Ranked #1240

Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu (Manga)

Why am I still reading this past chapter 11 when it becomes painfully obvious that the mangaka can't decide whether to make the hero a quintinssential martyr or a slick bad boy with an inner goodness that shines through only when the heroine is in distress. Groan, I don't know why!

This story starts out ordinarily enough when a straight laced but feminine and talented girl ends up attending her back up choice of high school but still isn't the top student there. That rank goes to a heartthrobby fellow Kyouta who alternated between teasing (read humiliating) Hibino and assisting her when the situation escalates out of control. At first, it's very much a copy of Bokutachi wa shitte shimatta only meaner coz this girl has a callously selfish younger sister and suffers from extremely low self esteem. Eventually she makes friends, but of course end up fallng in love with the molester who apparently makes booty calls for senpais in their classrooms!

But WAIT! Suddenly, it's not enough for the mangaka to just have a normal romance with cutely drawn albeit cliche conflicts, so we're bruptly thrust into this situation where the fiend Kyouta develops a painful past which disallows him to trust Hibino and other women. So while he wants to... well... "make her his woman", he doesn't want a confession, even though he says he'll do "things which she's dreaming of" if she asks him to, because that means she will betray him! Haha, it gets even more comical along the way! I'm guessing more trials and tribulations ensue, but really, you have to be plenty patient with the sluggish plot and the pathetic dialogue to get there.

Plus points... The art is very dreamily gorgeous, for both male and female characters. The story really manages to mortify the reader at times and I wanted to run away from the computer screen sometimes when Hibino was teased or exposed! The few intimate scenes are steamy without being tasteless and many novel mini suplots are portrayed realistically, especially fashion. Also we don't just have a single track minded heroine here, Hibino is very focused on grades but she loves making hairstyles and fashionable clothes and wants to find love as well.

I recommend reading this one when the scanlation group changes hands, coz the one available right now hosts a rather awkward translation and bad quality scans. read more

Note: Cussing ahead so if you don't like that, don't read.
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= Story =
- So... Hibino Tsubaki's and Tsubaki Kyouta's love starts when Hibino cuts Kyouta's hair b/c it's too long and she wanted to get back at him for being rude.
That is a great reason for chopping someone's hair off. Congrats Hibino! You have no common sense and now a bunch of Kyouta fan girls are gonna want to chop off your head and pit it on a stake! :) But seriously, that's how love starts. She fixes his hair by making it shorter, he kisses her and say he'll make her his. Great.
The rest of the manga is basically the results of Tsubaki and Tsubaki hooking up. No spoilers there. It's WAY too obvious. Plus it's a Shoujo manga and whenever a guy says "I'll make you my woman," you know they're gonna eventually hook up.
So yeah... the plot is basically every little drama that goes on b/n Tsubaki and Kyouta's fan girls b/c Tsubaki isn't fit for him and those fan girls are just sluts who want to get in his pants.
Oh, plus there's a lot of jealously and shit b/c Tsubaki is one jealous bitch. She cries a lot and has all this emotional conflict in her head which makes me question her mental state [and that line sounds like a broken record now]. So yeah... I absolutely despise this bullshit of a plot. -

= Art =
- For those who have read my previous reviews, you must be thinking, "Why didn't she give it a 9 or 10? It's not old schooled." For starters, I HATE anime/manga characters with huge ass eyes. REALLY?! I understand that it's the mangaka's style and all and I shouldn't be dissing it off, but seriously. Huge ass eyes ARE NOT CUTE. Ex:) Shugo Chara. NOT CUTE AT ALL.
BUT since I draw better. It's an 8. -

= Character =
- Hibino Tsubaki is USELESS and DEAD WEIGHT. Seriously, all she does is cry and through tantrums and WANT SEX. WTF?! She's a useless slut apparently. A jealous, useless slut.
Kyouta... well... I can't HATE him, but I can't really like him either. But really, he's still cool. We're all cool. :) Hibino just needs to get out of Kyouta's life. She's a selfish, manga bitch. I wouldn't care if she got run over by a car and died. WAIT. No...
I wouldn't give a shit about her even if she stepped on a lego piece! That's how much I hate her. Really. She's a horrible representation of females. -

= Enjoyment/Overall =
- I obviously hated this manga. I have nothing else to say. It's horrible. - read more

