Thank god they know how to work out their problems and avoid stereotypical shoujo misunderstandings. How rare it is for the girl to be the popular one - and the guy to embrace working in a flower shop. Characters are sweet, mature, considerate, and supportive towards each other. No toxic behavior! what a surprise. FL and ML are respective of each other and know their boundaries. Honestly quite a gem in the shoujo category these days, Honestly great for a laidback read and gives you quite a lot of serotonin. The little flower notes at the end of each chapter were a nice addition as well.

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You've probably already pieced together that Takane no Ran-San is yet another sweet, sugary shoujo romance set in high school. I think this one is better than the average, primarily on merit of its characters, which are fleshed out and unique enough that they don't completely disappear into the crowd of the hundreds of manga that come before it. Though there's really isn't any story beyond the romance, and the other characters aren't very well developed, as is generally par for the course, but Saeki and Ran's interactions were sweet and interesting enough to keep me engaged.

There's a trend now in shoujo that instead of (and to the frustration of many readers) artificially prolonging the will-they-won't-they phase of the relationship, as used to be the standard for shoujo, now they let the couple get together at the natural time. I feel like this change is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because no one enjoyed the ridiculous contrivances authors would force on their protagonists to keep them apart, but also a curse because it seems the alternative is hundreds of manga that all have their protagonists go on the exact same dates and have the exact same relationship problems over and over again, with very few exceptions. So unfortunately, I feel that Takane no Ran-San falls into the same trap, becoming distinctly less original after a certain point.

Still, if you're looking for a sweet, heartwarming romance that's low on drama, then Takane no Ran-San fills that niche decently enough.

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