Nanoka no Kare

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I only read half of it because I saw many people commenting that the second half wasn't very good, pure drama, etc.
But as far as I read, it's a relatively good shoujo manga. The art is better than many mangas out there. The story and the characters are a bit cliché, but this manga stands apart from most shoujo because of the way it treats abusive relationships. This is basically the story of a girl trying to move on from a relationship with a guy who can save her from others but not from himself. It shows the "bad guy"'s side, but it doesn't excuse ... him. And violent behaviour is shown as problematic, and not as "sexy" as in many shoujo mangas out there.

I remember reading this manga back when it had started and I immediately got into it due to the amazing art for that time. I did keep up with it for some years only to lose interest due to unable to keep up with the happenings in it.
Yesterday I picked it up again by chance to see how it ended and so I read from the start. And well I’m still sorting my feelings out regarding this one.

A part of me wants to scream and complain how bad it was and how I wasted my time but at the same time a part of ... me enjoyed the whole toxic drama it had to offer. I mean if it were just a usual love triangle trope it would’ve been both predictable as well as boring after a point. This will definitely make you pull out your hair especially after the second half because it just literally gets in your nerves I swear to god. But at the same time I don’t want to outrightly discard this as a badly written piece because it was written pretty well for what it was trying to portray. Kudos to the mangaka for being able to portray the flavour of toxic obsessive love because I could feel the pressure from the panels…but my dislike probably overweighs the goods of this plot and hence I’ll give it a 5…

The characters weren’t likeable at all….it made me think that what do I expect since they’re 15-16 but still man their actions sometimes weren’t even their age so you can’t save that behaviour anymore….and there were some parts I absolutely didn’t understand nor see the point too. As for the ending well it was frustrating to the point that was all of this for naught….well whatever.

Honestly, I would only recommend you to read it if you like me just want to read various stories or that like such types of stories which offer a change of pace from the general plots. I don’t think I would want to read it again ever. So it’s up to you…

Honestly this is an appalling manga to me, and it being so bad came as a surprise since Ai ga Shinu no wa Kimi no Sei, another work by the same authors, was one of the most thrilling sci-fi shoujos I've read lately. I wish I could give it a 1 star rating, but there's a salvageable bit at the beginning: the sweet relationship between Hayate and Nanoka, who are both experiencing their first love, feels refreshing and innocent. At the beginning of the manga, it seems the only major problems you could come across are usual shojo issues like miscommunication and a love rival. ... The start was, so you could say, very typical and inoffensive. However, the authors quickly decided to throw every cliche in the book into the mix, probably hoping to have a serious and engaging story, which never even happened. In the end, I believe the only thing they've achieved is writing the scariest, most criminal and disturbed male characters in psychological shojo, but even that comes as a price since theyre never even realistic or addressed as such, just creepy. All characters have unfathomable flaws: the female lead feels like a concoction of the most random tropes and despite making a whole deal of her feelings, never really arrives at saying or doing anything of them at all, she's just plainly indecisive of everything, the male lead is the most unrealistic, idealized version of a middle schooler you will ever see, and we never even get to see what his personality is supposed to be like cause all he does and feels is in response to the fl being hard headed and uncommunicative, the 2nd ml is a downright psycho, an assaulter and an obsessive creep that goes back and forth between his delusions, whenever it seems he's about to see the reality that he's two steps close to deserving a restraining order, he goes back to being the worst man on earth; at some point we are trust with a random villain that's the embodiment of cliche mentally ill psycho and it's so nonsensical it would make any run of the mill shonen author pale in comparison, lastly the friends are possibly one of the worst aspects since not only are they plain, boring and one dimensional, they are also as indecisive as the protagonists, you wonder 100% of times whether they want to help their "friends" or are just there as agents to ensure the crazy behavior keeps going.
Overall it's nonsensical, indecisive and unstable writing, where clearly the authors didn't know what they were initially aiming for and so it made it easier when the time to add and add random, badly executed plot twists to extend the publication came.
All in all, you could read this if you want, but honestly, if what you're searching for is something unserious and uncomplicated to pass the time, there's better works; if what you want is a love triangle, a first love story, an amnesia plot, even a "older girl younger boy" manga, there's PLENTY other works; and if what you're looking for is a psychological work with stalkers, abuse and yandere characters, there's also way better works! In the end, there's really no good reason for anyone to read this particular work, since there's not a single point that didn't make this a waste of time.