Renai Daikou
Love Agency

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Love Agency had a difficult road to walk, as the followup to the legendary romcom Kaguya, from the esteemed author Aka Akasaka. It made a rough first impression, with a convoluted premise and jokes that didn’t quite land. At the time, I kept up with it for a few chapters before dropping it, disappointed that one of my favorite mangaka seemed to be phoning it in.

I was wrong. Once it finished, and I got around to binging it, I found myself unable to stop reading it. Love Agency is a hilarious and heartfelt romantic comedy, and while it’s not at the heights of its predecessor, ... it’s a worthwhile series in its own right.

Comparisons to Kaguya will be constant throughout this review, and it’s not just because Love Agency stands within Kaguya’s shadow, the context permeating how 99% of people will approach Love Agency. Love Agency’s approach to love, and romcom writing, is thematically in response to Kaguya. Kaguya was a cerebral series, full of chapters built around some psychological principle or otherwise analytical way of looking at relationships. Love Agency does the same thing, but through the premise of love coaching — and it’s through the framing of it as coaching that Aka says something about analytical looks at love.

Our two protagonists, Mari and Seki, like each other, but are held back from confessing by their personal flaws or hangups. Rather than overthink and manipulate, they each hire the services from the titular Love Agency, getting an assistant that will coach them through an earpiece on how to get the other to fall in love with them, all the way down to exactly what to say in conversation. Mari’s assistant is Kon, a beautiful girl who seems to be experienced in love, yet lives as a shut-in. Seki’s assistant is Pon, a large and seemingly-confident man whose understanding of relationships comes more from books and study. Kon and Pon (which are their nicknames) are not just coworkers but rivals, yet they don’t know the other is coaching the same relationship.

The structure of the first several chapters is that Mari and Seki interact, but both are being fed lines by Kon and Pon, constructing false personas meant to appeal perfectly to the other. The problem with this structure is that it’s unwieldy; it’s asking you to follow four internal threads that don’t quite fit in a single conversation, much less in a manga chapter. Because of this, the characters also don’t get enough time (at first) to stand out, which has the domino effect of making it feel like the manga cares more about its gimmicky premise than it does the characters. Rest assured, this is not the case.

But compare that to Kaguya: It asked you to follow two internal threads, not four, during each conversation. The third major character explicitly was not written with an internal thread, and started out as a device to cause drama in the main two before being fleshed out further. The fourth main character wasn’t introduced until a while later. The premise was much easier to latch onto.

But the thing that’s easy to forget is that Kaguya’s first several chapters aren’t very good. Like, let’s be real. I have a lot of nostalgia for them, but it took Aka a bit to cook. At the time, I assumed this was because Aka was still growing as a writer. But with Love Agency as a second data point in how he writes romcoms, I think the answer is something else: It takes some time to experiment with characters before you figure out what dynamics have the most potential. Both Kaguya and Love Agency start by playing their premises straight, but grow into something more character driven.

In Kaguya’s case, it still stuck with the concept of manipulation games, to try and force the other to confess, for a long time. It was a better structure, don’t get me wrong, and one that an author could get a lot out of. In Love Agency’s case, it quickly moves on from chapters where both Kon and Pon are coaching Mari and Seki in the same conversation and we have to follow that, because it turned out that simply didn’t work very well.

That does not, however, mean that Love Agency wastes or abandons its premise to write more generic slice of life interactions, like some other romcoms I can think of. Because not only do Mari and Seki not know the other is being coached, but Kon and Pon don’t know their rival is coaching the other member of that duo. So what happens when Seki and Kon start talking? What happens when Mari and Pon develop a relationships? Do Kon and Pon have feelings for people, and how does that play into things? Does who each character likes change? The web grows wider and wider, involving side characters as well.

It starts playing with chapters where one character talks about their crush, and another character makes the wrong assumption about who that crush is on (perhaps they even assume it’s on themself). Written by Aka, chapters like that can be gut-wrenchingly hilarious, and were what made me admit I was really enjoying this manga. It builds to emotionally satisfying reveals, where a secret coming out also allows one character’s view about love to influence another.

One of the best parts of Kaguya, and Aka’s character writing, is the detailed relationships. Take any pair of main characters in Kaguya: They have a unique dynamic when alone together that doesn’t come out in a larger group. What they can be open about, and what they can’t, depends upon that specific relationship.

