Hatsukoi Zombie

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I found this manga while browsing through romance manga online and I gotta say, this was an amazing read. I love how the story went, there was never a dull moment! That doesnʻt mean that it was perfect, there were moments where I got extremely annoyed by Tarou (the MC) because of his obliviousness. Even when he saw the obvious, he would still make excuses during moments where it was extremely obvious that Ririto (the heroine/other MC) was a female and not a male. Honestly, the moments where the two MCs were in a romantic situation were far and few, and I mean FEW. Still, ... it was an amazing story and I dont regret reading it! Itʻs not as cliche as the most recent romance manga which is a big plus too!

One thing that I find hard to read is how I hate the central heroine and love her appearance at the same time.

Story (9): At first the concept of first love zombie feels like another weird romcom thing but changed my thoughts that it slowly turned into a good drama material. Some reader might find this hard to enjoy in early chapters because it will focused more into protagonist helping side character's love, but then it changed into protagonist's personal matter. And that's the best part where the reader should not skipped. It's not a story with tense or suspenseful atmosphere. Yes it sometimes hurt ... my feeling as typical love triangle story, but it has a good pace. Just, I wish the author could create the ending into two different chapters because I personally as the reader need the longer good feeling. More importantly, just believe me you'll hate the ending arc but will forget about that in the last page. It's just how clever the author played reader's feeling.

Characters (9): I hate the central heroine, because despite all of the things, she played victim over the protagonist even Eve herself (it's not a spoiler since you'll know it around the beginning). I hate her more than Runa in the common route of Hatsukoi 1/1. But even so, it is kinda amazing but sucks at the same time. Tarou at the latter chapters will sometimes change his hairstyle and he looks super cool that way. Every character has their own thing that you'll love, even Tarou's father that will only appear near end of the manga. Some minors don't felt like left out from the story, even were involved. I don't usually care with side character but Kyouko and Tarou's great grandfather whoever his name is, I love them so much even how short their appearance is.

Side story (8): Aside from main story of drama around Tarou & Ririsu & Eve, there's not much side stories that I remember because it all somehow connected to each other. But if you ask, the dragon princess festival, where the very minor character like Kyouko and Tarou's great grandfather appeared, is the best part of all. It's a tearjerker like every romcom must have but feels more than just that. It's also a kind of turning point important for the main story. It's all not just a side but also part of the main one.

Art (9): To be completely honest, I didn't get any interest when looking at the cover, first chapter's character designs. But it changed over time. It's just that good. Male & female characters are all great in terms of art design. Their cinematic illustrations are amazing. Even more with the colored page/illustration where you can see in color, it all so pleasing.

Enjoyment (10): All that lacking feels like nothing. It just that good.

So Hatsukoi Zombie, is a manga full of drama and teenage stuff, i don't know why and how, but, i actually came to like this particularly.

Now, i'll admit that the manga sometimes has his 'only fanservice' episodes, but, they rarely happen to appear(on my opinion).

*this contains spoilers*

I won't explain the whole plot becuase i find it kinda slow at the beginning but the more you read, the more you keep reading, i think the fact that i had none expectations for this manga actually made me enjoy it, you see, i've already read himegoto by the time i started reading this manga, so my expectations ... for the author were really low, especially since i find every character of himegoto so disgusting to the point that i actually dropped it, and now, Hatsukoi showed me that the author really can make some good stuff.

Characters:
Most of the characters on this manga are actually just fillers, so the plot beetwen the MC's can develope properly, now let's begin with Tarou our MC, he is a energy saving guy who happened to receive the most unexpected power, the one that builds the whole plot around him, it's really a guy that sometimes annoys you with his carefree decisions but you actually don't get to hate him or anything like that.
Our second protagonist/antagonist(because she could end the main issue whenever she wanted to) is a girl who happened to known Tarou back when he wasn't a energy saving man, well she holds a grudge to him, becuase he cursed her? don't know how to explain what he did tho.
And our last MC is Ebino the girl who knows tarou 3 years before the story takes place, she is the character with the best development at this point, she used to be a tomboy and now is trying to be with Tarou after a couple of misunderstandings and a bunch of drama.

Art:
the art has a lot of ecchi scenes(not as many as himegoto tho) but you don't actually feel like it's the main objective of the manga(like himegoto or Amano Megumi), the drawing is pretty good, you can see that the characters sometimes have a lot detail to the point you wonder if it was really necessary and actually that makes you appreciate it.

Overall:
i do recommend this manga if you are looking for something funny and a bit romantic, i'll give it a 9/10 because is still publishing nowadays but i don't think my opinion changes.

Edit: Holy f**k i actually changed my mind after finishing the manga sh*t, while i made the first review i was far from the end, but now, after a few hours of finishing it and having a time for reflection i came to the conclusion that it was a huge let down about the last 20 chapters of the story everything is kinda rushed becuase you get introduced to a relatively new character that serves for nothing but to trigger a epiphany to our mc companion which, at the same time triggers another epiphany to him. We get seeing how my preferred heroine wasn't in love enough to fight and reminds me of nisekoi and multiple series where the best heroine is left aside.

Edited Overall:
Even though I still recommend this manga, I don't feel it deserves the rating I gave it the first time so I'll change it to 6/10 for the unnatural and rushed the end of events it had.