14-sai no Koi is a manga that revolves around two 14-year old childhood friends turned lovers, Kanata and Kazuki. Both respectively seem to possess an aura that prevents the opposite gender from approaching them, and admired by their friends as being "mature" for their age. Needless to say, when they're alone, they cast off their "personas" and reveal their true nature- and their actual relationship.

The story is light, comedic, and... it's really light. The situations aren't exactly unique, but the comedy doesn't make it feel cliché at all- the focus is on the blooming love, not so much on the whole "persona" thing IMO. My only comment is that I wish they would elaborate more into these little snippets we get- each chapter is roughly ~20 pages each, so I think this manga would be better read once all the chapters are released. Idk, waiting periodically just for 20 pages for this kind of a manga doesn't seem worth it :P.

Art-wise, I was honestly expecting more judging from the cover art I looked at prior to starting the actual story. However, as I read further, I began to appreciate it- it's clean, consistent, and cute. The facial expressions of the characters are well-drawn by the mangaka and I especially like cute little Nagai-kun! Haha.

As for the characters, I must say I'm impressed by some of these characters. They share traits I didn't quite expect to see in a manga based in a middle school setting. [Not to spoil anything] but... let's just say I was surprised who gets a rival! Also, these odd characters make everyday scenes entertaining.

Hmm... as for enjoyment, I enjoyed it. Do I need to elaborate on this further? It's a refreshing look at young love. I read it and I remember my childhood.

Anyways, I'm going to conclude by saying: stop reading my review and get to reading the manga !!

Helpful

read more

I just couldn't get into this manga. For starters, each chapter is pretty much a self contained story and each one is incredibly short which means not very much happens. Then there is the entire premise that for some reason these middle school students can't reveal that they are dating or that they like each other - unless there is a law against this or this is back in the early 90's in Japan, I don't see how anyone would really care. There's literally no reason ever explained in what I read that makes any sense here.

On top of that, there's no real overarching plot that draws you in. Each tiny chapter feels more like a chance to put up a few pages that supposedly leads to an "awwww" moment or something, but most of them are cutesy rather than romantic and few of them have any sort of emotional impact at all.

Honestly, I feel like this is the manga equivalent of girls looking at pictures of cute puppies or kittens on the internet and probably not worth wasting your time over unless you really enjoy that kind of stuff.

Helpful

read more