Imasara desu ga, Osananajimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimaimashita
It's a Little Late, but I've Fallen in Love with My Childhood Friend

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

An author tries to be innovative with his work and give more depth to romcom manga and he gets crucified for it...

This manga is great, don't let the softies that reviewbombed it tell you otherwise, life isn't always a clear straight line, love is COMPLICATED, this manga didn't "betray" anybody, god forbid a manga try and be interesting. Go back to your rent a girlfriends and dress up darlings tourists...

Is what I want to say, but let's keep things objective.

The art is great, it's about as good as you could have it for a romance manga, it's clean and simple, easy to look at and ... soft on your eyes, perfect for the atmosphere this type of manga wants to set. The characters are good, there aren't too many, as it mostly revolves only around the two main characters, and occasionally the FMC's friends, the main selling point of this manga really was the story being seen through the FMC's perspective, and seeing her brave herself to confess to her childhood friend whilst cute and awkward situations between the two keep arising, seeing her be so self-conscious about everything is really adorable, and can make you feel all giddy, you can't help but want to root for her and be on her side of the corner throughout the whole manga. But unfortunately, this author, and manga for that matter, didn't take the simplest, "vanilla" route that most mangas of this genre tend to take.

By no means are the recent chapters "bad", or are the recent developments of the story "bad", a lot of people just don't like it when things get complicated in love, but can you blame them? The first 20 chapters of this manga basically invited those types of people to read it, the type that reads these types of manga to feel all giddy and happy inside whilst they read about this girlfailure gush about her childhood friend for the millionth time. The low score and reviewbombs are a result of the audience this manga has gathered. But please, give this manga a try, and don't get offput by the low score, it's fake and this is genuinely worth reading.

This manga isn’t particularly bad, but I cannot, in good conscience, fully recommend it. At this point, it feels like a poorly executed bait-and-switch. It’s clear that the author intended to build up a readership before abruptly and disruptively changing the manga’s tone purely for shock value.

To be clear, genre shift isn't a bad thing. In fact it's a trope that was present in some of the best medias that came to us from Japan. However, those shifts require a good execution to avoid alienating your audience. In most successful examples, the tone shift typically respects some or all of the following principles:
1. The ... tone shifting is gradual
2. It’s foreshadowed in some way.
3. The initial tone represents only a small portion of the overall story.

None of these principles apply here, although the third one could still be salvaged. The tone shifting in this manga was extremely brutal. It's so drastic, that you could likely make two separate mangas out of the different parts, each of which would appeal to a specific audience. But right now ? the content would not be satisfying for either of them.

It's hard to tell what direction will be taken right now. the story could end up being extremely good that it would make us forget how the story initially started, or it could become a bigger trainwreck than it already is.

8.1/10


I didn’t know this manga got a MAL page, but I guess it did — this review is off the top of my head, and I didn’t reread the manga to make this, so take it how you will. I’m also only bothered enough to do this because I feel like this manga is over-hated and misrepresented due to some rather questionable decisions via the author in the plot.

Yes, this manga starts off as a light, cute romcom depicting teenage romance/crushes, but it’s not overbearingly “cute”; not at the cuteness stage where darker topics become completely nonsensical.

The plot is also nothing short of amazing, as ... it’s not tiresome and pretty refreshing with some of its developments and plot points. I mean, there have been some really unique plot points in humor or development which I’ve never seen before — and for my experience, that’s one hell of a compliment.

As for the characters themselves — they are amazing. The fmc is written amazingly and so is the mc; they provide the perfect balance between cute interactions and humor, and it’s simply amazing — they don’t act robotic or not like high schoolers, which a lot of school romance mangas struggle with.

Though, there’s a lack of side characters or introduction of side characters, which makes this manga feel less like a serialized manga and more like a webcomic. Though, I’m not complaining too much since the characters are more than interesting enough to carry the story that you don’t even notice it.

Now here’s where the plot starts to thicken or get interesting — it gets … psychological? I don’t think that’s the right word to describe it, but there’s a turning point and foreshadowing around the midway point where you can tell something’s going amiss.

As for the resolution of it itself, I find it being written pretty well; it’s one hell of a surprise, and I sort of like that — this manga presented itself as unpredictable with its plot, and it did just that.

This may be a bit off putting to some, as the manga slowly stepped away from the genre of “fluff” and took a more direct route to … a deep, plot twist manga, but the writing and explanation of everything has been as good as it gets for what the author is trying to execute. I still love it; you might not.

PS: is one bad arc or moment in a manga enough to completely discredit what the author has built? I don’t think so. I also don’t even think the dark route is even a bad arc, as it’s well-written and explained. It’s more so of a surprise that you didn’t want. I mean, the essence of the story is still there. The characters we love are still there. I don’t know, I’m just rambling at this point. I’m trying to defend this with my life, but I can understand why there’s a hatred for what the author has done.

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?!”

Fumiaki Maruto did it. He baited a legion of romcom expecting readers just to dump trauma on their heads...and get his most recent work review bombed.

Was it inevitable?

Well, kinda. If you've read any of Maruto's works, you'd know there's no way he'd go for a pure romcom. Perhaps some people came across 'Imasara desu ga...' by the line of the manga's illustrator - he seems to be known for lighter, fluffier serializations. The plot expectations never lie on the artist, though - it's all on the writer. And Maruto's always been obsessed with drama queening through his storytelling.

If you felt betrayed by the tonal shift, ... that's fair. It IS a bit too drastic, a bit too heavy-handed.

Does it mean the series is trash?

Well, it depends on how the shift is handled, right?

