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It starts off really well but it's really no different from watching a Kdrama, especially near the end. It's rare for a shoujo manga to explore PTSD and what it means to be a victim of sexual abuse. I can see its place in the shoujo timeline.

But it gets ridiculous when the protagonist has to rely on her two love interests to save her every single time. It's highly overdramatic.

For younger audiences, I think this would be an important read. It's a rare older shoujo that borrows a lot of tropes from Hana Yori Dango, which was in the rage at the time, such ... as: rich in-laws threatening to pay off the protagonist if she stays away from their son, classmates as bullies, and rather helpless girls that solely rely on their love interests to do everything for them. I guess that was in the rage back in the day, but comes off as just dated and old fashioned.

Intended for a much younger audience. I loved it when I was 12. Not anymore. I wouldn't be able to sit through its sluggish pacing.

It wasn't bad but there isn't a plot. I've seen this series more than once entirely. I was more attached to the characters than any of the Angel fights. There's a lot of plot armor and the fights didn't make much sense.

Episode 25 to me was the best episode. The ending, what ending. That was disappointing. So Misaki's mom can suddenly walk by Christmas? All the emotional intensity was gone, just for one more fight.

I do like the ... story arc of Misaki and her mom more than her romance. I ended up rooting for the other pairing - Tamayo and Kotaro. They actually had a lot more chemistry and were more interesting to watch than Misaki and what's his face.

It's average.

Very boring. Reading a manga about a writer's life is hardly a walk in the park. It's as interesting as watching paint dry. Reading this manga feels like I'm reading a novel with well articulated dialogue articulated by forgettable characters that serve as mouthpieces for the author to discuss a myriad of topics.

Like reading a novel, there have been times where I find myself crying from the way the dialogue is written. It's extremely slow and at times boring and sluggish and yet, I find myself asking similar questions as Asa does as she copes with the loss of her parents.

"Did mom love me? ... Did my dad love me? Who was my dad?"

Makio-chan takes in Asa after she loses her parents in a sudden car accident. She tells her she hated her mom, who was her older sister, and she isn't sure if she can love her but she's welcome to stay with her. From there they start to live together. It's not really a romance, as Asa isn't crushing on any guy like your average josei/shoujo protagonist. What's interesting to me is Asa gradually tries to piece together who her parents were. She asks whether or not they loved her. To me, that part of the narrative is interesting. This work actually depicts a queer relationship, which seems to be a rarity in manga.

It's not meant to be binged. The pacing is that slow and there's no much of a plot. The art isn't my taste. The female characters look similar to the male characters. I'm not attached to any particular character. They're only starting to get fleshed out.

Watch the first half. Those are the best parts of this whole series and can rival any of the best animes you've seen. Stay away from the second half. I was left feeling annoyed, bitter, hallow and empty. Like why did they all have to die?

The first episode was really good. I was crying, in tears. The first half, the first 12-13 episodes were the best parts. You got really good characters. Except they keep getting killed off. The character development was spot on. Everything feels dynamic and believable. It's like watching some Oscar-winning tale set in a medieval like setting. You'll be moved to ... tears at the heroism and bravery.

Then the second half all the potential was flushed down the drain. Here's what happens, the best characters got killed off so Fushi can assume their identities, rather their bodies when he transforms. What doesn't help is that Fushi alone isn't very interesting or dynamic as say Gugu. This is an anime where the side characters are more memorable and dynamic and even more developed than Fushi, who's just there. Fushi bounced back so well with Gugu in the first half but nope, Gugu's gone. What made the first half so memorable was yes characters died but their death had meaning.

The second half, I felt nothing. Too many deaths and more characters kept getting killed off. Heck, most of the cast from the first half is randomly killed off just to elicit shock value and tears. I felt betrayed and hallow and empty at the finale. What finale, the only character I got attached in the second half was only present fully in two full episodes but then they get killed off. Where's the pay off? What just so Fushi can assume more avatars? The way he's able to become his friend's bodies just seems like a video game at this rate.

Without your lovable characters, you realize there's no plot whatsoever. It's Fushi vs. these wooden plague caused by Nokkers. They are essentially these root like beings equivalent to a plague, The plot is threadbare. The "villian" are the Nokkers.

After the finale, I'm done. I can't handle character assassinations anymore. I'm not attached to Fushi and yet all the good characters around him get killed off, just to elicit cheap emotions out of the audience.

It starts off really well in the first two or three volumes.

It utilized a childish language and a cutesy demeanor to convey adult circumstances, like physical abuse within families, rape, pregnancy, blame. It starts off strong. Two characters meet each other and find out how little they know about each other.

