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May 16, 2025
I'm gonna be short. There are three things that makes this manga hard to recommend:
1. Ever-present self-sacrifice. There's a trope in anime and manga when everyone apologizes even though it's never their fault. Here it's multiplied by 10 and everyone outright rejects their happiness. All of the cast prioritizes others before themselves, which is absurd.
2. Unimportant gay romance. Wasting two whole volumes on some BL offshoot to make the MC understand a thing or two about love is too much. The MC's friend was never going to be a love option, so trying to put this subplot on emotionally equal grounds with the main trio
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is priorities gone wrong.
3. "Happily ever after" endings. There are two of them: for Lilina and Misaki. In the former the solution to Misaki's grief is so idiotic it can't even be called writing. The latter lacks any consequences for the whole drama debacle that was unfolding.
It might be crude to say, but considering the pain the main cast faced through all of this, with every point of the triangle deeply in love with the other two, they should've just started a polyamorous relationship. MC's wouldn't have a reason to hate it. Lilina didn't fight for her love at all to be averse to sharing her man with her friend. Misaki would have a choice of either getting shared loved or none at all. It's easily the best outcome.
Why 7? Idk, it was still a kinda interesting and emotionally rich thing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 18, 2025
A short but complete, melancholic story of love and friendship. The length feels just right. It feels like you are reading a very big one-shot: there are no gaping holes between chapters, and even the volumes don't cut the story into pieces. A very smooth read indeed.
The characters are sufficiently deep and interesting.
The art is also quite nice.
Why an 8 then? Personally, there wasn't much at stake in here. Since the friend (Kajiwara) is no longer with the main pair, his son (Kaoru) acts as the only connection to him. However, it's obvious he can't change the dynamic much. What I want to say, if
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Kajiwara himself was there, it really could become a love drama due to all the main guy's (Koutarou's) uncertainty. A real love triangle would arise, which can't exist with his son as a main character. And considering that half of the story is presented via flashbacks, as well as the fact that at least some part of the uneasiness in Koutarou's heart could likely be erased by having a good talk with his wife, without Kaoru's help, paints rather an unimpressive, heart-wrenching points-wise, picture. Combine that with a rather silly reasoning for acceptance at the end, and the MCs' pain seems to have been exaggerated all these years.
I still recommend this, though. Not a tearjerker, and never tries to be one, but a unique piece of literature.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 6, 2025
A couple of words about Riceballicious' translation first. It's absolute dogshit. It feels like every bubble was MTL'd separately, because the grammar is correct, but the continuity is often lost. It's hard to read, but comprehensible. Now for the review itself.
This manga has an interesting idea about gods and people who pray to them. However, the philosophy is too scarce and most of the story itself isn't relevant. All the "smart" things could be said within a single chapter. The whole point can be described in a single sentence: people shouldn't rely on gods.
The plot twist is neither foreshadowed, nor intriguing. It explains why the
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protagonist wants everything to be normal, which is fine in itself, but falls flat since the MC isn't really likeable.
The comedy is half toilet humor, half beating a perverted MC's friend. The characters are flat and feel like simple vessels. They don't create the narrative or the story flow, they are there to fit it. Some characters exist within a couple of chapters and are then forgotten. The romance is non-existent.
All in all, an interesting premise failed by virtually all other things.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 11, 2024
TLDR: if you can't feel pity or empathy for mentally disabled people always being rude, and you would treat them like you would a normal person without some unhappy background, then don't read it. Also don't read it if you're only here for the romance. Overrated.
It basically goes like this: the girl does something insane (because she is) -> guy says it wasn't ok -> she cries -> guy remembers her early-on suicide attempt and consoles her -> they both grow a bit -> step 1. It's some kind of a pathetic roguelite pity-fest, as stupid as it sounds.
I'm sorry for the harsh words,
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but I simply can't feel any remorse or sympathy for the heroine. She treats anyone like garbage and this behavior even rubs off on the MC, as he tries harder to understand her. Sure, she has a reason to be like that. Yes, she had a horrific childhood with no-one to support her. However, the only thing I can say is...
