Tonari no Kashiwagi-san

Proto57 Aug 10, 2020

7.5

This manga is focused on 4 characters essentially. The MC and the main girl and the secondary friends. Basically this story is a classic slice of life, school, romance. There is no drama but it doesnt mean the story is not serious. MC is the pathetic cliche otaku and he will quickly fall in love with his classmate, a shy and mysterious popular girl that seems cold because she never talks to anyone. They will learn to be partner and MC will quickly confess (it's important to note that, it's not that much a spoiler, it's just for you know that it's not of those manga where MCs are tenses and never admit their feelings). Both lack of communicating skills (rest assured it wont be used to force useless, frustrating and forced drama, just some little misunderstandings quickly solved and not frustrating). To prevent that and help them, the 2 others characters from above will help. MC's friend (a normal yes life teenager) and girl's friend (an overprotective tsundere). The romance is virgin's type. Understand by this that you wont see sex, ecchi scenes or a character that will "attack" his/her crush. Thus romance development is not the fastest ever seen but not the slowest. As I already said, it's not the typical shounen where both MCs are tenses and will never admit their feelings like you have everytime in romcom. The characters will act in a cute way to delight their crush. The characters are not bad. MC is cliche but not tense. He's true regarding his feelings and if he creates a problem he will do everything to solve it. The main girl is cute and naive. She can do a bunch of things to delight MC. The only complaint is that she was too fuzzy with her feelings regarding MC. She was almost unreasonable with MC but it's not that much a problem and actually it can be understandable. Imagine being confessed by someone who talks with you for 2 weeks only.. MC's friend is more insightful about relationship without being a player and finally the girl's friend is the cliche tsundere but she will enable progress between both MC because when there is a problem between them, she wont hesitate to yell on MC to force him to move. The art is good and modern. To conclude, this manga is a good romance read if you are not looking for a serious drama or a stupid romcom only focused on comedy. It's cute and light hearted.

MMHunter Jul 22, 2020

2

If you're looking for a deep dive into personalities of the characters or the art, this may not be right for you. I’m only going to discuss the development of the story and its main characters. Keep in mind this may contain spoilers and i'm not a writer. I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling errors. With that out of the way, let's get started. I want to express this manga takes a very long time to get moving. The first 15 chapters are good, then a bunch of random this and that until around chapter 66. The manga is 84 chapters long and could (should) have ended in 50 or so chapters. This is your basic otaku falling in love with a popular girl story. It’s a cookie cutter type of story but, I love a good opposites attract romance.  In the beginning it’s easy to connect with the male lead and understand where the female lead is coming from. But, after a few chapters I got this feeling like the author was trying to drag this out as long as possible by throwing in random, meaningless chapters. The romance between the side characters was odd but enjoyable, at times I wished they were the main characters. The main character, Yuuto, is your traditional clumsy, introverted, pushover, pathetic otaku. He does everything you think he would do in a cliche romantic comedy; except for how early he confesses his feelings. Kotone, (the main heroine) is boring, lackluster and never changes. The manga relies heavily on Yuuto and her best friend to make her seem interesting. The good thing is because the characters are simple and the story is straightforward (for the most part), there are no real plot holes. (SPOILER ALERT) With exception to the very end; they make it seem like some things were a dream and some were real but they never explain that.  Overall, it’s a 2 out of 5 or just okay. Would I recommend it to someone to read? Hell no. We wait a long time for chapters of our favorite manga’s to come out and we invest a lot of time and money in this. To get to the end (SPOILER ALERT) and the payoff is hand holding and a kiss on the cheek is demoralizing. Even more so when the side characters and talking about taking their relationships to some adult levels. I guess a lackluster end to a lackluster story is fitting.