Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata
A Method to Make the Gentle World

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I'm hesitant to write the very first review for a new series. An obscure one (for now) to boot. So, without any further ado, here's my take -- and do forgive me for any misconceptions I may make since this is still a very new manga.

STORY
The summary is exactly what MAL's very own synopsis says. While there certainly are /some/ panty shots, this manga isn't exclusively ecchi. Rather, I feel, it is a very slow school romance. What's very interesting is that despite the common "guy teaches at an all-girls school" trope, the story doesn't read like a harem. Indeed, the mangaka chooses to ... focus on three main characters: Yuu Tomonoga (the 19-year-old teacher whose true passion is research), Haruka (the problem girl who was sexually harassed by a previous teacher), and Aoi (the girl genius who studies physics in her free time).

Each chapter reveals a little something about Tomonoga-san's past, mostly his struggles as a genius with an extraordinarily high IQ. Each chapter also covers his experiences as a teacher, as he tries to help both Haruka and Aoi, while at the same time, he remains ignorant of their crushes. I'm especially glad that the story isn't episodic or arc-like so far and that it is told from a few different perspectives, which makes for greater variety.

ART
Like I said, panty shots exist, albeit in a more subtle, subdued form -- sorry, fans of ecchi manga like Rosario+ Vampire! They don't distract from the manga, which is a real treat for female readers, because they're not so obvious. The accidental shots actually reinforce Tomonoga-san's young age, when he just blushes and runs out of the room.

I thought the art resembled the Durarara!! illustrations due to flat noses and character designs. Generally, the art of Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata is well done and kept simple with backgrounds as needed -- just enough to keep the story flowing and to not distract the reader. Screen tones are used frequently, yet cartoony expressions are little to none.

CHARACTER
Although not every character is given the same treatment, the three main characters that I listed earlier -- Tomonoga, Haruka, and Aoi -- are developed adequately for me to start caring about them. Personally, I'm rooting for Aoi to date Tomonoga-san if it had to come down to a love triangle, but I wish that Tomonoga-san would not be involved in a relationship with one of his students. Then again, it's ~manga~ and he's young, so who knows?

Haruka's personality drives the story. Ever since she was molested by a teacher who, according to another teacher, started looking at her as a woman when she modeled for a magazine, Haruka is deeply suspicious of Tomonoga's intentions. She is also concerned for her fellow students, especially the shorter Aoi.

ENJOYMENT
Mhm. Read all five scanlated chapters in one go.

OVERALL
Good, looking forward to the next chapter! Will check back every once in a while, 'cause the scanlations are not updated as frequently as those of WSJ series.

The synopsis doesn't do this series justice. If you liked Taiyou no Ie or Hirunaka no Ryuusei, then you will like this one.

Yuu's story--his problems as a researcher, and his feelings as a new teacher--is really just the lens to get to know three girls in his class:

-- The genius who desperately wants to be "normal."
-- The model dealing with her first love.
-- The "loose" girl who never wants to go home.

It's these stories that drive this manga, and ultimately that make it great. These three are all beautifully drawn, brilliantly written, and wonderfully developed characters. They learn, they grow, and they ... all achieve a happy ending that they worked hard to find. It's some of the best character development that I've ever seen in any manga.

The other side characters are hit-and-miss. Yuu and the older male teacher are both pretty well developed (though I would have loved to have seen an epilogue chapter from Yuu's perspective that fleshed out the romance aspect a bit more.) The female otaku friend of the three main girls was always just kind of hanging around and not doing much, until the last chapter, when suddenly she seemed to have this really interesting personality. The two female teachers both played important roles, and yet were oddly lacking in character development or screen time, considering. I wish there had been more time spent on them.

Ultimately, however, the hits massively outweigh the misses. This is a great manga for anyone who likes dramatic slice of life with a little romance.

NOTE: I based this review on the five chapters that have been scanlated and uploaded. Sadly, there isn't much to base this review on, but I'll try my best to suffice.

I was looking for some romance manga to read, and a fellow user suggested some series named Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata. I checked it out, and saw that it was of the notorious "guy-teacher-at-all-girls-school" plot device. Given that and the romance theme, I was led to assume that this would be another ecchi-here-ecchi-there kind of school romance, with the male teacher character led into conspicuously "troubling" situations with the female students. I checked the volume ... cover, however, and saw that the drawing was neat and clean. I decided to check it out, and I certainly don't regret doing it.