...so what? Why should I care? I'm not a nurse at a mental institution to need to feel compassion for her. You hate people for being normal? Well, tough luck, I'll hate you too then! Maybe I just lack any empathy, but I don't consider a disability a reason to be an asshole. If you want to be treated like a normal person, treat others well. It's not her fault for being born like this or having bad parents, but no one is obligated to excuse her behavior. The girl's personality characteristics fit a main villain more than a main heroine.
I obviously can't understand her; neither do I want to.
From what I've hear from other people, as the story goes on, she and the guy make progress in fitting into the society. I'll be frank, I came here only for the romance, and slice-of-life doesn't really interest me, so I can't make any comment on how things go.
I don't know how the romance unfolds in the later volumes, but unless there's some kind of a fallout due to their codependency becoming dysfunctional, or another love interest making an entrance, or some other love trouble to shake their little world, there isn't much weight in the romantic aspect of the story. And even if there is, it wasn't worth suffering through other crap for me.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 11, 2024
It seemed like I was watching a show for 5-year-olds, because there were so many unbelievable things. A suspension bridge romance between two enemies who met for like 2 hours. A crybaby who prioritized sending a letter to his GF instead of keeping his comrades safe during a mission. Treating a war as a game, getting caught by the enemy, sentenced to death and escaping a cell because a guard decided to come inside. Getting out of your mecha some kilometers above the ground and not being blown away, frozen or just suffocating.
The characters themselves are flat. An old guy who had a minute of
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screen time had more personality than the MC and most of his crew.
The only good thing was art.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 8, 2024
The main girls are bastards. Jealous, pathetic, manipulating pieces of absolute schmuck who don't deserve to receive even an ounce of the MC's love. They don't want to resolve the ambiguity of their being relatives and strangers at the same time, so they form an alliance to deter other girls form the MC. All they do is put themselves into problematic situations, so that their prince shows up and saves them. That's how romance is cultivated in this show.
There's another girl, MC's senpai, who is miles better that they could ever hope to be, but guess what happens? She gets pawned off to another side
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character in a single episode. Zero foreshadowing, bar one weird sentence just prior. And the bastards congratulate them on becoming a pair!
I hate them so much.
On another note, the music, art and pacing are quite nice. The script is bad - the same phrases that amount to nothing are said over and over.
Honestly, I wish those twins weren't in this show at all. I'd rather it was about the MC, his senpai and his guy friend, and their possible love triangle.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jul 11, 2024
The first episode felt like obscene American romcoms, where all the characters talk about is sex. OK, sure, unusual and very different from the trademarked innocence and purity that anime often has. But at what cost? It's just non-stop cringe now. The characters (MC especially) think about sex all the episode, get flustered and return to having lewd thoughts. There's nothing "progressive" or "brave" about this topic, and whether it's realistic or not doesn't matter if it's painful to watch. Oh, and they have two unrelated verbal bullying scenes for two of the main cast. So much for straying from clichés.
The show's unbearable, but not
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because it explores some non-vanilla topics. The dialogues, monologues, scenes - everything is so cringe it makes you stop the playback every couple minutes. It doesn't "explore teenage girls' psyches" or whatever pretentious crap one could come up with. I like coquettish and lustful girls, but there's always a time and place for everything and especially the way you describe things. Naming gal's love juices "Pork Ramen" and then inserting it throughout the whole episode as a gag just isn't it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Jun 2, 2024
If you like this author's (Seo Kouji) previous works, you'll probably like this as well. Keep in mind though, there's far less drama and romance than before.
If you are like me, in the dislike/hate domain, then skip. Simple as that. Even if the first half seems interesting, it will go downhill like it always had.
When I first began reading it, it felt like some sort of satire, in a good way. There are major references to his previous books (including spoilers), and since the theme is about manga authors and editors, it sometimes felt like he was venting a bit through his characters, which was
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fun. The new characters are interesting, and the potential love triangle was promising to be entertaining, so everything was going pretty well...
...but then it nosedived. The final good moment was when the MC got a girlfriend, about halfway through. Here's what I didn't like:
1. The MC is just lucky. Everyone's going on about how he's got some special talent of an editor, but in reality he simply gets assigned to work with very talented authors, while all he does is shout "That's interesting!" or "No, it should be that way!" during their overview sessions. Sure, all his 5 authors experience different problems, while he's helping his partners overcome them. But his "talent" is never shown, so he ultimately maintains the image of an unskilled but lucky cliché-spewing good guy.