In Kaguya, this was used to bring the characters to life and write fun chapters. But Love Agency feels like it took that same quality of relationship writing, and made it core to the story. The stakes depend upon each unique dynamic between the main cast, and whether other characters learn that those dynamics exist. It’s the main thing you read the series for, and the premise allows for it perfectly — of course Kon and Pon can’t let the paramours of their clients know they’re involved. Of course Mari and Seki struggle with what sides of themselves they can show to others, when they’ve constructed such false personas.

The art sells these situations, for the most part. Personally, I’m sad that Aka has given up on drawing manga, and only writes it. Because perhaps his most underrated skill was his fantastic comedic paneling. Aka perfectly understands how to use panel-to-panel pacing, through panel size and shape and count, to deliver jokes. Jokes are all about delivery, after all. 5mm Nishizawa is not quite up to that task, at least at first. There are points where something is meant to be communicated, but the paneling fails to put the focus on the information the reader needs to be conscious of, and thus it becomes confusing.

But either I got used to their style, or they improved at executing it, because these situations stopped bothering me as it went on. There are punchline panels that felt like they could have been done by Aka, which I consider the highest of praise for a comedy.

Stylistically, Aka relies heavily on narration as usual. I am firmly of the belief that Aka knows how to narrate without it being telling-instead-of-showing — but the line is definitely a bit fuzzy, and sometimes it’s not done as well as it could be. At its best, it helps him create the tone of over-the-top reality that he goes for, but there are a few moments where it does feel like a crutch to get some characterization across. Yet quick and straightforward characterization does, ultimately, fit its identity as a comedy series, that wants to make sure character traits are clear to everyone such that the comedy that plays with them will land.

The main appeal to the characters is the relationships and the absurd situations. The characters are more interesting than the first few chapters give them credit for — Seki’s funniest bits come in later, and Kon and Pon are actual fleshed-out characters. But in general, they aren’t going to stick with you emotionally for years. They’re just extremely good vehicles for absurd situations that make for funny chapters.

If the series was longer, it might have been able to do more with them. I don’t think it needed to be a 200+ chapter behemoth like Kaguya, but it did need another volume or two. Some characters are explored enough. One character gets a backstory that could have dug deeper, yet the manga ends before it had the time to explore it, and is forced to skip past it. Another character never gets a backstory, or deeper look, at all, and it feels like wasted potential. There are also a number of side characters who feel like they could have been straight out of Kaguya, and I really wanted to see more with. Yet we don’t even get a note of what happened to them as an epilogue.

Despite the rushed ending, this is a series I enjoyed almost all of my time with. It didn’t let me take a break from binging it, and gave me enough laughs that I have to call it an 8/10. Maybe I'll lower that to a 7 after sitting on it, if the incompleteness of the characters bothers me more, but almost every moment I had with it was positive.

I enjoyed my journey with the characters. Because it didn’t just rest on the laurels of its premise, milking absurd drama of who knows what about who loves who. By the end of the story, I came to care about all of the characters as genuine friends; the connections they built were truly the treasure they found along the way.

Love Agency is a response to Kaguya in its core thesis. As said near the start of the review, Kaguya was a cerebral series that looked at love in analytical ways. There was nothing wrong with this — it was well aware that the logical angle was used as an emotional defense mechanism by its characters. But it was still a series that reveled in its analysis.

And that’s what Love Agency pokes fun at. By breaking the two halves of the premise into two seemingly-distinct sides, the clients and the consultants, it says something about the difference between romance as logic, and romance as feeling. After all, in spite of their genuinely-insightful expertise, Kon is a shut-in, and Pon hasn’t experienced a relationship himself. Are emotional logicians the best people to listen to, when it comes to love?

It’s like Aka is poking fun at his own writing style. Poking fun at the idea of understanding love from a distance. Embracing it, because it is fun to write that way, while also reminding us that there’s something more.

I was worried Love Agency would be a lazy follow-up to Kaguya. Instead, it was the perfect one.

If you read this review on Anilist instead of MyAnimeList, you'd get to see the Aka Apology Form meme I made.

Do you sometimes have the feeling that somebody's work is celebrated for the wrong reasons? Do you feel that people tend to misunderstand their work?
That's how I feel about Akasaka Aka as a writer.

Looking at the rating and considering the hype around this manga died down nearly immediately after release, it's easy to understand what happened. Renai Daikou suffered greatly from the comparison with this author's other romcom manga, Kaguya-sama. And it's easy to understand why. Kaguya-sama had it all right from the beginning: an interesting premise, a loveable cast, some of the best comedy out there, and most importantly, a profound engagement of the ... community.
Which brings me to the second reason Renai Daikou suffered from the comparison: the anime. Most people discovered Akasaka through the Kaguya-sama anime with all the implications this had. The first one is that the anime took considerable liberties. While the manga is more standard, the anime used all the means it had at its disposal to elevate the comedy with things like the narrator or the use of creative animation and directing. We can see traces of this with a lot of people being disappointed by the later arcs of the manga: while it certainly is different for each reader, it's easy to make the link between people discovering what the manga wad really like without all the additions of the anime and the weakening of the hype.

