like author didn't know how to fill in the gap in between, ... so now that we have every cliché you can imagine from a stereotypical generic romance novel where the male lead 24/7 does his best and every possible way for the female lead to realize his genuine feelings for her, sort of like a game which I remind you male lead introduced it on his own. Now, I don't have any empirical data to back this up, but it seems to me romantic comedies and romantic stories like this in general cause women to have unrealistic expectations of men and what love should be like? which results male protagonist in romance stories like this stereotype white knight that I see in almost most of the shoujo manga these days. My apologies if I offend any women who loves this manga!

Characters:-2/10 You have your rich male lead prince charming ready and willing to sacrifice physically, mentally and emotionally , your generic dense poor female lead and a third wheel who suddenly falls for our female protagonist because we need two godly handsome shoujo characters competing with each other. (It is every female's fantasy, I think)

Artwork:-8/10 and that this is the only thing I have to give credit for. The artwork is quite good, sadly for me author never deals with the real issues that this manga suffers from.

Enjoyment-3/10 I know, you all must be thinking (Why am I reading a manga from a genre which is targeted towards young women then?). Well because I will say it flat out that romance in shounen is a big no no for me. They are boring, shallow, empty and tedious and take a very long time to develop into something or mostly just leave it in cliffhanger for viewer's or reader's imagination but very few of them are exception like Horimiya just like there are many exception for me in shoujo too like Lovely Complex, Kare Kano and Mars.