Kuroiwa Medaka ni Watashi no Kawaii ga Tsuujinai
Medaka Kuroiwa Is Impervious to My Charms

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It takes a while for this story to take off. Only after 9-10 chapters one can start to get a grip what this show is all about.

In short: Misunderstandings.

Long read: It's a romcom based on a growing house of cards made of misunderstandings. All the characters involved have a fundamentally flawed understanding of pretty much everything in this story. But that's what creates the humor around the sketchy situations they're in.

The story has also laid down early several plot points that will probably cause more interesting stuff ahead. Like both Mona and Medaka being from Japan's countryside but not being aware of it. Mona sometimes ... blabs out things in her Osaka dialect which she's ashamed of. Nobody took notice so far, but it's one example where the story could take some turns.

That, and Medaka's bizarre cult that he grew up into. I'm sure the author has more ideas in mind as of how to utilize this for the sake of the plot and not just the already well-established misunderstanding that persists over him supposedly not being moved by Mona's charm.

Last but not least, the art in this one is just spectacular! They have very talented mangaka, over there, working on this. I really like it that they draw the girl's figures. Like, they always wear these baggy tops that make them appear slightly chubby. It just makes everything look much more realistic. And Mona's expressions are just priceless - both the positive and negative ones. State of the art!

Typical RomCon with a little bit of twist regarding the MC's and FMC's situation and personality. Well, MC has a reason for rejecting girls' advances but even so, he is dense. But not Ichijou Raku dense. Besides that, just think of all the RomCon tropes you can think of and its bound to be there... well at least most of them. In most school RomCon manga's everything could have been solved in less than 10 chapters, but of course, it needs to be stretched out by adding tons of tropes. And this manga is no exception.

There really isn't much character background. This girl is ... from here and is this character's that. This person is friend A who supports this character. These characters are typical jealous mobs. No further explanation. It might be a bit hasty to say, but it's been 62 chapters (as of this review) yet no further background on either of the characters. There isn't much depth to them. Why is she this, why is he that. There's a bit of it from the synopsis, but answers nothing else.

One saving grace of this manga is the art and flow of the story. I'd give it an 8/10 for the art and 7/10 for the flow.

The fact that this manga is popular is proof that gender double standards are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Mona, the not-so-slightly narcissistic "queen bee" of her high school cannot stand the fact that the new transfer student, Medaka is not swooning over her like everyone else. So she decides to make him fall for her, no matter what. Obviously, since this is a romance manga, she ends up falling for him first instead, but her motivation (at least as far as she'll admit) remains nothing more than to satisfy her own ego.

Medaka, on the other hand is not immune to her charms because he's dense, ... like so many other male leads. He's not even immune at all, he's just holding himself back - he is training to be a monk, and that means he is forbidden from having romantic relationships. As far as we can tell, he's choosing that lifestyle of his own free will.

Of course Mona does not know this, but it's doubtful that she'd care even if she did. No matter how many times Medaka tells her that he doesn't want to hang out with her, she doesn't back off - and her attempts at seduction can get rather physical at times. But wait, that's not all! Medaka's classmates actually chew him out for being "mean" towards their beloved idol, and force him to at least be on friendly terms with her whether he wants to or not.

While the manga is rather self-conscious about Mona's narcissism and less-than-pure motives, she still gets away with pretty much anything - and the more I read, the more that bothered me, because, let's face it, what she's doing is basically textbook sexual harassment. But she's a girl, so it's apparently okay. Yaaay.