Kuroiwa Medaka is another entry into the aloof boy, outgoing girl high school harem romance. While it has teased genuinely interesting introspection for the primary female lead, it often doubles back on these developments in favor of standard faire harem hijinks. This tendency, stacked on top of a milk toast male protagonist, weakens an otherwise pleasant shounen romance series.
PLOT – 3/5
The central gimmick at the beginning is that the main female MC Mona Kawaii (ha) is very cute and has a compulsive need to be adored by everyone, while Kuroiwa Medaka believes himself obliged to follow the precept of celibacy in his training to be a monk. When she tries to get his attention, he, with all his willpower, resists showing affection and Mona, infuriated, resorts to more unchaste and aggressive ways to woo him over while unexpectedly falling in love with him. This gimmick does carry for a while but does get stale. The plot has begun to wash this out, however, and replace with a general harem romance dynamic.
CHARACTERS – 3/5
When the story was focused on the gimmick, it briefly moves in an interesting introspective direction regarding Mona in which she becomes aware of and evaluates this need. However, that is eventually replaced by more cute anime girls who mostly talk about (1) their one or two distinguishing interests and (2) how much they like Medaka. There is a charm to the female characters because they do become aware of their failures, do not understand themselves and contemplate insufficiencies in their character, and are aware they are in a competition with each other.
Medaka, on the other hand, in a humorous self-aware meta-statement, is called boring by one of the love interests. Though Medaka’s circumstances are clever and make his reactions to the girls understandable, it becomes difficult to understand why these girls like him so much. This starts to change around 80 - 90 chapters in, but that is more than enough time for audiences to lose interest.
ART – 3.5/5
I personally enjoy the art. It very consciously limits backgrounds and invites the reader to focus on the dynamics of their facial expressions and personal feelings. This decision is probably why the characters are charming despite mostly lacking substance.
CONCLUSION
I am caught up and still enjoying it from week to week. If you are looking for a different variation of Rent-a-Girlfriend, this might be amusing and fun to you. I am a little disappointed with it becoming a harem when I think it should have stayed a love triangle and focused more on the weaknesses of the girls rather than just their lack of courage to confess. It also could take Medaka’s commitment to becoming a monk more seriously to add interesting perspective.