I misjudged the manga on many levels, apparently. For one, it was a unique kind of school romance; the teacher, for one, being a 19 year-old physics graduate who just entered as a teacher to get his experiments started. I give praise to the male character (Tomonaga Yuu) because he isn't like most male leads of this kind of plot. The closest thing that this manga has to ecchi is a few panties, and even that sends our university graduate teacher running embarrassed. He's not like the rest of his kind who just stares and waits to get slapped in the face.

Another thing that I misjudged is how the story develops; instead of making an entirely large harem (like To-LOVE-Ru), the author focuses on two female leads (at least for now, considering that only five chapters have been released). The first one (Kusakabe Haruka) being a victim of harassment by the the previous teacher whom Tomonaga replaced. The other character (Hirose Aoi) is a hidden genius, who apparently has at least the same level of interest in physics as her teacher.

The author establishes their stories well within the five chapters, which in turn gives the manga a good plot despite the small number of available chapters. I believe that this series is either bi-monthly or quarterly, so the releases will definitely be slow. The plot presented within the five chapters, though, was enough to pique my interest.

Story: 7
Five chapters isn't a good enough basis to give a rating for the story, but it develops enough plot to keep me interested.

Art: 10
What got me interested in this series to begin with is the art; it's clean and well-done. If you like manga that's pleasing to read, then this is for you.

Character: 9
Surprisingly, for a mere five chapters, the author does well in giving background to the three main characters.

Enjoyment: 9
All the perks mentioned above are certainly enough to keep me interested in this series. I'm willing to wait to see how the story develops.

Overall: 8
It's a relatively new series, so room for change is very possible. I like what I'm seeing right now, though. This manga definitely marks its place on my watch list.

Spoiler warning***

Story: 6

the story of a prodigy student who became a teacher not quite an uncommon plot, yet this manga seems to reinforce or satisfy the fantasy of teacher/student relationship. This was not the quite plot that I expected, yet it wasn't really a surprise factor as it seems to drive in this direction very early in the story. Essentially 3 main characters, Tomonaga, Haruka, and Aoi are all seemingly related to the scheme of the plot, but there is quite obviously a focus on the relationship between Aoi and Tomanaga, with Haruka as a girl with hopeless, unrequited feelings for her teacher. We later ... find out that Aoi is a genius, similarly to Tomanaga and this further drives their relationship into boundaries that not even Tomanaga wanted to indulge in as they both try to uncover the mathematical concept that explains the world in all its beauties. While there is a emphasis on physics and mathematics, one can enjoy the story without really acknowledging it, which is convenient i guess. As mentioned before, this story seems to satisfy a rather particular niche, yet lacks motivation for progression besides a the love relationship. Strange due to the fact that the main character seems to discourage such relationships in general.

Art: 8
It's good, not extremely unique but satisfying for a lack of a better word.

Characters: 6
While there are other characters in Aoi's friend group, some that reinforce the teacher/student relationship and others that are completely unrelated to the plot. I might've missed something, but the general sense of some of the characters seemed to be very vague in terms of presence or relation to the story. Tomanaga and Aoi are explicitly the main characters, and while the story tries to intertwine Haruka into the plot by convenience, she merely seems to represent the rom/com (with a lack of com) and is left in the dust. This could be seen as realistic and bitter turn of events, but i honestly ask the question; what's the point? Haruka's experience kickstarts the story and puts her in the spotlight in the beginning, but later on her presence dwindles and her pursuits for love seem so hopeless, i can't help but feel pity. Tomanaga lacks a solid background besides the fact that he was a genius kid while Aoi's experiences are more developed, and these two are completely cut off from the rest of the world while working together in their lab. This directly relates to the relative beauty of the world in the eyes of others, and it becomes clear that my views differ from Tomanaga's or Aoi's. Probably why Tomanaga seemed like such a spineless individual that lacked anything I could empathize with.

Enjoyment / Overall: 6

In conclusion, this manga was a fine time-spender and a 6 seems to fit my experiences with it fairly well. Not exactly my cup of tea, but similarly to the beauties of this world, thats relative to the individual.

--This review is spoiler-free--

Quite frankly, this series was a huge let-down, right from the start. It is unfathomable to me how a series without any semblance of substance such as Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata can get away with any of the praise found in the review section below. At best, this series is painfully average, with heavy-handed attempts at being dramatic or introspective.

