Real Girl

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When it comes to romance stories, authors often opt for a plot-driven story instead of a character-driven one. What this often leads to is the creation of fairly forgettable and shallow characters with personalities that don't spread out in a more human fashion. This is especially true for high-school romance dramas.

However, people often forget that what works best for a romance drama is a character-driven story. Without going much into the depth of the internal conflicts of a character, it is easy to not find emotions to attach to a character. And this is a very essential device that an author must use ... to capture the reader's attention as much as they can for such a genre.

There are many examples of manga which have the same shallow characters that feel like they were developed off of a checklist that someone prescribed. That's never a bad thing to do, if one has a plot that can make use of those traits memorably.

Then there are proper character driven stories that take the time to show us what's going on in the heads of the main characters. Mangaka like Umino Chika and Oshimi Shuzo excel in telling such stories. But comparing their excellence here won't be all that meaningful, mainly because of the major difference in the core genre.

At the core, Real Girl aka 3D Kanojo, is a high-school romance story. And there's probably a million of them, right? That's true. Even the premise of the story about two people, quite opposite in terms of personalities, is not unheard of.

What makes Real Girl different and memorable is that the author took the time to establish each of the characters as being something that is not quite understandable upon first glance. Every aspect of the manga shows us the internal conflicts of the characters in question. It shows us that, just like most of us would in real life, these characters printed on paper also have to sort through all their feelings to come up with decisions that don't necessarily give a definite answer to a question. It shows that that feelings are more complex than a girl and a guy fawning over each other. It shows that the change that people go through in their lifetime are often because of the influence of others. This extends to all the major characters, and not just the protagonists.

And that is what's so good about this high-school romance story. Even though it appears to be the same as many others, there's obviously something more complex going on underneath that makes it different. That is the idea that the entire story is based around. Sure, like any other story, there are moments that shine bright and there are moments that often turn you away, but all in all, it's a story well done.

Being a character-driven story, the story itself progresses with the characters themselves and as such, often shows quite some variation in tonality as it progresses, depending on the emotional conflict that the characters themselves are going through.

The art isn't exceptionally commendable. There's plenty of faults, especially when it comes to showcasing facial expressions. But it's well enough to easily discern the most important characters in the story.

For a high-school romance story that came from a shoujo magazine, Real Girl is truly a memorable experience that doesn't fail to tell a heartwarming love story about two very different people and how they adapt to the time they have together.

Shoujo my enemy, made for girls, light poison for boys and lethal poison for men.

Take note: Romance, Drama, Shoujo, School life and far fetched comedy

Story 5/10
Considering demography and genre you have to read it with a grain of salt if your gender(age) doesn't represent shoujo.
This story is to a degree a cliché but has it's appeal. But dialogues and how story evolves is how should I put it....unrealistic in many ways. For example boys are represented like 1/3 girls 1/3 girly fantasy and 1/3 boys maybe.... Their reasoning, their interactions feel so far from reality that it's heart wrenching to read ... for me (i've re-read it actually 1st when a teen-y.adult and now).
The story and romance well there are not a lot of fluffy moments without a drama looming right around the corner it is not easy to read and be happy about how the story evolves. You basically have drama at every step.
Prepare for a lot of Plot armor, plot holes unneeded drama and unresolved questions (Female leads actions before meeting our Male protagonist) in last chapter especially.
The last volume and chapters are completely through me off, 1st time I read and 2nd time I was pissed off. I will not spoil but will ask questions if you ever decide to read it:
1) Why did they return and decided not to interact?
1.1 Isn't it more healthy in order to remember?
1.2 what is this stupid reasoning exchange life?
2) You could have made a diary.....
2.1 You or your brother could at least tried but decided not to
3) Parents suddenly decided to leave? Why? What was the reason? Why did they come back?
3.1 How come study abroad?
3.2 Is it even okay with this condition
3.3 Can you go to uni considering that you conveniently had a problem with memory? Or just somehow specifically some memories were targeted?
LAST....Memories do not conveniently disappear like that they are foggy yes but not like a hard drive where you can clean cut it like you want.

Art 7/10
Nothing too special. Will not delve too deep but considering it's shoujo it was more normal than other shoujo mangas. Speech bubbles and panels up to standard.

Characters 8/10
9 if males were males. But development and growth somehow believable and interesting. You see how people change and learn though in a short span of time but regardless quite a trip for our cast.
Shortly speaking every character you meet was significant to the story to a degree. Main supporting cast not only helped the story of our ML FL but also had their own share of life and drama.

Enjoyment 4/10
Hard to enjoy it, those questions bothered me (above) and some other questions. The constant drama never gave me a pleasant moment to enjoy since you are constantly expecting some drama.

Overall 6/10
A pleasant read with constant bumps but nevertheless a pleasant one, no NTR or violence but a simple case of weak plot with many holes. I advice to read to read but only if you are really interested in romance mangas and ready for a bumby road it is less dreadful than rom-com harem shounen mangas.

ALSO PLease Pm if you have answers to my questions that would help me a lot.

3D kanojo was a series that had me excited from seeing the first few episodes of the anime,with an initial impression of a budding romance between two young high schoolers that would develop into something different from many of the other romance manga. Sadly, that was not meant to be.
Between hashed over cliches that only served to introduce mostly useless characters that the story could've have done without, you have a couple that you actually want to root for. Tsutsui and Iroha were people that were interesting to learn about, albeit sometimes frustrating to watch over. However, finding their sections after ... about the first 20 chapters was an absolute chore. Eventually they get over their obstacles in a sudden end that makes you happy but questioning why the author ever decided to even mention this point in the story and personally makes me wonder if the series got the axe.
The most upsetting part however, would be the development of the side characters. In a story where the characters decide the tempo, many of the characters are just hashed over stereotypes that seem rushed, barely planned out and shoved together to make "cute" couples. The only side pairing that i could actually stomach never ended being together for no clear reason despite having entire arcs dedicated to developing the close relationship between each other. Having spent 46 chapters seeing these two, who I won't name for spoiler reasons, but becomes very obvious once you read the manga, the author decides in the last two chapters to take all that progress and burn it down, providing reason at all as to why they separated.
All in all, its a series that lures you in with the first few volumes, and has some decent characters that are held back by petty side characters and overwashed cliches. However, by the seventh volume of the series, you're left questioning why the author made some decisions. By the eigth volume you're skipping sections about characters you don't care about to find the ones you do, and by ninth volume you're wondering if the series is done and what the hell happened to half the cast, questioning why you ever picked it up in the fist place.
Maybe my opinion is biased from the fact that I had such high hopes for it based on what I saw in the anime, but having read the entire series in one night I can say that I haven't been as disappointed in a series as I am in 3D Kanojo.