It didn't feel like I was reading a shoujo manga, but then what happened? Love triangles and love squares happened. What started off as two different people and their friends becomes love triangles: girl for the dude and a fellow child actor for the main lead.

It starts off really good, it was a romance ... turned family drama. But then the love triangles, the drama and the misunderstandings. Girl nearly breaks her leg and her love interest believed in gossip from a tabloid that she's dating her costar. How's she supposed to call if this was the 90's, before cell phones? Pay phones were terrible.

It went longer than necessary. I couldn't torture myself anymore. I love shoujo, not this.

Overall, I really loved our four main characters. There was none of that stupid love triangles or love squares. The romance was really good. Loved it when Natsume proclaimed that Mikan is the woman he loves. I'm surprised how I wasn't reading it for the romance, but rather for the camaraderie of our gang and how well they each looked out for one another. Natsume and Tsubasa. Natsume and Ruka. Mikan and Hotaru. Even Jinno-sensei kicks ass. Did I mention Bear? I don't read long running shoujos. I'm usually bored if it's just about romance. This and Fruits Basket I actually read. I just wish ... the arcs weren't as long as they were.

I felt it started off well. I wouldn't say it dragged but the arcs after Natsume's arc paled in comparison. The manga explores more from the episodes with Leo and how Natsume is accused of being a murderer and burning down his town. I felt after Natsume's arc, it just dragged.

Organization Z and the "ESP", who belonged to the primary school president are out to tear down the academy. From there, I didn't really understand what was the motive behind that. To me, it was just action and fight after fight. I did like the redemption for Persona.

I never understood what were the motives the academy had in forcing students in the dangerous class to perform nighttime missions. Were they there to act as hitmen, cause accidents? Who are the academy's enemies? The anime tried to explain it, rather the beginning of the manga did. But that was all dropped.

I felt the arcs were too stretched out - too many characters. Didn't care for Luna at all or her frenemy like relationship with Mikan's mom. Art isn't its strength, but rather the characters themselves and their relationships that shine. You get to learn how Ruka and Natsume became friends and you get to see time and time again Hotaru and Mikan help each other out. Near the end Hotaru gets to bond with her older brother. I did think Persona's redemption arc made sense. I felt way more attached to our four main characters than the growing cast.

It was the execution of the ending that didn't make sense. I never got what Mikan's alice type was. It wasn't really explained. Then suddenly she never lost her alice. Did everyone have their memories erased if they left the academy? What is the purpose of those missions? Did the academy get rid of them after the elementary school principal left? Why have them now that the clone man was gone?

It felt like the mangaka got burnt out. It didn't help that the characters looked extremely not proportional. They were already drawn fine as "12-14" year olds and when they had taken the candy to age up, Natsume and Ruka's faces looked fine from the earlier chapters. I didn't like how they looked either. They looked much older than "16-17."

Honestly you come not for the plot or for anything making sense, but for the characters and how they grow wirh one another. I didn't think I'd even be remotely interested in a walking stuffed bear.

I'd say chapter 175 did pay off, somewhat. At that point, I was too invested in our main characters. I could feel the emotional payoff and how much they cared for each other. In terms of anime vs manga, I felt anime stopped too short and too soon. It couldn't dive further into the romance development or the plot with Natsume. Those last 3 chapters were disappointing and left me feeling apathetic. I felt nothing for them. It didn't answer anything and it gave you an open ended ending. Mikan losing her memory made no sense. None of it made any sense. Then they bring her back?

It started off really well in the first two volumes, the first omnibus. There was mystery and Chihiro was actually two sided. Chihiro meets Kanade on Saku's birthday. He's holding a present, and when he meets Kanade, he tells him he's her boyfriend. Saku comes home and meets Chihiro for the first time. She thinks he's Kanade's close friend and Kanade thinks he's her boyfriend.

She finds out later that that's not the case. He's neither her boyfriend nor a close friend of Kanade. He's unwilling to be who he really is. He tells her he can be anyone she wants to him be, other ... than himself. So I thought the writing was really good at the beginning. This would be as good as Fruits Basket.

I thought the series would talk about duality within people, how we have who we wanted to be perceived as and who we really are. It'd explore the roles we play in our daily lives. It depicts bullying in a really subtle way and explored the dark side of people, even within a classroom.