After the failure (early axe) of Maruto's latest 'Media Mix Maiden', I was curious to see what's up with him. He's been in a definitive slump for quite some time already.

So far, 'Imasara desu ga...' shows a glimmer of hope. The 'light' and 'dark' arcs (corresponding to the main heroines' names) are handled decently. Cute and fluff, conflict and dread are weaved together for a whiplash-inducing switch to a more psychological, gloomier narrative. One of Maruto's strong points has always been stellar dialogue. It's the same here - conversations flow well, feel organic, and the character interactions simply 'click'. The tension is also present in both conceptual 'halves' of the story so far.

Where will the series go from now on?

For some people - nowhere, as they've already dropped it. For others, it'll be a scrutinizing journey to evaluate whether Maruto can handle the tonal shift in a logical, coherent manner.

For me? I'd like to see Maruto's still got it. So far he's doing well, but still far away from his potential. The series gets a 7/10 and I can easily see it go higher or lower from here on, depending on what happens.

So it’s definitely a series that shocked me, I did not see that coming. Was I dissatisfied and disappointed not really, I’m very curious to see where it leads to, but one thing I know is that it’s going to be a very messy, emotional story, but again I got to give it to the author they really shocked me with the twist. I’m hoping this manga gets a proper serialization, if you’re someone who loves cutesy vanilla manga I recommend you don’t read this one, but aside from that i like the series and hopefully It can get even better throughout time

Do you like cute, fluffy rom-coms? Yes? Great. Do you also like more dramatic stories with a bit of an edge? Yes? Great, then this is the manga for you.

I think it's fair to say that the recent score-bombing of It's a Little Late says a lot less about the quality of the manga than it does about the fragile and overly-sensitive nature of a large section of the manga community. Or, to be as charitable as possible, it says that a lot of those score-leavers would answer "yes" to my first question and "no" to my second.

I think it's also fair to say the ... the wildly out-of-proportion reaction that the more recent chapters have received are a testament to how well written the earlier, fluffier chapters are. If chapters 1 to 20 were really just cookie-cutter, generic rom-com slop, then I doubt the fluff-only people would have been quite so outraged at the latter dramatic developments.

It's a shame, the author is really trying to do something different here, and so far they seem to be succeeding too, but a lot of the people who have read it don't like what the author is doing, and a lot of the people who would like what the author is doing haven't read it. There's a huge mismatch between story and audience here. However, for those of us lucky enough to be both a reader of the manga and a part of its intended audience, it's a rare treat. It's a story that manages to capture a whole range of emotions and experiences, and acknowledges that very few things in life are simple, clear-cut, or black-and-white. I also expect that ultimately it will tell a story where our FMC triumphs in the end, which surely is good storytelling - in any other genre it'd be expected for the MC to have some adversity to overcome before achieving their aims, I don't really see why in rom-coms that should be any different.

It always peaks my interest, when a manga has a low median score. This community consists almost exclusively of extreme opinions, that rate everything either 8-10 or 1-3. Seeing a manga with a median rating of 6.xx always draws me in. Maybe the fans of a light novel that ended badly decided to review bomb the manga adaptation? Or maybe it is the kind of work that the reader either lover or hates?

This is tagged as romance, comedy and drama, with an ecchi content warning. I read the first 41 chapters expecting that. And I got exactly that. I cannot see why this manga is ... rated so unfavourable. I think that us readers have come to expect, that romance and comedy always means slice of life and chill vibes, but this was never the case. This manga is tagged as a drama and boy does it deliver on the drama. I would even argue that drama is its strongest point.

Pros:
- The characters are well drawn, have emotional depth and developed back stories.
- The narrative structure is engaging and deliberate.
- The pacing is fine, although following ongoing series is always frustrating.
- The drama is great.

Cons:
- The emphasis on characters facial features allows the background author to slack in some panels (classic shojo problem).
- Maybe the comedy isn't present enough? I don't know.

Conclusion:
- Give it a shot as a drama. I am recommending it.
- Why am I only giving it a 6? A 6 means the manga is fine. Once it is completed I might up it to a 7 or 8. But this manga is for sure better than the median 6.xx score it is carrying, if we are to expect the normal behaviour of rating things either 8-10 or 1-3.

It seems like what people don't like about this is the tonal shift? I don't get that all.

To say that the twist was too abrupt seems super short sighted. I think the point is that it is abrupt. We put ourselves in the shoes of Hikari, an innocent girl in love with her childhood friend trying to win him over and comedy ensues. Then suddenly in a single chapter all of that innocence is lost when the twist happens. The point is that she was caught completely off guard by it. She's spent all of these years with her childhood friend and yet somehow never ... knew about any of what happened.

If the shift weren't abrupt then the reader wouldn't really be in the same shoes as Hikari and the twist would lose a lot of that value. It's not like the story following the twist has been bad either. It's incredibly nuanced dealing in a super interesting and toxic love triangle in which two people matured in the presence of one another and Hikari just simply wasn't aware and didn't have that same experience.

I honestly love this manga and I look forward to every chapter, I'm really only leaving this review so that more people pick it up since it seems some people have very strong opinions about it and I don't want those reviews to be the only ones on this page.

Yom's art is good as always, but the story doesn't keep up. It's a simple story from the start, but at a certain point it shifts heavily from a basic romcom story to a basic drama one. And unfortunately, ever since the twist and the tone shift it's just got worse and worse. The first 15-20 chapters are fine, but after that I can't recommend it. Even for the first 15-20 chapters it isn't anything special as just a generic childhood friends romance, but the drama that replaces it feels boring at best and misery porn at worst, At least when it was cute it ... was fun to read.