Machida-kun no Sekai

lollipop1141 Feb 21, 2020

10

Wonderful in all aspects.  The storytelling is simple, yet captivating. It doesn't have any unnecessary scenes that mess up the plot. The flow from one interaction to another is smooth with no hitches. Even pacing at just the right places. But most importantly, it gives valuable life lessons in the most simplest of ways.  The art is beautiful, with vivid expressions of exuberant characters, and subtle yet meaningful touches of smiles from less expressive characters. The way the author drew the art the way Machida sees it, makes you fall in love with the world as well. But the best part of the manga are the characters. They're complex people with real problems and different circumstances, who have character development. The way the author presented them felt very realistic, down to their line of thought and expressions. Machida is an amazing character and one you would also wish to be friends with, or at least have someone exist who is just like Machida. But even better, because of the main character, he makes you want to be a better person. Overall, an exquisite and rare gem that is worth your time to read.

nathandouglasdavis Nov 30, 2020

8

Machida notices other people. Fe remembers their names and what's going on in their lives; fe nonchalantly helps them as fe passes by. But fe doesn't recognize feir own strong point--the fact that feir consideration attracts people to fem--so fe has a bit of a self-esteem issue. And I guess I'm okay with that in theory, but feir inability to recognize that people (girls) are interested in fem comes across more as obliviousness than a lack of self-esteem. And that apparent obliviousness contradicts feir primary character trait--fem being hyper-perceptive and empathetic of everyone around fem. They try to explain it away as fem seeing everyone as "family," as though that somehow makes it so fe is incapable of recognizing romantic feelings aimed at fem, but it's obvious they just needed fem to be unperceptive in this specific area so some of their cheap drama could work. It's also a bit disappointing that there isn't more tension with Machida's close friends feeling shafted because of all the good deed detours that eat up Machida's time. In my experience, people who try splitting their time with everybody end up only being able to maintain shallow relationships. Spending time with those most important to you necessitates you being willing to turn down those who are less important (which, of course, necessitates you ranking peoples' relative importance to you). Honestly, that's where the primary drama should've come from rather than having it come from Machida being oblivious to romance. Or, they could've taken the story in a completely different direction and just shown a series of continuous nonchalant random acts of kindness (like in the opening of chapter five) without any focus on romance at all, and it still would've probably been entertaining. But despite those disappointments in the storytelling and characterizing, I still found the manga delightful and worth reading.

nultayy Jun 3, 2020

10

Apart from just generally being a feel-good manga, Machida-kun no Sekai does a wonderful job of approaching vaguely "taboo" topics (loneliness, pride, etc) from a simple and earthly standpoint. It is probably the first manga where getting to the end made me cry: both because it had such a wonderful finale, and because I kept wanting more. We need more Machida-kuns in the world <3