Jan 12, 2025
Interesting, no reviewer here has actually finished the manga (at least as of me writing this).
As a small TLDR; it's a great idea for a manga to touch the mature side of a relationship built on a disparity, but the execution is boring, with a pretty, and weirdly stupid final arc. Read it if you still find the synopsis interesting.
“Meguro-san wa Hajimete ja Nai” is one more in the many “manga about a normal guy and a girl with a twist”. You have the Komi-san, and her communication problem, Uzaki and her massive plots, Nagatoro and her bullying, and many others which I started
...
all those years ago. All of those ending, or close to ending at this point, but all of them understanding how to make a plot slightly more exciting than this one.
Meguro-san, to be honest, is the definition of mediocre in the whole genre. The story itself sounds pretty great on paper. A girl who's got loads of experience meets a meek guy, and both have to understand how to deal with this kind of relationship. It felt adult, like a more interesting exploration on the wish fulfillment manga that are those I mentioned. I was excited to read about a good angle in that situation, but it was just… boring.
The story explores the relationship, yes, and many others. Kinds of relationships, and how their dynamics may be too disfunctional to work, how some can be saved, or how many are utterly ruined by the difference in both sides. These outside problems ideologically test the relationship from our protagonists, but it repeats that throughout the manga. The main couple has little to no disruption that's too palpable, but the way they solve their problems makes the issues feel empty, meaningless. In that sense, it doesn't feel like a story worth telling, and that sounds like “I wanted more spice”. Not really. In fact, there are many manga with adult couples where there's not really ANY difficulty.
How could it have been done well? It's the amount of testing the relationship gets here. They get tested so many times, and every time it felt like the author telling you how easy it is. Instead of focusing on the couple, we focus on their meaningless issues, which don't change the relationship. How about their chemistry? How about their dates? There's too little of that. It wouldn't be bad as a small guide in how to deal with strange relationships, but then it came the last arc.
Out of nowhere, the author tries to throw a hammer in the relationship. Not from an outside force, but from the main guy himself. For no apparent reason, HE is the one testing the relationship in the most nonsensical way ever. No moment before set this up, he just decides:
SPOILER
“Hell yeah, let's make my girlfriend SPEND DAILY TIME WITH HER EX, WHICH IS A TEACHER I KNOW”.
END OF SPOILER
It didn't even lead to anything. They met again, and it just… ended. Empty, like an author not knowing how to end it. A series, not abandoned, but ended like that. I expected it to move on from that, but acknowledging the issues the main guy's got. Some sort of self reflection, or something to give us an idea as to the why. He explained himself with empty words, but I guess he was just, not romantically responsible, and maybe that's the point.
The story itself isn't that interesting anyway. I didn't care about them. Their chemistry was slightly there, but never to an appealing degree. This is a middle of the road story, with middle of the road characters, and mediocre progression which I finished simply due to obligation. People won't like it because they might think “NTR”, but there's never an instance of that. Those problems are unfounded, but again, there's no outrage here, just a boring story, with side characters that have a much better arc than the main couple.
4.5/10. Not the “hate it and love it kind”, but the “Meh” kind.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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