Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku
The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity

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What sets this manga apart from others is its exceptional portrayal of character development between the MC, FMC, and their friends. It has been a while since I've been so engrossed in a manga that I find myself re-reading certain chapters repeatedly just to satisfy my craving. This manga depicts a beautiful love story intertwined with deep friendships. Both the MC and FMC cherish their friends profoundly, evoking moments of awe and leaving you grinning at the adorable relationships portrayed.

There are hardly any cringy moments, or rather, I should say there are none, unlike other rom-coms I've read. Most of the time, I seek a ... good story rather than mere fan service, longing to witness genuine love and friendship between the MCs and how they navigate their problems. When I gave this manga a chance, I found myself thoroughly enjoying it.

I'll say it once more: it's a masterpiece, and I truly admire the author for presenting such beauty.

This manga is a story about people in different circumstances discovering their feelings for each other, a la Romeo and Juliet and it really isn't even trying to hide its influence. The art is good enough and the story has a simple premise so that's all I'll say on that, instead I'd like to focus on the characters. The characters are very wholesome, everybody is nice to each other and much like the simple premise every character has the SAME character arc(except the main character differs if only slightly). I shit you not it basically goes like this the entire manga: "Here are these groups ... of people I was taught to hate and I'm mean to them but as soon as I get to know them they aren't actually that bad and we can even be friends"

That's it, that is 90% of the arcs these characters go through. I mean that in of itself isn't a problem as I'm not expecting every manga to have great character development/growth or even characters with strong personalities but man they are so shallow and don't actually offer much, in a way they almost don't even feel like real people. Even when they do bad things it's never truly framed as their fault or like it stemming from a flaw of their character.

This story certainly has its fans considering how highly ranked it is and frankly that is my main problem as for something in the top 100 IT CERTAINLY DOESN'T DESERVE THIS SPOT. If you want a better Romeo and Juliet story, with deeper characters, larger spanning narratives that affect the world and one that serves as a better allegory for how we treat those different from us in society I HIGHLY recommend BEASTARS as it absolutely shatters this manga in terms of pure quality but if you want a wholesome, no real conflict slice of life calm manga then sure you can read this one...

This manga gets a lot of praise, but I'm not sure for what. The art is good but not enough to keep it interesting for long. After reaching the chapter about the aquarium, I realized one thing, the conversations are incredibly dull and boring. Most of the dialogues are dragged and overdramatized conversations between one-dimensional characters, that repeat the same thing over and over again. Everyone just keeps apologizing, for being judgmental, for not understanding, etc. Nothing between the two schools' conflict is really addressed, and at this point, it's just an "I'm sorry" story.

When development can count as fast and doesn't drag the ... events to the extreme like a lot of other manga do, at the same time it fails to build any stakes. Of course, the typical romcom tropes are present here as well. Aquarium date, lost kid, girl harassed by a bunch of punks, girl saved by the MC, a girl saved by the MC's friend, beach episode, and so on, you get the gist. So there's a lot of dialogue about nothing in here, events that fail to build up any stakes, melodrama about happiness as deep as a Latin telenovela and it all ultimately leads to boredom. The only thing that stands out is the pace, It can give the feeling that this manga is better than it actually is.