The review has a bit of spoilers but honestly, the story's so predictable that it wouldn't even make any difference.
Reading this was like reading a part of every shoujo manga I've ever read, with absolutely no change whatsoever. You have the ball game tournament, where the FL gets injured and the ML helps her out, the school Festival where they star in a play and get famous, the hiding inside a closed space, the FL getting harassed multiple times and the ML arriving at her rescue, etc, etc. You have almost everything that's ever been written in a shoujo romcom and absolutely nothing new.
As for the characters, neither the ML nor the FL had any remarkable traits worth remembering. The guy is portrayed as an honest and straightforward person who openly declares whatever is in his heart. But in reality, he is nothing more than an aggressive, pushy guy who doesn't understand the meaning of consent and that no means no. I've seen my fair share of MLs barging into the FL's personal space and kissing them without permission, so more often than not it doesn't bother me anymore. But this one was a bit too much. At one instance, he gave her a hickey (even though she repeatedly asked him to stop), and when she covered it with a scarf, he removed it in front of everyone so that people start thinking she's his girlfriend. And to add to all this, he is possessive as hell. Yes, I'm actually complaining about his possessiveness, something I usually love in a guy. Wanna know what I don't love in a guy?? Referring to a girl as 'his property', saying things like her feelings don't matter because he's never letting her go and using the words "she's mine" in front of every guy he sees her talking to. It got so irritating after a while, I was seriously questioning the FL's sanity.
That brings me to the FL. I actually quite liked her in the beginning, because she stood her ground and rejected him properly, but unfortunately that only lasted for the first chapter. Then she turned into your typical doormat. And then the author used the jealousy trope to get her to realise her feelings for him, you know the one that goes, "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, oh there's this other girl that loves him, wait do I love him too, omg I actually fell in love with that weirdo". And honestly, I'm never going to understand how exactly did she fall in love with him. For a manga that has quite a bit of intimate scenes, I didn't feel a smidge of chemistry between the couple.
And the art, it wasn't particularly bad, but the way Abe was drawn just didn't appeal to me. If you want fanservice, there's plenty over here. You'll find Abe shirtless like every other page, for absolutely no other reason than it being hot. And yep, he is the only guy in the whole school who can feel the heat. But once again, it just somehow felt weird, I never once thought the guy was hot.
Anyway, I know my rant has been completely negative, but that's not to say that it was an awful story or anything. I gave it a low rating because it was super boring, super cliched, nothing original....no wait, I was trying to say something positive. You know what, if you're into pushy, agressive, super possessive guys, and don't mind the lack of consent or a pushover FL, you might like it. The story isn't particularly bad, there's just nothing interesting about it, at no point did I think that I wanted to know what's gonna happen next. And yep, I'm not the least bit curious or interested in continuing the story.