That fact was too much is revealed too fast and Chihiro loses his edge. He loses what made him difficult to approach. Chihiro becomes bland. Before, he was sarcastic and rather rude, but blunt and honest. He's not willing to reveal anything about his life in Tokyo. His character to me becomes inconsistent once the hat's out of the bag. And somehow Sei-chan, the rich girl, digs up his file. How's that even possible? Like when Tohru's relatives hired a private investigation and dug into her living conditions. Then all the mystery's gone.

Good storytelling doesn't need to be told. It needs to be shown. Not revealed in a file.

And then it fell into a melodrama and became riddled with shoujo cliches: rich girl with a butler, a love triangle, girl crushing on a teacher, fireworks, and lastly girl in a coma. I've seen this done so many times in the "romance" genre that it's become old and stale. I already knew what would happen and yes I've seen and read Bokura Ga Ita.

Everything that made the first omnibus really good fell to the waist side and it became another angsty boy with baggage who can't be with his one true love for whatever reason. Of course he lashes out as his love interest at some point, for the added drama. He could be a jerk but he didn't need to physically put her to potential harm. Another Bokura Ga Ita, but with much better art. It plays out almost like Bokura Ga Ita. Chihiro becomes another Kakeru from Orange and that flighty boy from Bokura Ga Ita.

I was so disappointed. It started off so well, but devolves into this disheveled heap of a melodrama. Once they introduced the coma girl, I already knew what was going to happen. It's that predictable. I regret reading it or even investing in it. It honestly went on longer than intended.

Stick with Fruits Basket. This ended so badly.

It is horrible. The animation is bad, even for a shoujo. It hasn't aged well, at all.

I went in checking out season 1, and jumped ahead to season 2. Season 2 didn't improve upon the story. It continues the same old formula: a destitute girl ends up with free rent in an old abandoned shrine. There are futons and she has a furry man who becomes her servant and cooks and cleans for her. A high school girl's ultimate fantasy.

It's intended for a very young audience. This was as bad as Ouran. The storyline coulda been interesting if it was centering around regular people ... praying to the shrine. Kind of like a slice of life. See that's what I was interested in.

That's what I thought until there were supernatural demonic beings brought in the story.

This becomes another Inuyasha knockoff. Both are horrible but this has terrible animation. None of the characters show much development and even by season 2, nothing seems to change. There's still no storyline. Heck I'd be interested in hearing what the wishes people have prayed for since the last god left.

There was potential but the badly animated demons ruined it for me.

It's a shoujo but also not quite a shoujo. This is a series where girls from Japan compete to enroll in this prestigious all girls four year acting academy. The end goal is the girls will be working in a theatre group. It tackles what it means to be a woman and the expectations society has for young women in general, not just those entering the theatre business. I feel this is something all women can relate. The idea of what it means to be judged by women. What's unique is their audience is women. This is a more current take on the acting genre ... animes like Glass Mask and Skip Beat. There's no prince charming. No Purple Roses and no Rens. There's not much an emphasis on the acting part, but more so on the trauma and sacrifice the girls suffer to be in the acting business.

It's okay so far. The series seems to rely on the girls experiencing traumatic events. I'm not sure if I am supposed to be hating the competitive academy they're in.

In terms of the characters, Ai-chan is definitely the most fleshed out as we spend a lot more time in her mindset and why she's traumatized by men. Ai-chan is a former idol who was forced to graduate when she called out a male fan for holding her hands too long. She called him a creep basically. In Japan, apparently that's a scandal. So she goes to enroll in the academy just to find a place where she can feel safe, away from men. Then there's Sarasa who ends up being Ai-chan's roommate. Sarasa is really tall. She's someone who won't give up on her dream of playing Oscar just because someone told her she can't. I'm not sure she's fleshed out yet.

The other characters I'm not sure about. There's your Glee like competitive girls out to stomp on everyone else. Then there are the rest of the first years. Again, I'm afraid that the newer characters will be solely defined by the trauma they face like Ayako in the upcoming episode.

I'll still be watching because it seems interesting. I get that this show will handle darker topics, but I just hope that the new characters will be more fleshed out.

I went in with no expectations. It looked like a boring josei slice-of-life. It really grew on me. It's a slow burn in every aspect, from the narrative unraveling and the relationships.

What starts as a new customer visiting the shop each episode becomes an intricately connected web of relationships that add to the narrative.

It is very well written and ended very well.

I expected nothing out of Richard and Seigi. They start off as coworkers but then their bond develops naturally. Even the romance between Richard and Seigi was slow and didn't feel forced at all. It let the characters breathe.

There wasn't ... any love triangles.

Much better than Koikimo from this season. This really was a gem. It's a wholesome Josei/BL.
Best Josei I have seen.