Kyouhan

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Have you ever sat down and tried putting a puzzle board together, thinking all the while that there might not be enough puzzle pieces to actually finish the set and then ended up being right about that by the time you went to finish the puzzle? The board may look "complete" by the time you've assembled it but somehow it still feels wrong; it feels off somehow. This manga is a lot like that.

Kyouhan is a very ambitious story that tries to do quite a lot with a very small chapter count. All of the pieces necessary to write an enthralling and captivating story are ... there, but it somehow just doesn't feel like enough. In this case, it actually just isn't enough. There are so many elements to work with here that just aren't given enough time to develop and get hashed out properly that it does make the story feel wanting and a tiny bit flat in the end. There is a beginning, middle, and ending to this story. The conclusion was also satisfactory. All I wanted was more of what I saw but never got.

Given that, why do I recommend this, then? At the end of the day, I just find Kyouhan charming. It's a story that's both dark and disturbing yet refreshing and cute at the same time, flirting with both mature themes and an innocent love story concurrently. It's hard to give too many details about this without outright spoiling central themes to the manga, but there's plenty of stuff to like here, especially if you like romance. It may not be the most objectively "good" or fleshed out story with only 11 chapters, but the artwork is fantastic and being so short it's very easy to get through. The current plot synopsis on MAL doesn't really do it justice either, as it makes this seem like the type of story that it isn't and doesn't even begin to describe what kind of experience you'll have reading this.

Anyway, here's the rub. If what I've said here sounds at all up your alley, just give it a shot. There's not much to lose here even if the story is missing some puzzle pieces. It's hardly the best thing I've ever read but there's a lot to like here, especially for those less critical than me.