It's good. It's a good manga.
It offered things that I had not seen before in other manga, or not that often. One of the novel things was how I felt the characters were a lot more level-headed. It was by no means perfect, but for a romance, it is more grounded than many.
I also personally really liked how they touched upon the theme of improvement and dedication. Like the main character sometimes explicitly states how continuous practice is important.
This last point about practice actually leads me to talk about something else I enjoyed about the characters. I liked the main character, at least in the first 50 chapters of the manga, acknowledged his love for the basketball girl, but also acknowledged his priorities. I think that too often romance is overromanticized by characters, and I appreciate how I can give a pat on the back to the main character for understanding that it is not by dropping his goals that he will be able to get into a relationship with the girl. He should still focus on what makes him happy as an individual.
Another point about the characters I liked is that, at least in the first 50 chapters, the relationship between the basketball girl and the main guy felt very organic. I thought I was watching real people. I'll repeat, I really enjoyed how normal they seemed and how in touch with their own goals they seemed.
On to what I didn't like. I mentioned earlier the caveat about positives especially being in the first 50 chapters, and that is because I feel like the manga takes a turn to a more typical, tropey romance. I'll list off a few examples that made me sad to see I'm a manga I had higher expectations for:
- The gymnastics girl whole thing of being in love with the main guy and constantly treating it like a competition to win the guy over even if she knows he doesn't like her back and likes someone else
- To add to the last point: I didn't like how the main guy reacted to what the gymnastics girl was doing. He should've been more decisive. It was really sad seeing the unhealthy relationship develop between the guy and gymnastics girl.
- Actually, I don't like how the author wrote in love triangle. It was at the beginning just something between two people, and it was really interesting to see how they reacted, but adding another person to the mix is just a cheap way to create drama, especially when you drag it out. Had it been resolved earlier, it wouldn't count as a negative for this manga, but dragging it on so that it becomes a major plot point for such a big part of the manga just lowered my expectations for this manga.
- Something else I didn't enjoy was the addition of the handsome basketball guy. When I saw what they were doing with him, I was just amazed at how low the manga had sunk. The guy is just a douche who is written to be disliked. For example, basketball guy chimed in on a date between main guy and basketball girl, and when the basketball girl left them for a bit, basketball guy told main guy to leave. Then he continued being passive aggressive and was listing off obviously dumb reasoning as to why main guy should stop chasing her. It was stuff like: main guy has to spend time practicing while basketball guy is good at basketball naturally, so therefore main guy won't have time for basketball girl and should stop pursuing her. Like what?? I just didn't expect such base levels drama from a manga I thought was better than this.
- There were other things that bothered me but these are the most glaring issues
As you can see, I didn't enjoy the path the manga took. I'm sad it had to turn out this way. As of writing this, I am on chapter 84 out of 100 (I think). I might still finish it cause I'm so far already. But I feel like the last 40 chapters were dragged out and had no substance or character development that couldn't have been done quicker. It reminds me of how romcoms usually drag on, it gave me the vibe of Nisekoi when it was going on and on while seeming to progress but nothing actually was progressing.
Note to past self: Just read to chapter 40ish and be happy.
On an ending note, this is a romance that has good and bad. I personally preferred the first half. I liked how they approached the characters and their personal motivations and ambitions. It becomes a cliche romance triangle in the second half. 8 for first half, 5 for second half.
