Real no Heroine wa Irimasen!

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So let's be clear upfront: The users giving this a 1 are people who (understandably) got turned off early on by the atrocious attitudes towards women that the main character has, and the fixation of the female lead on him as a result of a perceived misunderstanding of his motives in saving her. I, too, found the MC's attitudes to be downright disgusting in early chapters. In addition, the plot can be very heavy-handed, and character can appear to swing wildly between emotional states at times -- this tends to have a cheapening effect on the more intense or gritty moments that, at its worst, ... appears to make light of some very serious issues. I would not blame someone for dropping the series early on because of these faults.

However, it's obvious from the get-go that the series doesn't plan to maintain these garbage tropes for any longer than it needs to. From the beginning, an astute reader can tell that this is a story about recovering from an incel-like mindset and learning to forgive and overcome your past trauma. The unconventional motivations for the two main characters to help each other are compelling in their own way; as such, it's incorrect to say the romance in this series is predicated on a misunderstanding of the MC's motivations. His non-romantic motivations are made clear early on, but Kotoko moves forward with trying to become the MC's ideal woman anyways for reasons that aren't explicitly about pursuing a romantic relationship with him. For those who are willing to deal with some very dark/malicious situations and attitudes, this series promises catharsis and healing for its characters. I swear to you, if it was just a story about a guy who's awful to women and a girl who's so starved for positive attention that she'll fawn over him nonetheless, or if it glorified those toxic relationship dynamics to any degree, I would NOT be rating it so highly. These characters are much more multifaceted than they seem at first, so give them a chance.

And, oddly enough, therein lie my main complaints about it. I want to see these characters become better people, sure, but the series does a so-so job of actually showing that in an impactful way. Every time it approaches a nuanced point about its major themes -- e.g.: the importance of intent in wrongdoing, when/how to forgive someone who's wronged you, the complex hierarchical structure of closed social systems like high school, etc. -- it manages to step back at the last second in order to avoid its characters having relationships that can be categorized as anything except "favorable" and "antagonistic". There are many times when a character says something along the lines of, "Even if this person didn't mean to hurt me, they still did, so I can't just forgive them," but then moments later is acting all buddy-buddy, water-under-the-bridge with the person in question. I feel the series has great potential to explore aspects of trauma and healing that aren't often depicted in manga outside of settings of war, and to some degree it does that, but it has a habit of fumbling that momentum at the most important moments. Perhaps some of this is the inevitable result of faulty fan-translation, often from people for whom English isn't a first language, but that can only explain so much.

The arc where Eve is introduced is a great example of this. Much ado is built about the girl who traumatized the MC reentering his life, and much tension is built about how things are going to play out and what her motivations are. However, the truth of the matter spills out unceremoniously during a scene that can't seem to decide if it wants to be silly or serious (even though, given the context of what's actually going on, there's really no excuse for the former), and then the process of making up and moving on flies by so quickly that it almost gave me whiplash. I can very clearly see what it was TRYING to do, and in the writer's defense the characters never just up and drop/go against their core traits, but it just feels...unearned? Rushed? When the MC expresses being tired of holding a grudge, it almost feels like the author is telling us he's tired of focusing on his character's trauma, despite it being the MAIN MOTIVATOR for progression for the entire series. They keep coming back to touch on the unease of having Eve around from different characters' perspectives, which I welcome because it further explores this complicated relationship dynamic, but it ultimately feels like a band-aid over a botched surgery. If it had just been explored and developed more fully in media res, we wouldn't need to keep circling back on it.

It's just one example of many where the momentum is lost, the wrap-up is rushed, and the catharsis is delayed or cheapened. Still, it's not a story-ruining degree of dropping the ball. I think the series manages to pull of enough surprisingly moving and impactful moments to make it a net-positive experience, and most of the character development feels hard-fought and well earned. It even managed to blindside me at a few turns; the unorthodox motivations for characters can catch you off-guard, without giving the impression of simply being a tsundere-like pretense used to thinly veil a character's true feelings. They never seem like they're *lying* about their reasons for doing something -- but those reasons may change as the characters grow (as they should). I feel the need to reiterate that, on the whole, I think this is a good, ambitious series that strives to tell a wholesome tale using characters on the outskirts of social acceptance. However, at times that ambition is clearly too much for the author to deftly navigate, and that's not exactly an uncommon fault for a manga or anime to have.

