Ranked #3011

Sweethearts (Manga)

Kisaragi Gunma does it again; by finding interesting ways, for the average young male protagonist(s), to end up in extraordinary situations with unattainable beauties; in this Hentai, Romance. Though it is interesting... is it any good?

I won't go into the details of the circumstances, but Sweethearts kicks off with 3 lucky bastards having been chosen to partake in a "private sexual education class" with some of their female classmates. From then on it's a fairly interesting yet predictable tale, of budding romance. It's short, it's sweet and it's highly serviceable. Everything a non-fetish h-manga should be. Yet Sweethearts is one of those h-manga where half the chapters take form as one cohesive story, with the rests forming a collective of short stories. I'm not much of a fan of this practise but I can understand why it's done (to add variety and to keep things from going stale). In the end, the collective of short stories are just a bunch of school-based romances or group romps, that you'll either enjoy or not.

Same can be said about the characters... you'll either care about them or you won't and that's mainly to deal with how the mangaka treats them. Like the first set, in the titular story, are treated with care and developed well enough, in the time span given. Yet some of the others are just slapped into some absurd situations. So you end up with a mixed bag of characters.

But when it comes to Kisaragi Gunma's work, it's really just the artwork that you'll care about. Nothing else really matters when staring at the gorgeously drawn girls and their cute expressions. It's a unique style Kisaragi Gunma is known for and a style I'd certainly praise him for; as it is something I'd immediately recognise, as his, in any random anthology I may pick up. Anyone else who shares similar sentiments for Kisaragi Gunma, is certainly the target audience for this h-manga but if you're looking for a highly engaging or fetish-riddled h-manga then I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

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