The premise ain't half-bad at all! We have the son of a film director stumbling upon a 130% exhibitionist girl who's his age. Forming a peculiar, er, working relationship, they explore various setups and smutty situations. All of their adventures/escapades are backed up by Umagome Rakure's pretty darn good art.
(For real - for a first serialized work EVER, the mangaka is doing a great job in terms of art style.)
Unfortunately, the tonal shifts in terms of relationship dynamics as the manga progresses slow down the pacing by a lot. At one point the chapters get obnoxiously shorter, too - we're talking about several instances of a 10-12 page chapter going out.
I don't mind the tonal shifts at all, to be honest. If anything, I'd like to see this manga explore more of the director/behind-the-scenes experience. It'd be great to see the series dig into more technical things while keeping its flirty/ecchi style. However - call it first baby steps for Rakure or not, it's obvious they have issues with reigning in the balance between tonal shifts and pacing.
Nevertheless, "Hajirau Kimi" is a fun series to go through. Great art, enough smut for those looking for that, and an actually fun, not-one-dimensional-cardboard-boxes-of-a-character cast. By adding just a bit more details around the original premise (filmmaking), Rakure will have something original and exciting that stands out from the ocean of bland, cheap ecchi manga with a "premise".
7/10, even though the first two dozen or so chapters were a solid 8/10. Hopefully Rakure bounces back and delivers!
