Feb 16, 2023
tl;dr: A concept that isn’t particularly interesting executed pretty badly but with really good art.
The premise of this manga involves the student council vice president of a certain high school, Izumi, coming home to discover that the president, Wakana, is apparently engaged to him through an arranged marriage decided on by their parents. Izumi however, is incredibly reluctant to go through with this and though Wakana seems to be trying to wear down his defenses he is determined to persevere through. The concept isn’t particularly unique or interesting, but it’s solid enough. Unfortunately, the execution was pretty bad.
The biggest problem is that both Wakana
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and Izumi have zero personality. The hero of such stories not having much to them beyond being very straight-laced and dense is pretty standard in the genre so not too much of an issue. However, the main heroine being so lacking definitely is one. It isn’t even that she’s cliché or too full of tropes as is pretty common in the genre, but rather she’s just nothing. At first it seems like the author is going for an amazing outside but a blob at home dynamic kind of like what you see in Himouto Umaru-chan, however this isn’t really committed to, and overall her character just seems kind of random. At times it touches upon her being a childhood friend, but it does a really half assed job with it. She’s supposed to be super dere-dere, but she doesn’t really stand out there either. As a result, she has a weak personality that doesn’t leave much of an impression. There also isn’t really any sort of relationship arc between Izumi and Wakana either, rather it basically reaches some sort of equilibrium pretty early on that it doesn’t budge from until the end. As a result, despite her being the main heroine and being present a lot, it doesn’t really feel like she has a strong presence. Rather, she’s just kind of there.
There’s a decent amount of side characters, and a good amount of them have more personality than Wakana. This is built on tropes and clichés, but it still gave them some substance. Still, as you would expect, the vast majority are incredibly flat and pretty forgettable. The one exception to that is Misumi, the main love rival for Wakana. This is the type of manga where it’s clear from the beginning how things are going to end up and it never feels like there’s any chance for Wakana not to win. But despite that, Misumi’s relationship with Izumi was way more interesting than Wakana’s. She has a proper relationship arc that’s accompanied by character development. This is all pretty standard classic tsundere type stuff, where she starts out hating him but slowly comes to like and eventually comes to admit that she likes him. Still, it’s the strongest narrative component in the series so it stands out. As a result, it’s actually pretty easy to get invested in her and her relationship with Izumi. But in the end that just kind of feels sad because even in the parts centered around her it feels clear that she’s not going to win. And thus even though I fully expected it, the ending still made me feel bad.
The comedy in the manga is decent, but starts getting repetitive as it uses incredibly similar humor throughout. The one aspect of this manga that I can say is unequivocally good is the art. The art style is nice and the quality is pretty high, especially the color pages. The character designs are pretty good and varied for the type of manga it is, and it uses them very well for what it’s trying to achieve throughout.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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