Koukou Debut
High School Debut

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This is such an enjoyable manga in every way possible. The story is lighthearted, but not superficial nor dumb; it is a typical shoujo manga that should satisfy any fan of the genre, yet there's still a freshness to it that won't make you feel like you've already read this a thousand times before.

The story's premise is fairly simple. Haruna is a tomboyish girl who spent most of her junior high school involved in sports, and now that she's in high school, she wants to get a boyfriend and learn how to act and dress like a girl. The problem is, she has no idea ... how to do it. Even though she tries her best to follow magazine's advices and her own misguided intuition, it all ends in disaster.

By chance she meets Yoh Komiyama, an attractive guy who knows how to improve a girl's appearence to boost. Fortunately for Haruna, Yoh goes to her school, and after she begs a bit, he gives in and accepts to be her "coach" in the whole dressing-up/ dating deal.

I think that one of the most attractive aspects of this manga are the characters. They are all so interesting and well developed! Haruna is not the stereotypical shoujo heroine, even if by description she might sound like it. She's so naive, pure-hearted and clumsy, and yet so strong, determined and brave that you can't help but love her. Yoh seems like the typical cool, reluctantly popular hero, but he's endearingly honest, sharp and full of issues regarding relationships. The supporting characters are equally complex and charming and not just faces to help move the plot along.

The way the relationship between Haruna and Yoh develops and make them evolve and overcome their flaws is done with care and love for the characters, which is a bonus for this mangaka. She definitely knows her characters and never betrays their true nature.

As a conclusion, I can say that this story will make you laugh, get involved with it and leave you with a warm feeling when you've done reading each chapter.

A story that will make you smile sooo much.

The heroine is diffrent from the usual. She's strong, protective and yet happy natured. She just sneaks into your heart before you'll know it.

The relationship between the two slowly evolves, but its worth the wait.
I also like the fact that they are always sticking together and theres no annoying love triangle.
The more you read the more you get stuck into and you can feel the love blossoming page by page.

A must read for fans of the genre. The story doenst feel dumb nor transparent at any time, which is very refreshing.
Its just funny, cute, touching.... just ... entertaining. :)

This series started off stronger than it finished. The story is nothing special, pretty standard fare, but it's lighthearted and fun, and I'm a sucker for ugly duckling stories, so I was hooked immediately. But with a main character like Haruna, you have to write your story in such a way that the character won't become annoying or absurd to the point of unenjoyable. And while I think the author did a good job of making Haruna a fun character in the first half, turning her overactive imagination and extreme reactions into great story fodder, I don't think she did so well with this in ... the second half. Haruna's personality and behavior slowly became more and more grating as the story goes on. Not so much so that I stopped enjoying the story entirely, but enough so that I don't know how likely I am to ever pick this series up for a re-read.

And that's really all I have to say about this series. It's not a stand-out story, the art is decent but nothing special (even occasionally subpar), and Haruna starts out really fun but sort-of devolves in the second half. It's nothing to write home about. Still, it is generally enjoyable fluff, so if you like lighthearted ugly duckling stories and don't mind somewhat cliché/standard storylines and a female lead who can be occasionally grating to your brain, this isn't a bad series to waste some time on.