Manga Review 14 Kawaiitte Itteyo

Well it's been a while. I usually pre-schedule my posts so you can't see it from my side, but I've been taking a break due to testing. But if you follow this blog consistently you wouldn't know unless you've been told (Do you feel like an exclusive insider now? Cool right?) Anyways, onto the actual review.

Like with most manga, it's easy to find ones that are a dime-a-dozen without a different sort of approach to plot or character development. To me these are the most important thing because what's a story without plot. It's like a sandwich with no filling, good bread but not a good sandwich. So what I have to say about this manga is it's good for the short term fuzzy feelings inside, but it's not great if you're looking for a more in depth sort of bildungsroman or something along those lines. This probably has to do with the fact that this is a shorter manga. It only has four chapters which makes it a quick read, especially since each chapter is a different pairing and a different season (or at least I think that's what the author was going for). Because of the brevity of each set of characters' appearance it was hard to make more than a shallow connection with the character before the plot was advanced and sped up. I guess this is the problem with shorter manga; you just can't get the same content with a limited amount of space. In addition, it's kind of funny how old fashioned it is. Like the style is very simplistic and while that could be a reason to like it, ya know so you can focus more on the plot, it did sort of bother me that the characters floated in space at some points. But maybe that's just me being picky.

Overall I'd say that you could go ahead and read the manga if you're bored and just want a quick pick-me-up, but don't expect much from this. Like it's cute, but nothing special.

Manga Review 5 1/3 No Kareshi

This is actually the second time I've read this particular one shot. Shocking, isn't it? It seemed really familiar, but it wasn't until later that I realized it was the exact same one =_=. Well It was good just for memory's sake I suppose.

{Spoilers}

Keep in mind this is ancient, from at least 8 years ago. But it's funny how some things are just so universal; this universality may or may not be the reason I couldn't recognize that I knew it before hehe. It starts off with Rei lamenting about how she didn't have a boyfriend, bumping into Yuuya who consequentially takes a picture of her with her dress caught on her book. Classic panty flash I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Anyways, their relationship starts to develop as they continue to meet every day at lunch. This changes when Rei sees Yuuya in the junior high division which made her think that Yuuya was a junior high student. (This was around the time that I realized that I had already read this but *shrug*) That would be super scary if that were true since Yuuya is often drawn smoking cigarettes, very scary indeed. Rei, once hearing that Yuuya doesn't like older women, immediately jumps to the conclusion that he's been playing with her this entire time. In actuality it is true he doesn't like older women because PLOT TWIST he's actually a junior high division teacher that's been in love with her for 5 years ever since he was a third year high school student and she was a first year junior high division. To be honest this part was a little creepy. Like what could he have liked about her without really knowing anything about her? 

But all logic aside, this was a nice little one shot. A nice plot twist thrown in there. A resolved unrequited love. Quite nice for a short read-through. Man, oh man are one shots satisfying; not as satisfying as perhaps a completed manga you've followed for a while "but still good, yeah--still good" (Stitch from Lilo & Stitch (yes I did just quote that)). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Manga Review 4 Oshiete, Kurogane-kun

I could be absolutely crazy, but I think writing for my blog might be helping me with AP Lit.
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{Spoilers}

I thought that maybe I wouldn't have time to finish up another manga because manga take obviously a long time to make with all the super long volumes and whatnot. So I decided to introduce the people that read my blog to lots of one-shot/shorter manga for that instant gratification that is sometimes necessary when you're craving a fast manga fix.

I stumbled upon this manga, surprise surprise, on Tumblr. I know, what a shock! But seriously most of the blogs I follow on Tumblr are anime/manga related. Anyways, this manga mostly attracted me because of its short length. I'm in the midst of a lot of unfinished manga and was craving closure.

This manga is comprised of 4 chapters, but each chapter is pretty long with around 50 pages each. The pacing of the manga I would say is pretty slow, but that's okay since it's a slice of life, school life sort of manga. It just fits with the genre. The progression of the story was quite typical of slice of life/school life manga where it has the class trip and the school festival arcs. So all of this was quite typical and mundane. However, it's always the little things that distinguish the meh from the good (I won't say excellent or the like because I believe to have a truly successful plot line with solid character development it has to be a long series). This was quite good. The main distinguishing factor is how cute the two main characters, Hakura and Kurogane, are together. Both of these archetypes have been done before, the antisocial, sadistic guy and the clumsy, ditzy girl. However, Kurogane is quite fun. He enjoys teasing Hakura and the short little scene where Hakura tastes the vanilla extract as he laughs at her is quite fun. It's moments like these which really make the manga cute. The real showstopper is when Hakura confesses for the second time and Kurogane is confused because he had thought they'd been dating since the summer festival. Their realization that the other misunderstood them was adorable. This imperfection and misunderstanding they had made the whole plot more realistic.

Overall, if you're looking for a pretty short read for instant gratification and some fun moments then you should definitely give this one a go. ヾ(￣ー￣ヾ)