GE: Good Ending

Good Ending is a shounen with romance as the main thing, and a bit of tennis. It's difficult to compare it with another shounen romances, because is pretty unique.
It has a wonderful art, and a good pace.

Utsumi, the main character, although has problems with love, wants to change, and little by little he does so. He is not perverted (only a bit in his imagination), is kind, and doesnt give up easily.
There are two main girls: Yuki, a serious, calm and intelligent, she helps Utsumi to confess, and Shou, cheerful and hiperactive she is the captain of the tennis club, and the crush of Utsumi.

This isn't a harem, the girls don't start liking Utsumi because he did something good to them, and this is a point in favor of this series.
There is a bit of ecchi (specially in the covers of the chapters), but generally is related to the plot, it isn't a free ecchi.

The only drawback of this manga its the plot. It's not really a big issue, but more than Utsumi confenssing to Shou, and the reasons of the help of Yuki, the isn't another plot. But the manga it's starting, with the pace it has, something should happen.

As I said comparing this manga with the another shounen romance ongoings is difficult, but I'll try to highlight some points:

Ane Doki: Ane Doki has much more ecchi and in my opinion innecesary.
Kimi no Iru Machi: I like KNIM, but i think, Utsumi is a better main character than Haruto. He has problems, but he fights to be a better person, and when bad things happen, he take all seriously.

I give this series a 9 because the story can be even better... read more

The first romance anime I ever watched was "Kimi ga Nozomu Eien" (Rumbling Hearts); and since then no other romance has just quite satisfied me. Whether the characters were too shallow, the plot was too cliche, or any other wide variety of faults, I was always disappointed- until now.

For me, being able to relate to the characters is one of the most important parts of a manga/anime. If I can't relate, I won't even try to finish the manga/anime. Some where down the road, someone decided that making the main character a helpless, worthless sack of shit was a good idea, and for some reason almost all the other authors jumped on the bandwagon. GE: Good Ending starts off with a male character that fits into the former category, but fortunately he turns into a normal human being who can actually wipe his own ass.

What pisses me off the most is when the supporting characters seem to fall on their knees and grovel for this aforementioned worthless character. Thankfully all the romance in this was at least somewhat believable. We got some good character development, peering into their pasts, which showed us why each character did what they did, which leads me to the next point.

For me, unless the manga is super short, romance without drama is very boring. The problem with drama in romance is the fact that usually the author will blow everything out of scale. The author wants to keep the drama relatable, so he/she makes the drama a small problem- something like a bad breakup. However to keep the story moving, that one breakup ruins several peoples lives, making the story seem almost silly. GE has quite a bit of drama, at some points their was maybe even too much drama for my taste, but all the effects of the drama were believable. One character has a sex tape spread throughout the school without her consent, and after that she has a hard time wanting to love; which I feel is very believable.

As far as art goes, I felt it fit the story line perfectly. It wasn't too dark, but it wasn't too.... fluffy(?) either. I don't think anyone will have any complaints with the art. I found myself enjoying the story line almost every second I was reading. In fact, I read this manga for 6 or so hours straight, and finished it one sitting. The story was just long enough to give us a really deep emotional attachment to all the characters, but it wasn't to long as to let the drama get redundant.

The only reason I gave GE: Good Ending a 9, and not a 10, is because the main character started out as the kind of character I truly despise the most; a worthless sack of shit. If you get turned off by this fact, however, do not fear. After about 10 or 15 chapters his act turns around and he turns into one of the best romance protagonists I've seen. GE: Good Ending isn't quite on the level of Rumbling Hearts (in my opinion), but it sure comes close. If you want some romance with a bit of drama; you won't be disappointed.
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Good Ending is a very unique shounen romance and it isn't for everyone. I would recommend this to shounen romance veterans, but tell newbies to read some of the "classics" before this one in order to get the most out of it. This may also be a good read for someone who doesn't like how typical shounen romances solve conflicts.

GE is a combination cliche shounen and realistic story. The characters and conflicts are pretty commonly seen in other manga, but the resolutions are actually realistic. Accidents and misunderstandings occur but the characters actually question those events instead of running away. They seek help from their friends, they fight for what they want, they apologize when they are wrong. This is both the manga's strongest quality and it's weakest. This is because the author actually likes to resolve conflicts so there end up being A LOT of them.

Basically, rather than one misunderstanding or fight that leads to a breakup which has you question "will the couple make it?" like in other manga, GE instead has the couple go through multiple ups and downs together enduring lots of events that could break them up only to resolve it rationally and move on. This can make GE feel really drama heavy as you are following a couple as they work out their issues together and with the help of their friends. There is also a lot of foreshadowing in the manga which can make some people restless.

I personally like how the conflicts are resolved, but others may not like the constant cliffhangers.

The art is very well done, and the mangaka is excellent depicting emotions through the art. Much of what the characters are feeling is shown through their faces and body language.

The characters all come across as very human and are multidimensional. The MC starts out weak, but he grows steadily. Unlike other shounen romance protagonists he is capable of doing the right thing and making aggressive moves. The main girl does have a bit of a dark past, so if troubled heroines aren't your thing you may want to avoid this.

In the end GE is mostly drama, but it does have a fair amount of comedy and plenty of quality ecchi. The tennis/sports aspect is pretty limited so don't read this looking for a sports manga. read more

One of the biggest weaknesses of japanese romances set in high school is that most of them don't feel like a high school. The (supposed) teenagers simply don't act like... well, teenagers. They act more like five years old who think that kissing results in babies. This annoyed me greatly, but, thankfully, not every japanese romance is like that. This is proven by Ge: Good Ending.

Beginning serialization is 2009 and ending in 2013, Ge: Good Ending was created, written and drawn by Kei Sasuga.

Its story doesn't seem very original, but if you get through the unassuming beginning, it gets better. Insanely better. It takes advantage of the clichés and subverts them. This makes the whole ride a lot more entertaining to the eye that already saw everything else.

Said that, the events that led up to the finale were just plain cliché and a tad bit melodramatic. But this is just one small hiccup in a road of greatness.

Each of the main and side characters pass through their own hardships and, at first, they seem to be the traditional ones, but the way they are dealt with is different and unique. Differently from most of other romance manga, the characters actually act on their wishes and aren't just indecisive kids.

Also, they aren't as innocent as high school manga normally portrays teenagers. They actually act like teenagers instead of crybabies that can't understand how relationships actually work. This brings a problem: they can be jackasses. But that is good, people can also be kind of di**s.

One thing that was extremely refreshing was that the protagonist Utsumi wasn dense. He noticed what was happening around him and, most of the times, acted on it. Also, he was actually affected by it and became marked by his situation, in a way that reminded me a lot of Haruki Kitahara from White Album 2.

The art is, as a whole, quite beautiful, but the character design took some time to get used to. The characters were much more... robust than in most of other manga, but this wasn't bad, just different.

Ge was a wild ride that hit every right not for me. It scratched an itch for unusual romance and realistic teenagers that built inside me for a long time. It knew how to use its strengths to make everything more enjoyable.

More experienced viewers/readers of romance will find a lot to like here, even if just by its refreshingness. But, and this is a big one, it needs a more experienced viewer to be fully enjoyed, as it plays with the clichés of the genre. read more