2. The characters are come-and-go. Some look like they've been forgotten by the author himself, as if he wasn't sure in which direction to take the story, so he introduced new characters and then abandoned them. In the first chapters there's a female acquaintance of MC's, and she shows up maybe 2-3 times during the whole 13 volumes. She has affection for the MC, but it's never expanded upon. The other guy is a talented new editor, with whom the MC is competing in the beginning. He later disappears for like 10 volumes. There are other "forgotten" characters, but their roles demanded so, e.g. MC's childhood friend, who helped his romance progress.
What I can't forgive though, is that the main characters are treated the same. The moment their distress ends, they are shoved away so that a new one could take their place. This leads to shallow characters, which mars the romantic aspect especially, since they are thrown out before their feelings can be properly shown.
There was a certain manga called "Blue Hearts" from the ReLife's author. That's how the episodic struggles should be done. None of the characters felt abandoned neither by the author nor the MC, even after their problems got resolved. Everyone was connected on a deeper level, and not through a get-together dinner every couple of volumes.
3. The romance is bad, particularly after MC gets a girlfriend. There's no proper rivalry, and he is either oblivious or indifferent towards the girls' feelings. There's also a rule that says the editor shouldn't be in a romantic relationship with their author, since it will create bias, which will destroy them or their work in the end. And how does the main couple get out of this predicament? Quite easily - they just keep it a secret and he continues to be an "excellent" editor. Great writing. There's also almost no romance after he gets a partner, only a couple of out of touch "comedic" transitions to them having sex, so that the reader still remembers they're a couple. There's no drama about this manga's romance, and it's not interesting in the slightest. Some characters' feelings towards the MC never get fleshed out and are forgotten by the author and the characters themselves (how convenient).
4. The ending is abrupt and doesn't contribute to anything. It's like "Our work isn't done! We will strive for further heights!" and such. It's all MC's fault by the way. His ambitions got to his head.
Oh, and, do you also hate how heroines with unreciprocated love get random boyfriends so that "everyone's happy"? Well, you're not in luck, since it's here as well! And the best thing? One of the heroines talks about how she doesn't want to get a random boyfriend in the last chapter and still gets one! Thanks as always, Mr. Seo! Peak romance! Peak writing! Acta est fabula, plaudite!
A waste of time. Every time I read the author's works, I hope that they are better than the previous ones, and I always get disappointed. Will I read "Megami no Cafe Terrace"? Yep, I'll probably burn myself for the umpteenth time, but I still continue to hope that one day Seo Kouji will produce something truly great.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 1, 2024
Nothing ever gets explained or delved on (including the ending), and everything happens "just because". Characters are shallow or annoying. The music side doesn't really intertwine with any other aspect of the show. Like, the monsters get attracted to music. Okay, then why the only things that can kill them do that with magic shotguns, swords, etc.? The OST is also pretty unremarkable for a music-themed anime. The romance could've been better, even considering that this is not a romance anime.
They also somehow managed to make a filler in a 12 episode series. The show wasted too much of it's own time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jun 1, 2024
Not a bad series, but doesn't hold a candle to the 1st one. It's mostly a mix of calm and dramatic scenes without epic fights or battles. Unfortunately, there was a lot of internal dialogue which kept going over the same things all the time. For Thorfinn it was about how killing is bad, while for Canute it was about how he's becoming more like his father. These daydreamings and nightmares took away the time from more interesting things.
The other thing I didn't like is the middle arc. It's dramatic, but the story unfolds in such a way that makes your unable to sympathize with
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a certain character. So, instead of "Man, I feel bad for [the character]", it's "Man, [the character] got what they deserved. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes". And only after most of the arc's events have happened, they show why [the character] did the things that way. And since you don't really care about [the character] most of the time, you become a bit annoyed at how all the things revolve around them.
Overall, much worse than the first season, but okay by itself. It has both great and bad moments. OPs and EDs are good too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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