Moving on. The art is very nice, if a bit reminiscent of certain other romance series (the character design reminds me a lot of My Next Life As a Villainess, for example). As the chapter-count increases, so does the number of named characters, and as a result certain character designs begin to blend together and become less distinct. Ryouma, Kiyomi, and Eve's friend Nishihara (who we briefly see in Chapter 39) all have a similar enough face/hairstyle combo that, when they aren't on the same page as one another, it can be a bit difficult to recall from appearance alone which one you're looking at. I was confused for a moment as to why Ryouma -- a kind, reserved, goody-two-shoes-type character who's on good terms with the MC -- would seemingly be siding with Eve over the MC until I realized it was a completely different character we'd never seen before, who just happened to look similar at first blush. However, the art on the whole is quite well executed, and I want to give particular praise to the way in which the artist handles Kotoko. As is clear from the synopsis blurb above, she undergoes quite the transformation in design AND in character -- and yet, when her more rebellious, stick-up-for-yourself side comes out to play, the artist manages to draw her in a way that makes her new prim-and-proper look seem to dissipate and take on an aura of someone you *really* don't want to piss off. It takes skill to pull that off, and I applaud the artist for never accidentally making Kotoko's anger feel less intimidating than it did at the outset of the story.



tl;dr: It get's much better very quickly -- it's not an incel power-fantasy story like some have made it out to be -- but it still has some growing pains and issues with tone. It reminds me to some extent of Higehiro, albeit handled less adeptly (and without the landmine of age being a factor). If you like stories about flawed people helping each other become better, found-family dynamics, and romance that's predicated on more than simple/shallow reasoning, then give this series a shot; you'll probably enjoy it.

Also, the true reason for Kotoko being called "used goods" made me chuckle, so there's that.

Ok look, there is really nothing to say about this. The ONLY thing worth noting is that you steer away if you cannot handle:

1. just a glimpse of NTR
2. Sexual Violence

This manga has no central plot and it just flows around like a bunch of side quests and cliche childish concepts. I don't want to destroy the authors ambitions because the character origins and still ok and the art is quite good.

HOWEVER, this is a bad execution of harem and it ties too closely to delinquents in the first half which is really unenjoyable. Overall, nothing really worth the time, I just wish the author ... spent their time on a more tame but cleaner piece.

A manga of somewhat high highs and very deep valleys. It lands squarely in the middle of the spectrum of what would be good. The highs are good enough to keep going but the valleys are so deep that it takes some strength to get further into the story.

Let's talk story. It's a pretty typical story of a girl falling in love with boy in high school. Boy doesn't fall back for the longest time but it's obvious where the boy's feeling will lie later in the story. Considering the manga isn't finished and I don't plan to read anymore of it, the author could ... come with a surprise and make him fall for background girl #43 but that's doubtful. The girl is a former delinquent who only changes because the Male protagonist saves her and she falls for him. It's a psychological phenomenon so it's a possible story I guess. They then try to live their school life with the main female character trying to be with the male protagonist. The problem with their lives is where the story gets its highs from. There is a big rumor conspiracy acting to take down the main female character and it's on the two and their expanding friend network to take this conspiracy down. This plot is great.

To continue talking about the deep valleys mention at the start the next section will have to cover the characters in some detail. Starting at the obvious place: the male protagonist. The male protagonist is named Aramiya Seiichi and he's an incel is the most apt description. He had a bad experience in middle school with girls and so he discounts women entirely and just stays in his bubble playing erotic video games. He saves the main female character by being at the right place at the right time and by calling the coppers and playing a fake siren. But apart from that he's an unlikable loser. The main female character's affection can make sense, but man every time Aramiya opens his mouth it grates on at least my entire being. Obsessed with virginity, referring to real women as "3D girls" and comparing to "2D girls". Now I understand he's meant to be seen as a loser but he's meant to also be likable but that doesn't work.
The female main character Ayame Kotoko is slightly better but is a bit much in a stereotype camp. The kind delinquent who uses violence to help people that then turns into the quintessential good girl. It's not that deep and her character isn't that deep. She follows the main character's hobbies and tries to style herself to be his ideal girl so she loses a lot of her own identity.
Then there is the first good character of the main group and that is Ayame's best friend Hatsushiba Yuuka. She's a conflicted person that tries to be by her best friend's side but is quite mentally weak (no elaboration as that would lead into spoiler territory). She isn't enough to lift the series and she's not great, just in comparison to the rest she's good.
The rest of the characters are difficult to describe without spoilers and won't be necessary for this review. All in all the characters get a 4/10.

Now to talk about the deep valleys. The valleys come mainly from the interactions with Aramiya. He's such an unlikable person that it makes most of the scenes with him unbearable. The love plot is annoying because the two characters are one with barely an identity and an unlikable person. The love plot both gets better and worse at the same time the longer the story goes because more stuff that doesn't feel like it would work even within fiction happens. The only reason to read is for the conspiracy because that is interesting and becomes somewhat like a detective story. It's not great but it's passable at least. Story gets a 6/10 (conspiracy story a 7 and love story a 4)

All in all this is a mediocre manga. It's not funny, the romantic plot isn't interesting but it got a redeeming factor that pushes it up to a 5/10.