I started reading this because I saw a video about this manga being completed and thought I'd give it a try. Also I really love male characters with glasses so here we are lol
The story was pretty good, I didn't know that this was an 'age gap' love story and while I am not necessarily someone who enjoys this kind of trope, I still decided to read further and eventually finish this.
I thought that the male lead was a good 4 to 5 years older than the female lead so I'm pretty shocked to find out there was a 10-year gap between the two of them. I do not disapprove of age gaps even in real life but considering that the story started with the female lead being in high school, I think it's valid to say I was a bit bothered.
A good part of the beginning of the story TRIES to play it out that he was being an 'adult' and only trying to take care of her because she's a high school student who started living in a shared house with adults. At least that's how I interpret it to be but from Day 1 his actions always seemed suspicious. He was overly concerned about her compared to the other people in the house which in my opinion, the other adults living in the house had more 'understandable' guidance to her. Matsunaga was just EVERYWHERE in her life at the house (tho to be fair he was working at home and the others weren't but still??)
So given that build up in the story, my assumption was that Matsunaga would wait for her to be out of high school and even wait for her to be considered as an 'adult' (and i'm not talking about 18 years old here which is barely an adult, i'm talking about like 20s) so imagine my shock when he confessed he also loved her (even though Miiko confessed first) and even kissed her at the latter part of the story, knowing full well she was in high school.
Like I really appreciated that Matsunaga was being shown to be 'waiting' for her at some point because he did know making a move on someone way younger than him and someone who's in high school is definitely wrong but it all came crashing down when he did made moves on her (even when she kind initiated one of the kisses). Some of the 'cover up' to these details I mentioned is I guess how he moved away from the house when the two of them confirmed their feelings to each other. I guess it's trying to steer clear from any possibility of them doing 'stuff' if they're under the same roof.
Nevertheless, the ending was cute. He actually did 'wait' for her, in some sense she graduated from University and they started living together and stuff. I love how we see Miiko become successful and I'm happy to see that they're kind of in equal footing now that she's an adult and working. I also love how less annoying Miiko was compared to other female leads in shoujo manga and Matsunaga wasn't that overly serious adult guy that I commonly see in these age-gap manga, he actually has a balance of his goofy and serious side to him (I also admire how serious and dedicated he could be in his work, he gotta teach me his ways).
Anyway it's a solid 7. It still had a cute plot, nice characters but there really are elements or aspects of the story that I disapprove of as I have discussed earlier.
PS. I still would've chosen Ryo, he was the best boy, the man really deserved her. He's also a doctor so +10 points in my standards and most especially he's a cat lover which gives him +100 more points. In short, I love him.
