Tonari no Oneesan ga Suki
I Love The Older Girl Next Door.

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Although Tonari no Oneesan ga Suki follows the slice-of-life and romance trend of younger males vying for the romantic attention of an older 'sister-type' woman, readers may quickly realise that this manga in particular does not simply use this premise for romantic escapism, for its male target audience to read and escape themselves into this social-fantasy.

Tonari no Oneesan ga Suki follows the story of Tasuku, a young 13-year-old who becomes enamoured with an older girl in high school next door. He often goes to her place to watch movies as an excuse to spend time with her. Yet the premise here is not used ... to simply further a wholesome (as 'wholesome' as a premise like this can get) romantic/erotic escapade, or for comedic light-heartedness. Instead, the manga very maturely depicts a one-sided youthful love experienced by a younger individual who, although he likes the older girl, because of his social inexperience and position, is unable to understand her personal troubles, who she truly is as a person with the masks she puts on to interact with him, and even wrestling with his emotions and experiences in this circumstance, namely, are the feelings of longing for her even love? Does he like her for who she is or is it just the mystery of her?

Shia, the older sister-type character in the story, is rendered very 3-dimensionally. She doesn't exist to soothe the protagonist, but she has her own bundles of problems, things that she certainly does not want to open up to a younger kid about. Her interactions with the protagonist are very well written, often unveiling more layers to her character, perpetuating the mystery of herself in the eyes of the younger kid and the reader.

All in all, this was a surprisingly great read. While the story will likely head in a more optimistic direction, as it seems it will be doing, redeeming the protagonist's feelings of love as authentic and so on and so on, by capturing a young love and its complications so authentically, the manga's premise is elevated beyond the typical cliches and tropes. Will be looking forward to seeing how this one ends.

I think the best way to explain the charm of this series is to contrast it with the authors other work, "the girl I like forgot her glasses", which is a fun, incredibly fluffy romcom with a slightly annoying mc- you have seen similar a thousand times.

This is absolutely none of those things, except for it also being romance. This manga is unique, its fascinating, its enthralling, it's almost fluffless (something that shoudlb e impossible for a romcom that isn't a drama), it's clever, it's refreshing, especially the mc, it's well written, it is just so fucking good.

Maybe the simplest explanation what the charm is ... that it JUST SHOULD NOT WORK. Both of the main characters start of as shells of human beings, one of them a narcisist lacking even some of the simplest kinds of empathy, the other one just baely hiding hercomplete lack of self-worth. None of these two should get anywhere near romance in their current state, and that isn't even talking about the age difference. It just shouldn't work without being trashy.

It's one of the most exhilerating and incredible feeling to experience the author making it work anyway. I think this unironically became my favourit manga romance.

Of course, maybe even simpler: Tasku is the romcom mc you wanted to ave in every single series where you at any point ot frustrated by the mc or the main character lack of communcation.