Tonari no Seki no Satou-san

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Slight Spoilers?

Honestly, this is a hidden gem of a manga. I really enjoyed it. It's highly relatable especially for me. I've been in the MC's situation (close to the end of the manga), I didn't have that kind of happy ending. Honestly it took a nice twist towards the middle to end part, and didn't just follow the typical troupes.

Yamaguchi as a character is thought out quite well to be honest. His soliloquies were well thought out and helped build him as a character. It goes to show when you are just looking at someone, you can never really understand who they are. When you ... are willing to look beneath the surface, you can find a lot that you may like.

Honestly I don't get why Satou calls herself plain. I thought she was cute. Though I do tend to gravitate more towards plain looking, plain dressed women, because they are often worth pursuing and getting to know. Not to say all attractive women are vain and shallow, far from. I know some knock out drag out gorgeous women who are kind, warm and loving people.

I find the plainer someone looks, the more they are comfortable with who they are, they often grow into kind and loving people as well. It may seem like I am generalizing, and I am to an extent. But Satou has more to offer than she realizes. No matter how ugly or attractive you are, have confidence in yourself, because maybe someone will see whats beneath the surface.

That's the message I take away from this manga. I hope it helps you decide if you are going to read it. Honestly it's quite good. I was going to give it a 7/10, but it was more of a 7.5 out of 10, so I went with 8/10.

STORY:
The story is a simple love story between two classmates who sit next to each other. There isn't much going on aside from the two's interaction. This is something that provides a change of pace from all the other romance manga that exist.

ART:
Art is nothing special.

CHARACTER:
They have that simple character that makes them easily likeable and relatable. Satou is a bit of an airhead, and might be annoying at first, but she gets likeable easily.

ENJOYMENT:
... It was enjoyable for its simplicity and the fact it has some realistic aspects to it, like liking someone who likes someone else.

OVERALL:
This manga gave me the feels and made me want to root for them. It's a nice read for a change of pace. Don't expect too much though, and you won't be disappointed.

This manga is about a high school boy named Yamaguchi slowly falling in love with a girl named Satou. Yamaguchi is popular and smart and good at sports. Satou is plain and clumsy and bad at everything. He originally finds her annoying and dislikes having to sit next to her in class, but eventually he comes to be impressed by her kindness, perseverance, and unfaltering optimism.

The manga does a good job with Satou. Her good aspects shine through really well and it's easy to empathize with her lack of self-esteem. She comes across as really cute. Yamaguchi I didn't really like much. The manga is ... very heavy on emphasizing his thoughts and feelings so he's ultimately fleshed out pretty well. However, he's so grounded that he's actually kind of annoying.

Their relationship arc was a mixed bag. There are a lot of cute and heartwarming moments. However, at the same time the plot can get really weird. One of the major plot threads involves how Satou has a crush on a guy she's never met and only knows virtually. This was just really bizarre and I have no clue what the author was trying to do with it. The manga also ends at a point where they have not progressed enough in their relationship for it to be satisfying ending. I suppose that this was unavoidable for a partial adaptation of a novel series, but that doesn't make it any better.

The art was pretty generic and plain, but decent enough other than that. I would also like to note that while this is listed as seinen, that this overall felt very shoujo. I generally do not like shoujo romance and very rarely read it, so take this review with a grain of salt if you do, as you'll probably like this manga more than I did.

tl;dr: A romance manga that has a cute heroine but that is pretty weak outside of that.