Stella to Mille Feuille

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As a preface, I am pretty much focused on romance mangas. I prefer the lighthearted, straightforward stories with good endings. I can take bittersweet once in a while but in small doses only.

With that out of the way, this story had a bunch of good stuff in it. Taking responsibility, opening up and being honest, taking chances, and being open to growing and changing. But I can't help but notice some jarring stumbles in execution. The story itself is very competent in theory, but the dialogue seems a bit too... elementary, and that goes for almost all the characters. It's like hearing the same voice ... in almost all their characters; everybody's dialogue is too lean and straightforward. Also, and this is a minor spoiler, I simply do not like open endings. They work on some stories, but here it simply does not. It's a major blueball when you seem to ship two characters and you never even make it sail gloriously into the sunset. I don't care what people say about how endings don't matter much. That's hogwash. They matter. In a song, a single note not executed well, especially if it's the climactic note, simply brings it down a few pegs.

Except for the MC and his father and the FMC, all the characters don't really change much and feel like they're there just for fluff to bounce the main characters' thoughts off for exposition's sake. The MC is worth remarking on though. I think he was consistent throughout the story and his changes were believable at least for me. He started as someone completely closed off from other people, but once the floodgates were opened, it seems like he became addicted to the kind of blunt honestly I imagine he always wanted to be able to do. That's frankly one of the main reasons that drove me to finish this. At one point, he became a sight to behold. But alas, they had to cruelly edge me. No clear happy ending for you, sorry. Use your own hands if you must.

Artwork I gotta say seems lazy and terribly inconsistent. I'd even bet some of the better character sketches were ripoffs that were slightly modified. But honestly, it was still good enough and maybe just brings down my rating by half a notch or less.

I decided to read this as I had this random urge to read something light and cutesy. This was in a "neighbours fall in love" collection on the manga app I use so I decided to give it a shot.

The art style is was mediocre at best, while the characters were given cute and humorous personalities there was no standout design visually. I am still not sure what exactly makes Ginga a heartthrob.

The storyline was really heartwarming, I enjoyed seeing Ginga navigate through life with his new found freedom. I also thought the premise itself was very cute up until the large ... age gap is revealed after which I felt highly uncomfortable so I finished the volume and decided to drop it. Nothing overly sexual happens but the 9 year age gap between a 16-year-old boy and 23-year-old women feels ...off.