I stumbled upon this one day and started reading it, I don't usually read love mangas but after reading the first chapter I realized that the main character, Tsubaki, reminded me of my girlfriend from junior high. I am no Kouto (the other main, the boy who sweeps her off her feet), but I felt a personal connection to the story as many of you might. A lonely girl who doesn't fit in, but catches the eye of the most handsome guy in school and changes to be with him. I have only read up to chapter 23 because that's all I can find translated. I must say that the story seems to be evolving into a good plot though from what I have read. I think this will be a good manga once completed, but all the scans and translated versions I have seen for this manga is sub-par. I still thank the person doing it cause I know I cant, but I would wait for the manga to get father along and maybe a pro translator to pick up this series before I would jump into it. I am still reading it weekly though. Also I am trying not to spoil but pay close attention to Tsubaki's sister in the beginning, I didn't pay much attention to her but she is turning out to be a big part of the plot so I went and reread some of her parts to get a feel for her. I didn't pay attention the first time cause I was so wrapped up with Tsubaki and Kouto. Also I probably misspelled the names, only because I have seen it translated different ways in each chapter lol. read more

This is my first review, for the sole purpose that this manga is HORRIBLE. I can't stand it. After every chapter I keep thinking that maybe something in going to change or some new BETTER drama is going to unfold, but no. Disappointment after disappointment. The beginning isn't actually too bad. Tsubaki is happy-go-lucky at first and cute, and of course then there's the dreadful bullying. You would think that she would have enough character to stand on her own two feet. Wrong. Instead she takes it all like a doormat, and when the playboy/jerkiest guy of all time does ONE nice thing for her, she's head over heels. She keeps talking about how he's "helped her all this time" or "saved her" but in reality, he just puts her down, uses her, and even molests her just for a stupid game. she refuses to accept the fact that he's a mega tool. So while the art may be decent typical shoujo art, the story and character development are seriously lacking. For the love of nerdy girls everywhere: don't read Kyou Koi wo Hajimemasu. read more

Reading shoujo manga, at one point of time, was almost a hobby of mine, something that I enjoyed tremendously. I could read almost anything and everything that the genre had to offer, irrespective of how good, bad (or downright horrible) that piece of work was. The obsession was relatively short lived though, thanks to the gradual loss of interest in the genre. Through the course of pursuing this guilty pleasure activity, I came across works that could be passed off as decent and those which made me feel like I might punch my computer screen in disgust if I read any further.

Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu without a doubt falls rightfully in the latter category for me. Yeah, you get the drift; get ready for the rant.

If I have to sum up this manga in one word, then it is ‘atrocious’. It is your clichéd, run of the mill shoujo story without any substance or sensible development; rather it only keeps getting worse with every chapter. Actually, there’re better stories out there with more or less the same setting and plot but this one is so bad that even calling it ‘mediocre’ is unimaginable, in my case at least. Throw in a bunch of shallow, stereotypical characters of the worst sort and you have the recipe for a horrendous piece that is Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu.

Speaking of the characters, Tsubaki Hibino, frankly speaking, is one of the most infuriating shoujo manga heroines I have come across. She was somewhat likable in the beginning when she actually had a backbone and didn’t let her guards down before the male lead but that façade of her wears off in the blink of an eye when one morning she wakes up and the realization dawns upon her that she is in fact madly in love with Tsubaki Kyouta, the male protagonist of the story and an equally annoying character who appears to suffer from something called the jerk syndrome. He is your clichéd, school’s heartthrob with a nasty personality and yet girls dig him because he is just so hawt! The other characters, if there are any that is, are more or less bystanders. Oh wait. Did I mention Hibino’s sister? She pulled off her role of the ‘bitchy rival’ in this incredible love story pretty well. I will give her that.

The artwork is the only aspect of this manga I can rate a bit high in comparison to everything else it has to offer. There is the typical shoujo feel to it but it is well done nonetheless.

For some reason, this manga is actually admired by many people which comes as a surprise to me. Well, whatever said and done, I am no one to question their taste. But now that I contemplate, I wonder why I even went through the trouble of reading those 13 chapters. Was I that bored and jobless? Possible. That or I, somewhere deep inside me, was wishing for something good to happen in the story, only to be utterly disappointed as it did not even come close to anything that would make me feel optimistic about it. The bottom line is, Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu is by no means worth recommending to anyone who is looking for a decent piece to read. You might pick it up if you wish to pass your time but if you ask me, I would suggest you to look for something else.

-Dissection of the score-
Story: 3 | Art: 6 | Character: 2 | Enjoyment: 2| Overall: 3

[This review is an edited and improvised version of the original review posted on October 16, 2011]
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Although I've read a lot of reviews somehow I've never written one myself. I just had to make an exception while reading this manga. This story irritates me so much but for some reason I am unable to stop reading it. It's addicting even though I just want to pull my hair out because of the main character.

This starts nicely with the main character having a brain and some attitude, but somehow slowly(or not even that slowly) she ends up being this ditzy girl who can think of nothing else except for the boy she likes. I want to stop reading after every chapter but at the same time I want to continue reading and find out what happens next . I guess I'm a masochist. I like shoujo but I also like characters who have a little more personality than that of a rubber duck.

