2-saisa no Osananajimi
Childhood Friends with a Two-year Age Difference.

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Ooh I am gonna get bashed by the romance police for this. Looks like I have to brace up and say it. "This was not a good romance manga", there, I said it. Now before you come after me I have a good reason for this.

Firstly the structure of the manga was boring. It was often a two page chapter with one page representing their relationship in the past, when they were younger with the another one representing the current situation of their relationship. Kind of "Then vs Now" type of manga. The problem is that this structure doesn't really permit the entry of any ... other event except them cuddling each other which may help develop their relation. It also doesn't allow the story to progress properly. The way I read a manga, it helps me imagine through its panels which I then combine to form a continous video of whats happening in my mind. But with this, there is no continous story to be made. Its just a collage of photos in the chronological order, how can I imagine something out of it.

Story wise the manga was a little too shoujo-ish for me. I am not the one who only enjoys reading school romance, but I am not the one too who likes to see couples kissing each other every panel or being horny without any development in their relationship outside of physical one. While the story is progressing in the broader sense, as you can see them in school, college, work and then being parents, but when talking about chapters individually, they are heavily disconnected as discussed above due to its structure. I liked the longer chapters much more as they actually showed things which were important for us readers to connect to the characters, also important for the development of the story.

Characters, as discussed above, were plagued by scarce storytelling, so no development for them too. Obviously you can say "oh he went from from a toddler to dad, that is enough development", but we didn't actually see that journey, did we? Also there wasn't much change in their behaviour throughout the whole manga.

Art was good throughout. I like the line art approach in the artstyle. Also all colour pages are always good. The spreads tho, just godly. Beautiful use of colours, shading and lighting.