Yuuhi to, Aroma to, Koi Moyou

nathandouglasdavis Oct 2, 2020

4

Hana falls in love with the cool and kind cafe manager Shiori, but Shiori is hiding the more bumbly sides of feir personality. Unfortunately, the manga doesn't really flesh out its characters, so this idea of hidden personality traits feels more like a neat concept than something the story actually delves into. Hana's friend and Nanase most blatantly feel like empty plot devices rather than actual people, but even Hana doesn't give off the vibe of personhood. The art is pretty good, but the chins (drawn from certain angles) can feel a bit off. Also, some of the pages feel like they have too many panels cramped together. The story feels basic and unoriginal and nothing about the way the story was put together hooked me. And it felt like it was rushing over large swaths of plot progression in order to fit everything into a single oneshot. The final dialogue exchange where Hana asks to work at the cafe and Shiori welcomes fem home feels both intimate and unintimate at the same time. Why would Hana feel the need to work together if they're already in such a close relationship that Shiori's place could be considered Hana's home? It's a bad piece of writing that makes the ending feel just as uninspired and flat as much of what preceded it.