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nathandouglasdavis

  • Joined Feb 23, 2019
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These stories are built around portraying flirting in the workplace and calling your coworkers cute as adorable, but there's a reason that such behavior is unprofessional: people don't always want to be on the receiving end of such attention and it can create a tense and unhealthy workplace environment if left unchecked. If this was a good story with any sort of depth, they would include a character who didn't appreciate this type of behavior (the constant teasing and nosiness) and would use that to create more realistic drama and interactions, rather than this shallowness. On top of that, I've seen much cuter art than this and also much more interesting relationship dynamics than this (even among the shallow, cuteness-only storylines I've read). A sign of the weakness in the storytelling is that the cuteness isn't allowed to shine on its own strength; they have to have characters constantly pointing out how cute such-and-such is (good writers show it rather than tell it). And personally, I don't find most of this behavior cute. If an adult came up to me and started acting childish and immature like these characters do, I wouldn't think fe was cute, I'd be disgusted and annoyed by fem. The fact that all (five) of the characters in this comic unanimously find this behavior appealing is another thing that makes these characters feel completely detached from reality. Who's the target audience for these types of stories? It can't be people who care about seeing good stories or interesting interactions between various personalities, because they have nothing even close to that in this.

In summary, the romance is so shallow and detached from reality with its attempts at cuteness, that it's literally impossible for me to enjoy it.

[Reviewed at chapter 37]

1/10 story
2/10 art
1/10 characters
1/10 overall

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nathandouglasdavis Mar 21, 2022

wabisawa,

While I can appreciate that some of my verbage was overly black-and-white (and I apologize for that), I stand by my core critiques. That said, my core critiques are that I personally didn't find this story cute. In many ways, stories that hinge on adorability and cuteness are the hardest to review, because people who do (subjectively) find them cute will be entertained by them while those of us who don't find them cute won't be entertained. And for me personally, I've noticed that I don't tend to find adults acting like children to be cute. Other people obviously do find that cute and that's cool for those people.

Anyway, my point is that I stand by my rating. If the story didn't have depth, but I had personally found it to be cute/adorable, I would've rated it higher. But it didn't have depth PLUS it wasn't cute (to me), so I think a 1/10 is entirely deserved. It's important to remember, though, that ratings are not objective, which means that it's not wrong for two different readers to have polar opposite ratings of the manga.

wabisawa Mar 21, 2022

"If this was a good story with any sort of depth"

Not all good stories need depth. Some stories do, some don't. I strongly dislike when people make black and white judgements like this...

You also mentioned being unsure of who the target demographic would be, so let me tell you. Women. Particularly women who work in dry, shitty, real to life offices that suck your soul out. I also enjoy stories with intricate plots and diverse interactions- contrary to your belief about 'this target audience' :)

The great part about stories like this is that they ARENT realistic. It's a fantasy. A 1 star rating seems harsh considering you went to Wendy's and asked for a Wagyu steak.

I just finished chapter 68 and am totally in love. Thank you for leaving your thoughts, a noble cause, but I couldn't help but defend this simple yet adorable little manga against them.