Aharen-san wa Hakarenai

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SPOILERS AHEAD


When I first dove into reading Aharen-san I had thought it was going to be the mediocre romcom show that revolved around the main girl/guy having some wild and quirky trait with little to no substance in and of itself.

And to be fair, that's what it felt like for the first few chapters, but the first big difference I noticed was that the main male mc wasn't an "ultra-reliable super nice guy" you see in a lot of these types of manga. Instead, he is a dimwitted yet incredibly knowledgeable mc. He often jumps to conclusions yet these conclusions are often incredibly in-depth ... and complicated which creates an interesting parallel to the foolishness he portrays by jumping to these conclusions.

Once there are more characters introduced we can see more of this manga's originality in the genre, the cast of characters is incredibly diverse all with gimmicks that seem incredibly unique. For example, the character that I enjoy the most would be the literature teacher who is slightly sickly and gets overloaded by "extreme displays of poignancy".

There is quite a noticeable amount of character development along with the characters themselves developing the manga and making it greater than it already was, what I mean by this is for the first 20-30 chapters the chapters only focus on our 2 mc's, but as more characters are introduced we have chapters focusing on them and recurring locations and scenarios such as the elementary schoolers at the park asking Reina and Reina's little sister to teach them things.

The big moment really made this manga for me was the time around when the 2 mc's feelings for each other started being revealed. The reason for my immense enjoyment of this part in particular, is because of how the reader is not privy to the information surrounding their relationship around this time, and how the mystery shrouding this slowly dissipates and it is revealed as to what really happened. It was a unique case of 2 main characters' romantic relationship developing immensely behind the scenes that I have never seen before, which was incredibly interesting because that's the kind of stuff that the reader is usually first to know about before the characters themselves, but not this time.

In conclusion, I had low expectations for this manga starting out, which is probably part of the reason it just totally knocked it out of the park for me. This manga is incredibly funny and I would say is definitely a must-read. And I cannot wait to read more chapters as they are released.

Do you like funny characters that don't express emotions readily? If your answer was yes, you are doing yourself a disservice by not reading this manga.

The plot is as simple as it comes. Raidou, your seemingly-average male highschooler, one day begins talking to Aharen, the very small girl who sits next to him in class. He quickly finds that she is horrible at judging interpersonal distance, both physically and mentally, but continues to interact with her on a daily basis.

If you ask me, the main draw of this manga is the absolute stoic nature of both the main characters. Both are severe kuuderes, especially this ... far into the manga, and every interaction between them leaves me happy. This manga has some of the funniest chapters I've ever read, just because the two are so ridiculous without outwardly showing any emotions. The further this manga goes, the more Raidou builds Aharen up into this magnanimous being, capable of toppling the very pillars of society on a whim, whereas Aharen is usually just catching onto a new fad and isn't great at conveying her intentions well. In the end, the two form an incredibly wholesome and hilarious pair that make this manga entertaining as hell. If you've ever read/watched Tanaka-kun is Always Listless, Aharen-san has the same basic feel to it.

I'd also like to note, there should definitely be a Romance tag on this MAL page alongside the rest. Wink wink nudge nudge.

Seeing as this is an ongoing manga (there are only 13 chapters available at the time of this review), I will only be covering it up to that point.

"Aharen-san wa Hakarenai", or "Aharen Is Indecipherable", is a short length comedy about a girl who can't seem to be understood. I know this doesn't sound very interesting on its own, but so far it's really funny and charming. It reminds me a lot of "Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge", or "Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless" in the sense that the characters act in a similar way. Instead of revolving around Tanaka being lazy and Ohta reacting to it, ... we have Raidou, who's trying to get closer to Aharen-san.

Each chapter is about Raidou and Aharen being in different situations, ranging from being in class to going to the game centre. It follows a pretty straight-forward pattern, starting out with either them being in class, or them hanging out, and ending in either them becoming closer or with a funny joke.

If you want a pretty funny and charming manga, definitely give this a try.