Reviews

I feel like Houkago, Koishite is one of the most generic shoujo I've ever read, and I've read quite a lot. Shoujo are often not terribly original, and as a fan, I'm not necessarily looking for originality, but I feel like Houkago, Koishite has nothing to distinguish it at all. The characters don't feel to me like characters so much as very generic character archetype blank slates that are there just to hit all the right beats at all the right times, in order to follow the extremely route shoujo formula. There's the kabe-don, here's the sleeve-roll, drying the hair, hiding together in the futon. They just move from shoujo trope to shoujo trope with no original details of its own. She's the typical oblivious shoujo protagonist with nothing in particular to make her stand out. She works as the manager of the sports team of the hot boy that loves to tease her, and the other hot boy who's also interested in her for some reason. It's just no comparison to other shoujo like Namaikizakari which has practically the same basic premise, and so in that sense it's also rather tropey, but there's a huge world of difference in the execution. At the same time, Houkago, Koishite isn't what I'd call terrible, though maybe being ridiculously generic is its own kind of terrible.