{Spoilers}
Yukina lives a double life; by day she's a regular junior high student without many friends because of her habit of staring at people and her icy cold gaze and by night she's a sensational cellphone novelist. Because of her readers wanting more romance in her stories, Yukina shifted her genre from friendship and adventure to romance which led to some difficulty since she didn't know anything about romance. One thing led to another and she ended up roping the school's prince and golden boy Shigure into doing missions with her. Things wouldn't be complete without a complicated love web with Shigure and Akira loving Yukina and Mami loving Shigure and then Akira and Hisame loving Mami and pretending to love Yukina. It's not even close to a triangle, it's just a mess.
As far as the plot and pacing goes I'd say it was perfect. There's a reason it's so well-known (besides me because I dunno a whole lot of mangas) with the pacing keeping you satisfied but just hungry enough to know what happens next to keep you on the edge of your seat. There was never a useless character or a pointless arc. It was a well constructed piece of art. It was a true coming-of-age in terms of Yukina slowly realizing what love was. At the beginning she was only after physical love, thinking that that was all you needed to be 'in love' and after her readers commented that something was missing between the two main characters of her story she slowly started to realize that there was something beyond the physical aspect of love. In some ways this inward struggle as you start to date people for something beyond their looks and more for the bond that the two of you share is relatable to Yukina's inner turmoil as she tries to figure out what exactly love is and how it feels. And it's not always easy as Yukina soon finds out. In fact it's really hard when things are thrown in her way like Akira's love for her and her love for him which are both love, just not the same love. Or when she realizes that her first love was for her kindergarten teacher and she wasn't sure if she was over it yet. She hadn't learned about the different kinds of love and what they meant. And the way the author so poignantly describes the different sensations of the varieties of love that Yukina experiences leaves the reader with a feeling of turmoil, of confusion, of sadness, of happiness all alongside her.
Although most of the manga is based upon Yukina's experience as she finds out what love is, alongside her journey is the people around her also learning what love is. The person she most directly touches is Shigure. Their relationship at first is rocky with the dynamics between them cloudy. The waters start to clear once the missions aren't just for blackmail purposes anymore, but are actions with intentions of discovery and love behind them. With Yukina, Shigure can take off the golden boy mask he wears with everyone and that's really the key to his heart. When he's able to be genuine with someone and learns to love someone truly and deeply it allows him to become the kind of person he was on the inside and let it shine through towards the outside. Without Yukina he would've never been able to let loose and let go of the perfect image in front of his stepfather. As far as Hisame goes, his love was a bit more complicated. If I were to stick a label on it "tsundere" would be the closest thing. Except his version is an extreme one. At times when he's talking about his novel as Dolche his fantasies turned into novel points seem almost obsessively manic. However, even though he lives in a world of fantasy it's hard not to love him and fall a little bit in love with his teenaged confusion. He doesn't know how to express his feelings and, like Yukina, starts to lose his way a little bit into the pit of physical contact without love behind those actions. His feelings for Mami were rather convoluted, but came from a good place in his heart where he wanted the best for her. As for Mami, she's probably the pure maiden type in this story. She's the most mature and knowledgeable when it comes to romance and reading one's own feelings which allows her to transition from loving Shigure to loving Akira in one of the smoothest parts of the manga. But it doesn't mean she doesn't have her own chip in her shoulder. She's a bit of a crybaby, but that makes her even more adorable and she never gives up (refer to the Christmas extra chapter). Akira was maybe one of the most bittersweet characters in the manga. He loves Yukina unconditionally and with an undying devotion. He was willing to be anyone she wanted him to be and do anything for her. And he still didn't end up with the girl. It wasn't the right kind of love. But he was mature and let her go. He was still her guardian angel, her knight in the wings. He deserves a lot of cute plushies and hugs.
Beyond the characters themselves and the plot and the pacing and all the great things about this novel, was the feelings I got from this. Maybe because the pacing was so great and the characters so well developed that I was able to get a lot of romantic feelings. Or maybe because it was so relatable on the level of finding out about love and not really knowing how you're feeling that made it resonate so deeply with me. (In a non mystical way, just a heart-touching kinda feel)
One thing I have to point out though, is that it is rather sexual and I don't think it's that realistic for a middle schooler to have these thoughts and feelings. It feels rather mature for middle schoolers. Like I don't know what middle schoolers these days are doing, but I sure don't think they think about things quite like this. It seemed more of a high school kind of feeling because realistically middle schoolers aren't quite so, developed? Or so I thought way back when 6 ish years ago.
Overall this was a brilliant manga. I was telling my friend how it gave me actuall doki-dokis. I felt my heart actually pump faster, which is kind of cheesy but it's the truth. It's one of the best shoujo mangas I've ever read. It feels complete, it feels whole, it gives you the most pleasant feeling once you're done reading it. I really recommend reading it if you're puzzling out your love life or just want something kind of dramatic but really fun to read.
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