Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san
Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie

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Slice of life is like signing a weekly comfort deal. Seven days pass, and eventually, you meet this little cast of characters and intrude in their lives for a little bit.

"Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san" is a case study in how the beginning is the greatest roadblock it can offer. You see the number over 100 chapters, and if the first ones are that short and repetitive, why would a person watch the rest? Behind the block, there lies a simple story of how people meet, conflict, romance, wonder, intrude, and eventually, part.

The story begins with a repetitive, and fresh couples dynamic that ... people were starved for when it began. Turning into a school life, relatable little tale where everybody just tries to live their lives. Worries about exams, worries about couples. The story isn't worried about the conflicts of love that much, more so in the safe, nice hardships of looking at the future. All about the wholesome existence we expect to live in high school.

The characters began turning complex, with emotions, hobbies, love for certain things that eventually stand out and lead them to search for what they eventually turn to when given the choice to move on with their lives, and it feels inevitable. Everybody in the cast knew, very well, that they weren't destined to always be there for each other. The sad feeling of the inevitable end was present throughout the second half of the story like nothing else. Not in a b-line towards the end, more in a thematic sense that this is what the story is all about. People should enjoy the stressful times of being a teenager, make friends, socialize even if it's hard at the beginning. Some characters are introduced late into the story and given depth, new perspectives and good moments to show this kind of person in a school. People will identify themselves with at least one struggle, or one idea of people. The characters are all that keeps us there to watch their eventual graduation.

In itself, the freshness of this manga is outstanding. We don't need surging romance, we've had enough of 200 chapters of people trying to get closer, and failing every time. This is about people in a healthy relationship getting by, and the friends they have or make along the way. In that sense, all that's left is, comfort. We don't get many conflicts, we don't get many lasting problems or decisions. If a character has something problematic, communication solves it. People aren't stupid in this manga, but of course, reading it for a compelling narrative, well, there isn't one.

You won't find an interesting story out of this. When it ended, I felt a little pit in my heart. It reminded me of old friends of high school, and how uneventful things can be, or if they were eventful, it was pretty easy to solve my problems. The characters are just a reflection of what we know, and that's fine.

Good, interesting art, great character designs, nice dialogue, nice everything, I just feel, good reading it, but I can't tell you what happens through it all.

6.5/10, I followed it from the beginning, what a nice manga man. And of course the anime would be bad, the worst part is the beginning.

This manga is highly disappointing. The art is really great but that's the only thing I like aside from the concept. I find Shikimori to be a very boring character and her gimmick is not as great as it sounds on paper. Izumi isn't as bad as her but I still don't care about him either. The romance is either kind of cringe or insufferably tepid. Usually I'm fine with stories where nothing happens as long as the characters are likable, but these are not. Their chemistry falls flat and it's kind of repetitive. I also don't mind repetitive stories, as long as it's a ... good repetition with a spin on it every time. The manga is okay at the "spin" part, but not at the "good" part. It's not really slow or all that meandering but I was still very bored reading it. Overall, it's very okay.

When I started reading this, I hadn't read any manga where the main characters were a couple at the beginning, so I was curious to see what would come of this. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with what I got.

The series fails where most rom-coms fail, namely on the characters. Shikimori is a one-dimensional character as it is almost perfect, except in cooking.While Izumi has only two personality traits, kind and unfortunate. In essence, two sentences were enough to summarize their character. That's pretty sad for a manga that's almost 200 chapters long.
Anyone expecting some character development from them will be greatly disappointed, because ... it is almost zero. They remain the same as at the beginning of the manga. The writer tries to put drama into the manga against this, but it really doesn't want to work. Kamiya is the only good character, but unfortunately she doesn't appear much in it. The other characters aren't even worth talking about, most of them are quite forgettable.

Plot: I won't elaborate on this, it's like other school rom-com. The usual clichés appear: sport festival, culture festival, trip etc. There would be nothing wrong with that, but there's simply nothing extra about them, which is mostly because of the characters. These events tend to build characters further, but that doesn't happen here.

I would just like to write a few sentences about the other things. I don't think this manga is funny at all. Many times the same jokes come back, even if they were never funny. For example, when Shikimori is jealous or Izumi is unlucky.
The art is nothing special, but that's not a big problem for romcoms.

Unfortunately, this manga fails in many ways, often being very boring and uninteresting and because of this, if someone wants a good romcom, I can't recommend this manga.

(If there is a spelling mistake in it, sorry, but English is not my first language, nor even my second)