So I saw the cover art and was like, 'sure, why not?' because it looked kinda cute. I swear it's like occasionally the gods see me partaking in the GL dumpster fire and decide to personally drop a load of trash on my head just to spite me. Ayame to Amane was one particularly fragrant poop nugget.The cover is a goddamn lie. The art is nowhere near that good, not that the art being bad is really that important in the grand scheme of things. The OPM webcomic can attest to that. You can have bad art and still write a good manga, is my point. And it does improve noticeably over the 21 chapters I was able to stomach before tapping out. Honestly, at that point, if it wasn't this series, I'd probably be like 'yeah, art was bad but it got better, 6/10 on the scale of GL's low as heck standards', but it's not enough to make up for other flaws. I hope the author is at least getting art practice out of writing this series, because I can't fathom what other value they could be finding in it.No, my main problem with this thing is just how abysmal it manages to be as a gag manga. It's basically a 'haha, gay people grope' manga. That's the joke. OPM arguably had one joke, too, but this is just so... so cringe. Like, maybe I don't get it because I'm lgbtq+ myself, but why is this considered funny? It's not really offering any critique of gropers (genuine problem), it's not really poking fun at oblivious gay schoolgirls (a staple of GL), it's just kinda 'gay sexual harrassment is funny'. I have to wonder if Japanese people find this kinda stuff funny, or if they react to this in the same way we react to those old newspaper comics our parents might skim over on a Monday morning. You know that vague smile of 'I am in physical pain but I can see a joke was attempted somewhere'?As such, there's really nothing to say about the characters. The whole thing is one long 'joke' of Kamijou being thirsty for her friend Chiho, who doesn't feel that way about her, but for some reason tolerates her gropey, creepy bullshit. It's trying to use a thin veil of 'comedy' to normalize creepy behavior towards women, to ignore personal boundaries just because you lust after someone, and to push dated stereotypes of gay people being rapists, only this time it's meant to be funny rather than titillating. Thanks Japan. I've never seen you guys do that one before. I don't really feel anything for Ayame to Amane beyond a vague sense of disgust at this point.Honestly, if you think gay people are intrinsically funny, and people reacting to gropey physical comedy is right up your alley, hey, whatever, I don't judge. You might get some enjoyment out of this manga. As it was, I wanted to get to current chapter, just so I felt I could review it fairly, but 21 chapters was enough to make me tap out in sheer boredom. I don't usually rate things this low unless I genuinely hate everything about them, but there's almost nothing for me to like here. There's no fluff, no angst, no funny jokes, no good art, no genuine feeling behind any of it that I can discern, and it's amazing/baffling to me that the author has managed to keep this level of 'quality' going for over thirty chapters.If you don't see anything wrong with this manga... I'm not even gonna finish that sentence. Let's just say this one wasn't for me.
Add to list