Tonari no Kashiwagi-san

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I couldn't wait to finish this whole series just so I can rant on the single thing that dragged this series down from a 9 to a 7.

First, the story is simple enough. Pure luck favors the MC when an accident happens that lets him make a connection to the talented, beautiful, and kind FMC. From there, they slowly build their relationship from friends to something more. There are also two side couple stories which really aren't that interesting.

I found all the characters here satisfying, or at the very least, tolerable. Except one. The fucking MC. Yuuto has got to be one of the most ... annoying characters I have EVER read about, and I've read a lot. He is absolutely pathetic and unlikeable. Why? He is the epitome of insecurity. You would think 60 chapters or so where he is constantly affirmed by friends around him as well as the very girl he likes would improve his view of himself little by little. There is no antagonist here whatsoever. Not one single person or even circumstance puts him down as a person. But nope. Until the very end, his droning monologues about how pathetic and insecure he is makes me want to puke. His neverending apologies to his imagined mistakes is severely annoying. His chibi panic mode stopped being funny before the 20th chapter, but you'll be getting that constantly on every single fucking chapter. This is a character that essentially remains unchanged for about 3/4ths of the whole series. The only times he steps up is when the mangaka arbitrarily gives him bursts of confidence when he confesses which is so inconsistent with the attitude the mangaka gave him almost all throughout the series. What are his redeemable qualities? He's a nice guy. That's pretty much it, and he's not even that good at it. He is even unintentionally rude to the FMC and other characters several times. He doesn't excel at anything. In fact, he is pretty much bad at almost EVERYTHING, be it people, communication, studies, handling stress, confidence, amusement rides, decisiveness. Oh, and all his pitifulness carries over to the sequel, so TWO YEARS AFTER THE ENDING, he is still the same laughably pathetic guy that even a friend outright calls him out on it. You think he's gonna change after that? LOL nope.

If it wasn't for the main character, this would have been so much better to me. After finishing this, the mere memory of Yuuto just puts a bad taste in mouth. If you can stomach this pathetic excuse for a character, then kudos to you.

Currently only read up to 23 chapters but I'll consider reading more in the future and post about it here..

Story is pretty un-original with the whole secret otaku meets a otaku and blah blah blah fall in love. The art isn't amazing nor is it bad it's pretty much common for manga and it's really nothing special. Characters are the thing I most hate about it. The main male is an absolute idiot and is one of the "weakest/beta" characters I've ever seen,. y'know when it comes to a confession and the girl says "I've never really thought of it that way, I don't even ... see him as a man let alone someone I like like that.." you'd get pretty hurt by that right? But noooo.. He just strolls on up and declares a bunch of non-sense and it's kinda stupid to see him make a fool of himself and it just looks completely unrealistic..

I might update this in the future, probs not..

This manga is a waste of time. The art is very well done, but that is the only thing it has going for it. Instead of breaking the review down into several full, developed paragraphs, I'm just going to give each section a couple of sentences, because there really is nothing to review in this.

The story is non-existent. It advances a little bit in the first few chapters, then the main characters make absolutely no progress the final 67 or so chapters. Two of the side character's story progress, but I'm not going to give it credit when the main story arc does nothing ... over the majority of the 70 chapters. I shouldn't have to read garbage after garbage chapter to see a couple of pages of side story advancement. The ending of chapter 70 feels incredibly unsatisfying, and nothing ever really happened.

The art is great: the attention to detail, the facial expressions, just everything. If you want to see expertly drawn characters, just flip through the manga and ignore everything.

The main characters are terrible. The male MC is whiny, and borderline creepy. In real life he wouldn't be friendless because he's an otaku, it would be because he's an idiot who makes people feel uncomfortable. He talks about becoming a better person several times, but up until the most recent (and final?) chapter he is still literally the same whiny creep, with no development. The female lead is also stale. She develops a lot in a few chapters, then never again. While the male MC is creeping on her hardcore, she never really learns what it means to be in love, and she never learns to accept herself for what she is. The entire time she is afraid of being disliked for being an otaku, and losing her friends (though I'd like to reference another reviewer here who cleverly points out she's never shown having more friends than the male MC and her best friend). By the end, I was thinking as creepy as the male MC is, he deserves better than someone who would rather be cold to him in public than revel her otaku status. The side characters actually aren't that bad, especially the side female. The really show development, and are likable, but likewise with the story they don't redeem the manga as you have to read through page after page of garbage to get to anything with them.

The enjoyment is there a couple of times, but because the manga repeats the same few things over and over, anything enjoyable or funny gets old fast. Also, there's several scenes where the male MC is being so weird or creepy, you kinda feel awkward in real life. It's hard to enjoy something when you feel like the guy talking should just shut up, leave everyone alone, or grow up.

Overall, the manga isn't worth reading. It's 70 chapters of mostly nothing with terrible characters. No amount of good art can redeem that.