This story reminded me what made me fall in love with manga in the first place. They may be far and few between, but there are great authors with even greater stories to tell. The depth of this story just touched my heart. It starts off as your typical high-school love story (and I did really enjoy that part of it. Just taking the first half, this was an excellent romance story), but then it transitions into some darker, and more profound. It gives you a vivid dive into what it means to be human, and I mean human in the way that whenever someone does something bad, we say they are only human. We are all a little messed up, some of us more then others, many through no fault of our own, but this story gives me hope. We are all trapped by vicious cycles, but those cycles can be broken.
There is just so much to talk about with this manga, I don't even know where to start.
For the first half, I really loved how each side character was given their own unique and beautiful love story. Each persons struggle was unique, but I found myself reflected in each piece. I felt attached to each character, and really loved deepening my understanding of them. It was like I got a little tangent from our main romance, but each tangent was so great in its own right, that I would have no issue reading an entire manga about them.
For the second half, I was just straight up blown away. The depiction of both struggles and people overcoming those struggles had me alternating between crying from despair and joy. Not to mention the classic theme of people growing up, leaving their high-school friends, and living their life. This was one of those stories that made me step back and look at my own life, and just, get excited? That's not quite the right word. Its more just being amazed that I get the opportunity to experience this crazy and amazing thing we call life. This story changed me, and for that, it deserves 10 stars.
I desperately need to go back and find more great, older manga like this. Society may change, and our stories change with them, but we are still human, and this story is touchingly human. It speaks to something innate in the human experience, and that kind of story will always resonate with me. If you haven't read this manga, you need to. Its got romance, its got deep characters, its got coming of age, and if you are anything like me, you will cry (a lot).
