Perhaps it's not fair of me to review this when I've dropped it, but I thought I should share the reasons why I did so. Please still give this manga a try despite what you read in this review because you might like it; after all this is purely subjective and based on my own preferences.
Now, despite everything, at first the manga was inoffensive. The art was pretty, like all standard shoujo, the girl was cute and I didn't mind seeing how the girl went about becomng a model. But then, small things popped up, things that I didn't mind ignoring for the time being. Things like:
She was apparently unfashionable because she wore her school uniform the correct way, with the skirt at her knees and a tie done properly. Maybe that's not what everyone else wears it, but why the judging? What's so bad about it? But since the point of the story is that she is going to change, I can accept this.
She gets a makeover by her love interest, who is a model and the popular one that all the girls like but still takes an interest in the 'boring' girl (like always). Never mind that's been done a million times. Whatever.
There is also no chemistry between her and the boy. I didn't care if they got together and their interest in one another felt superficial and forced by the mangaka. But also, whatever, this isn't the first manga I've read that made me feel this way and I still managed to finish them.
Then I started to get warning signs:
She is bullied into everything by the boy and honestly there is an unbalanced dynamic between the two. He makes decisions for her whether or not she agrees with them, she goes along with them despite her resevations, and she always seeks his approval.
It seems as though the girl's self-worth is based entirely on her appearance and whether her love interest likes her. Confidence should not be just because of that. You know that, I know that, and she should have known that.
Her weight is made an issue even though she looks really skinny and in need of food. For example, she is worried about being too heavy to ride behind the boy on his bike because she gained 2kg, he calls her cute because she's chubby but that she needs to lose that chubbiness to model, and she also begins to diet.
Her dieting is actually what leads to the catalyst for me dropping this manga. The thing is, she was made to feel guilty about eating a tuna salad crepe. A TUNA SALAD CREPE of all things. How much more healthier can you get? What is NOT healthy about tuna salad? Yet the look that the boy gives her, that disappointed judgy look, and the way she shamefully stopped eating when she saw him, it was as if it was actually a giant chocolate sundae drizzled with hot caramel sauce, garnished with double choc brownies and topped with tiny sugar flowers. Yes, even I would momentarily feel guilty about eating that but a tuna salad? ARE YOU TRYING TO STOP HER EATING ALL TOGETHER??!!
So yes, that was the reason why I dropped it and why I will not consider trying to re-read it in the future just in case I was wrong to drop it. But despite the raging, indignant feminist inside me, if you were considering reading it before this review, like I said in the beginning please still give it a try. It's not fair to the manga since I couldn't continue reading any further and dropped it on its 4th chapter and maybe the future chapters aren't like these four chapters.