But what about Oshi no Ko, then? Even though it's a very different series we could see the same thing happen as with Renai Daikou. With the release of the first episode, the hype was considerable but it quickly dropped afterwards. In general, hype dies down with time or because people don't receive what they were expecting anymore. And how was it branded back then? A new series by the author of Kaguya-sama with a surprise at the end of the first episode. So when said surprise occurred and it happened that it was quite different from Kaguya-sama, a lot of people quit.

But Oshi no Ko is still very popular so why did Renai Daikou fall off so hard? As I said before, when you think about a romcom by Akasaka Aka, you immediately think of Kaguya-sama. Even more when you consider that the premise of two people who are in love with each other, but too insecure to admit it is the same with the two mangas. So basically the readers were served the same stuff twice without all the things they liked for the first one.

And the thing is that Renai Daikou is actually closer to what you can expect from Akasaka. Akasaka, as he admitted himself and can be seen if you look deeper than the surface of his works, isn't an author of comedy. He is great at it, okay, but he always reverts back to drama at some point. We see this with Oshi no Ko being quite the heavy dramatic manga, a big portion of Kaguya-sama (mainly later chapters which also corroborates why people didn't like it as much as the beginning), and most importantly, his most important work to date, Instant Bullet.
But Renai Daikou isn't a drama, right? Well it most likely should have been if it had more time to develop its story. The main reason I say this is because of the main character, Mari Maria Winter-Nanase (I love this name it's so dumb). Everything in her character screams deep rooted mental disorders as do the best characters Akasaka has written before and it's what makes me love his work so much.

The Akasaka style of writing and the reason I like his manga so much is all about talking about very serious matters in-between lighthearted moments. This, the fact that a lot of elements are not what they seem to be (like Seki's personality being the opposite of what he looks like) and his sort of educational approach of featuring some trivia and explaining the notions he uses are what I would call the Akasaka formula. This is for me what you can really expect from an Akasaka manga without needing to compare them looking for which one is more like Kaguya-sama and Oshi no Ko.

So if that formula sounds like something you'd like, I'd greatly encourage you to read any of his manga, Renai Daikou and Instant Bullet in particular due to their relative unpopularity.

And to wrap this review up, I'd like to talk a little about what not to expect. Obviously, having been axed, you can't really go into it expecting the most distinguished story-telling. So if you really need for a story to have a satisfying conclusion to all its elements without it being rushed, you can go on your way, it's not for you.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that expectations are a double-edged sword that can kill an interesting work in the egg. So instead of just following the hype, find your own reasons to follow a creator and learn through their work what they really want to create. This way I'm sure you'll be able to find media that will really resonate with you personally.

6.8/10


Alright, this manga is really bad. Like, I’m not even kidding, each chapter makes me want to pour bleach in my eyes… HOWEVER, I just can’t take my eyes off of this piece of trash; the plot is such a mess that you can’t help but want to see the ending.

The plot, probably some of the most disorderly junk to exist, is incredibly inconsistent in its logic and pacing; there are so many “obvious” routes that the plot can take, but it somehow chooses the worst ones available. Because of this, not much of a connection to the actual story or characters form, but ... it sort of becomes funny and enjoyable.

The characters are interesting — on one hand, most of them are dislikable to the core — actually, that’s only the fmc — but on the other hand, some of them are likable and go through a decent amount of development through personal aspirations to change. With that being said, there are tons of cliches in personalities and mere moments of “love idiocy” that ruin anything serious, but it becomes entertaining due to how poorly written they are.

I have never bookmarked this manga, but every time it appears in my feed, I just can’t help but click on the newest chapter; there’s just a strange urge of attraction this manga has, not for the well-written story or characters but for the sheer idiocy.

PS: The plot is so simple and stupid that if you skipped 15 chapters, which I did, you will still know all of the characters and what happened.


You guys know this is just my opinion, right?

Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired + A Huang-Teizan Original)
10 - God’s penmanship
9 - Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 - Instant bookmark
7 - Entertaining
6 - Good to pass time
5 - Why are you reading this?
4 - Bad.
3 - Typical garbage.
2 - My head hurts.
1 - Retirement is a thought.
0 - “Did they even give you a story?!”