Recently I haven't had a lot of time to read as much manga much less watch any anime. I've been focusing more on my schoolwork as I've been trying to balance school with a bit of a social life. Not gonna lie and say that I don't love sleeping as well or that I couldn't be doing more, but with my current workload it's just about bearable. Every day has been a pretty uneventful day. Some days are a bit more *sparkly* with that youthful glow, but with my increasingly more regular back problems it seems like those are more like moments rather than full days. But those are good too! Probably because I've been spending more time in social situations like meals and such I've been feeling a lot more drained. Perhaps because I only slept 5 hours?
{Spoilers}
I think reading this manga really solidified my understanding of my stance towards shoujo manga now. As I was looking for the next series to pick up or just to start, I realized that I gravitate towards certain kinds of male and female protagonists and when the characters of a shoujo manga don't align with my preferences it makes it immediately less enjoyable for me. Before when I would pick a shoujo up I'd be much less critical unless it really sucked with the plot and useless female leads. But now I just feel like they're starting to lose their edge altogether for me.
For instance, this manga starred this headstrong girl named Anzu who aimed for president of her high school, ended up as vice president, and proceeded to fall in love with the guy who is your stereotypical "I'm full of myself, but also I had a tragic backstory and I love you" kind of guy. If you read a lot of shoujo you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong. He's pretty cute and his tsundere sort of nature is pretty cute if you're into that sort of thing, but this is what I mean by you can't really take my reviews on shoujo as seriously anymore. They just don't really do it for me. It's a totally cutesy slice of life story about each of them finding out about the other's feelings, some side characters finding their happily ever after that isn't fleshed out because it's only 16 chapters so it feels rushed and not at all gratifying, and of course a love triangle. And I guess if you're like 15 years old and you're still looking for that prince charming or that fairy tale idealized life, then yeah shoujo is definitely where it's at for you.
Honestly, I think there are better shoujo out there that follow the basic same premise, but just because it's longer and there's more time to flesh out the characters and the plot more it's a more successful attempt at this type of story. It's definitely very cutesy and very fairy tale-esque, but I think it's just a me problem that I'm not super into these whole fantasy rich boy prince charming thing that's so common in shoujo.
Ooof I feel like this whole review was very much so negative, but TL;DR I think I'll slowly distance myself from shoujo because it just isn't as gratifying to read anymore :(
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