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thor123

  • Belgium
  • Joined Sep 29, 2014
  • 28 / M

I don't normally read romance manga, but the synopsis intrigued me and I had read the one-shot already so I decided to give it a go. And boy, was I happy that I did.

Story

The story starts with a normal guy who dies because of an accident, which also killed a girl. He is then brought to a kind of limbo, where he mysterious voice tells them that he will let one person live as the other dies. They get one week to decide who lives and who dies, and in this week they cannot leave the other's side. Back in the normal world, they notice that even their physical and emotional feelings are shared... man, God is a cruel person...

Now, as they can't kill each other, can't leave each other, and even get  a peak inside the other's head by feeling the same emotions, they need to decide who lives and who dies. It's a relatively simple recipe for a great manga. A tragedy, with a certain beauty to it that I didn't expect before starting it.

Characters

Because they are inseparable now, we are shown a lot of things about the lives of the two, so the reader will be very attached to the characters before, inevitably, one has to die. Of course, for this to work, the characters have to be very well fleshed out, interesting and amicable. Which is something that has succeeded perfectly well: the characters are all the things they have to be, and more. They are as human as actual humans, or at least it feels that way. The best proof I can give for this is the fact that I actually cried at the ending, which doesn't happen too often... The decision they had to make would break anyone's heart (unless you are a person who doesn't know what a heart is).

One could argue that this manga is very short, and that that would mean for most people that you can't get attached to the characters properly. One would be wrong. It's been proven countless times already that you don't need a lengthy story to get attached to characters - if you don't believe me, try watching shorts like Furiko or La Maison en Petits cubes: both are short, yet powerful. If a story gets to the core in a decent way, it doesn't really matter how long it takes. Or at least, that's my opinion.

Art

The artwork was good too, nothing too fancy but good... (man, I really need to find better ways to describe art...)

Overall: It's a great, relatively short romance manga. Especially the characters were very well done.

8.5/10 story
7.5/10 art
9.5/10 characters
8.7/10 overall

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