Overall, this is not a bad story( plus, the art is very enjoyable) and obviously I like it to some extent as I continue reading it. I'm a sucker for these ugly-girl-gets-her-dream-guy- storylines even though I have to vent out once in a while :)

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I do not understand why this terrible series is so damn popular (though I say the same thing about Twilight too) and just when you think THAT story couldn't be made to be more misogynistic than it is, Kyou, Koi Wo Hajimemasu will unpleasantly surprise you. This is bad as Mayu-f*cking-Shinjo's works. In fact, I will be amazed if the author of this garbage didn't EXCHANGE WRITING NOTES with Shinjo, let alone know her They'd probably be best friends! Yes, I imagine it would go something like this:

Minami Kanan: Hello! I love your work! Your men are so hot. God, asshole rapists sure do turn me on!

Mayu Shinjo: Oh yes!! They are the best! RAPE IS LOVE! I love your work as well! Horrible men are beautiful! They are so perfect too...like GODS! They should be the only sex in this world....that's what I've always believed.

Kanan: LOL! I know....women are so STUPID! All they do is cry! They belong in the kitchen for all eternity!!

Shinjo: Like TOTALLY!! I wish I'd been born a man. :(

Yeeeeeah.

Art: The artwork is nothing spectacular. It's much like the mediocre style of shoujo series that remain that: mediocre. But to call this series as a whole "mediocre" is far too much of a compliment.

Character: This is the part that will probably make you bash your head against the wall...if you were holding high expectations. Because shoujo manga in general really does characters right when it tries.

But this manga doesn't try. Not at all. Neither main character is likable. The heroine is a doormat who puts 1+1 together and ends up with "purple". The "love interest" is an abusive jerk who makes the childish "bad boys" of the more family-appropriate shoujo series look like saints, BEFORE their character development. He's perverted, he's a bully, he's mean. I don't mean as in name-calling or playing impish pranks or tsundere-pretending that he doesn't care (when he clearly does)
I mean "MEAN" as in "why hasn't this girl called one of those hotlines that help with domestic abuse yet?"

Now, as you can see, I did not finish this manga. I don't want to....because the ending to chapter 6 disgusted me so much that I don't think anything could possibly save it. NO girl with a brain or an ounce of self-respect would come to the same conclusion the heroine did. Unless she was a complete masochist, perhaps. It's so infuriating that I'd probably throw this book into a wall and then burn it.....had I been reading a physical copy...and thank God I didn't decide to buy this on a whim because I'd be demanding my money back in order to do something more productive with it, like using it to clean up my dog's poop. :(
.......actually that's a brilliant use for this manga for everyone who was unfortunate enough to spend money on it. :'D read more

The beginning blew me away. I was hooked on, and I loved the main character... Then I got to the later chapters. I don't know exactly what happened, but she became the typical shojou girl that is hopeless and against all feminist beliefs. Other than that I sort of like the story.

This being her first relationship (although forced), Tsubaki struggles with her growing feelings as well as the problems that comes with being the girlfriend of a guy who has sex partners rather than girlfriends. Kyouta being the popular bad boy has some mummy issues but works hard to make his relationship with Tsubaki work. To him, she is truly one of a kind.

I feel that the author expressed the feelings of every plain-looking, awkward girl who gets a boyfriend for the first time; the doki-doki moments, the uncertainty, the lack of confidence in her looks and herself. The transformation of Kyouta from bad boy to boyfriend was a pleasure to witness because you can tell his feelings are genuine. He makes sincere efforts to make her comfortable about being in a relationship with him. As the manga progresses, we see Tsubaki begin to take initiative towards making their relationship better.

I have read quite a few high-school mangas but not many have made me this excited. The circumstance is pretty typical of a high school shoujo manga but there was an element of truth and risqué that made it more interesting. It wasn’t just innocent kisses; they both found themselves in situations that made them do ‘things’ any normal couple would do in similar situations.
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Another Minami Kanan manga? Is it one of those mangas where the guy continuously sexually abuses the girl, first the girl resists and than then the girl's heart goes DOKI-DOKI for the guy and than they "do it?"
No, this manga is a lot better than just that.
The main character, Tsubaki Hibino is actually an interesting character. She's a really hard-worker, she's smart, and a "good girl." She doesn't fit in class and is teased for her old-fashion clothes. I like her.
But the guy, Tsubaki Kyouta is sort of a typical shoujo guy. He goes around, sexually teasing all these girls just for fun. But he's a weird character. At some points, he acts like a complete jerk and at other times, he's so sweet and caring.
Hibino and Kyouta's relationship is like a really roller coaster though.It goes up and down so much that it begins to get annoying. The story is decent but there are parts where it's cute and nice. ^_^
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