Again, as I have already alluded to, the story in Nine Puzzle is your standard shoujo where the main protagonist, Mika Sawamura, is your typical high school girl who's never had a boyfriend. Meet Kaede Minakami, your typical mysterious classmate who seems cold and distant at school, but once you see him outside of school in an environment that he's comfortable in - Billiards is the name of the game in Nine Puzzle - you'll see a completely different kid. Ultimately, you read how Mika gradually enters the game of billiards and slowly befriends - and falls in love - with Kaede.
The one thing about the majority of the shoujo art is that I absolutely love it! It has that distinct style that is present - similar to other popular series as Vampire Knight and Lovely Complex. It's really detailed, realistic and neat and fits in extremely comfortably with the story presented. Which is why I probably rated the art so high. Hehe. However, besides that factor, there really isn't anything else that caught my attention about it.
With many of these short shoujo romances, you cannot expect too much from the character development department, and that's definitely the case with Nine Puzzle. Mika, Kaede and the other main character - Youhei Ueda (the owner of the billiards store Mika and Kaeda will end up frequenting) - don't have anything special about them and pretty much what you're presented with in the first chapter is what you'll see throughout the rest of the next seven chapters. They even look extremely similar to other female and male leads in other shoujo manga. But again, all three of them are extremely likable and with such a short story, you'll have no trouble relating to all three.
Ultimately, what everything comes down to is how well are you going to enjoy this story, and personally, I absolutely loved it. Yes, it brought nothing new to the table. Yes, its your standard shoujo romance. Yes, the characters are rather plain and not complex. However, the manga-ka uses a proven formula of shoujo romance in Nine Puzzle and without a doubt, that formula works especially well in this manga. I highly recommend this story to people who are looking for a quick fix, with something simple and easy to read (without having to think about complex situations) and a story that is cute and enjoyable to read.
