I think I just have a problem where if the manga's morality/believable nature is bad enough, I can't put it down. That's exactly what happened with this manga. Because I think if you've read enough shoujo, you start to put yourself in the main heroine's shoes. That's where the idea of this manga stems from. You believe you're this fairytale perfect heroine that's super righteous and always immaculately beautiful, gracious, and perfect both inside and out. Obviously though we're not all the main heroine of a shoujo manga for one reason or another. So this manga explores the reality of being grounded and not allowing yourself to be swept up in these delusions.
{Spoilers}
The story follows this girl named Hatori that thinks shes the main heroine in this made up love story she came up with in her head between her longtime friend Rita and herself. Rita goes out with any girl that shows interest in him just about, but Hatori plays this off as if it's no big deal. After all, she always tells herself, the end game will be between herself and Rita after all. But in life, there's never any guarantees. Rita ends up falling in love with an unlikely "side character" named Adachi. Their relationship is super wholesome with the cliche "boy protects meek nerdy girl from being bullied and teaches her to love herself" kind of arc. Hatori, of course, sees this and immediately feels threatened. Here comes a genuine heroine that loves Rita, even if she's a bit submissive, and they're living happily. Hatori's place in Rita's life is being claimed by Adachi inch by inch.
Hatori is also kind of a jerk. When she feels her place being threatened, she doggedly pursues Rita, confessing her love finally because she can't stand to see her place being overtaken by this random girl. And I think if you've ever had an unrequited love and were ever too scared to confess, you can really sympathize with Hatori. Of course the way she goes about it is incredibly immoral, but somehow you can't help but feel bad for her in these times of desperation. At least I can, a little oop.
Then along comes another variable to mess things up even more, playboy Hiromitsu. He comes into the picture as this playboy that'll help Hatori forget all about her love woes. And while Hatori's busy trying to suppress her feelings for Rita finally, Rita and Hiromitsu both catch feels for this dumb girl. Okay, I say dumb girl, but please don't take offense. She's just trying her best to forget Rita, even though she obviously can't because she keeps going back to him which just hurts Hiromitsu who genuinely fell in love with her more.
In between this time and the end is this sort of tug of war with Hatori. On one hand, Rita finally loves her back. On the other, she's got this sweet patient boy Hiromitsu who genuinely loves her and wants to treat her right. Maybe I've just got serious sympathy for the second leads, but Hiromitsu is such a nice boy, so why can't Hatori see that?
By the end of the story, Hiromitsu's let go of possibly the first girl he ever truly loved. Adachi realized she can find her own happiness and can be loved. And Rita and Hatori lived happily ever after in their idiotic couple world. Obviously there was a lot more turmoil involved that gave me lots of secondhand stress, but that was the gist of it.
Shoutout to Nakajima for being honestly too good of a friend to Hatori. Even when she kinda caught feels for Rita, she realized what was happening. And she was always so patient and loving towards Hatori, even if it was displayed through lots of tough love. She was the realest one.
Overall, if you've ever felt like shoujo was getting kinda stale and you're looking for a spicy story that's in the same vein as shoujo but a new spin to it, I'd say check this manga out. There's many questionable twists and turns in the story that'll keep you hooked.
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