If you’re looking for a show with purpose, this is not it. The cast of characters are all bland and severely archetypal, resorting into a stereotypical harem environment filled with all its usual tropes and clichés. The pacing of the narrative was a ... mess, with certain characters falling in love with our protagonist without much reason or motivation. In fact, everything that seems to happen in this manga is aimless. The main character is passive, forcing the plot to take a nosedive into the everyday happenings of the school. The cast of characters all seem like cardboard cutouts of one another. Many of their personalities are so similar it becomes not only difficult to care about any of them, but hard to distinguish them as well.

The artwork is by in large average with a few specks of beautiful panels here and there. None of the panels in this manga will blow you away with beauty or effort, but they get the job done. A lot of the environmental panels look like the absolute minimum required to draw. The strength of the mangaka seems to be in drawing close-ups of faces.

In all, this Manga does not provide anything new or insightful to its readers and is highly undeserving of any of the praise seen in some of these reviews. If you’re looking for an average romance series, there are many better series to choose from.

This story is slice of life and seinen/josei, not shonen. It is very far from being shonen. It's silly to have categorised it as such. It's simply erroneously categorised here on MAL in my opinion.
The characters don't do "silly" shonen-ish things, there is nothing heroic, outstanding or whatever of the sort about anything in this story. The story is just a story about a few people whose lives intertwined and how they go on about those daily lives as such.

This was a weird manga. For the stuff that matters to me, and I don't really think there was anything else, it is oh so very ... realistic. Everything was down to earth, without a single thing that shaked the sync at which I was in with the story.
Out of all the characters, Tohno Touko etched herself the most in my mind, but I am happy to feel that by saying that I am doing somewhat of an injustice for Hirose and Kusakabe. Even Kayo, even all the rest. But yea, the two of them were wonderfull in different ways.
I could describe this manga satisfactory enough with a single word: "Gentle".
Everything that went on was.. Just girls, young ones, on the verge of adulthood, living their lives, growing up. I even grew to appreciate the male lead, Tomonaga, and very much so his techer-friend-colleague.
Some characters were somewhat minor in the story, but they had their role, and were not suddenly dead by the time it was over. Those characters too are realistic. Some people in life aren't there all the time, but they are sometimes and they are the people we know and are friends with. That's what I mean. The minor characters are consistently existent, and were not single-use tools. Just like in real life.
Now, as regarding the thing that stuck with me intensively for days back when I had just read this, and that I can get in the mindset of back easily through a song;
Tohno Touko.
There's a music album that I'd been listening to as I was reading the story. It ended up as the music I think Tohno likes. In particular, one song became associated with Tohno in my mind. I fantasize about how she walked outside alone while listening to this song, how she liked to listen to this song as she walked alone outside without a place to go to.
Just wandering alone like a hidden gem that can't shine..
The song (【東方ボーカル】 「モノクロ インザナイト (CYTOKINE remix)」) was beautiful to me and that's why I was actively listening it, but through Tohno's character the beauty of it developed into strong melancholy. Whenever I listen to the song now, images of Tohno wandering the streets, alone and doing her best to stay strong, flow through my mind.
Oh how the song was seemingly happy, before I started hearing the notes of uncertainty and concern, even fear and tears, the interpretation of which was brought to me by Tohno.
Tohno Touko is amazing to me, I love her.
Kusakabe and Hirose are angels are none the less wonderful themself.
I have a special feeling about the both of them. But Tohno's character touched me the most, I feel like I can sympathise with her the most.

This is a 10/10 manga for me. I love it because of how gentle and beautiful the story is, without being unrealastic. Like, such beauty, such gentle beauty (that the whole story is), I can beleive to be real. It's nice to have that feeling. Helps me live by helping me believe I'll perhaps meet such people one day, but yea; It's undoubtedly far too late for me to find such bliss.
Also, I am not stuck on describing the story as gentle because of its title. The story, the feel of it.. It was for me like being in a fluffy blanket during a cold winter. I don't think that I wouldn't have described it the same way had the title been something entirely different, if it did not include the word "gentle". :)

The art is beautiful, the characters are love, the story is realistic, and I was looking forward to reading the story rather instead of feeling burdened with the obligation to read it.
10 all around.

"Yasashii Sekai no Tsukurikata" was a pretty interesting work. Plot summaries and synopses available online don't really do it much justice since the implication is that it's a fish-out-of-water romantic comedy with a harem bent. And, well, this is frankly not true. The work is actually more or less a straight drama, and while romantic feelings play into it, it's a bit of a stretch to call it romance in a true sense.

Therein lies some of my disappointment. I enjoyed the manga throughout, but I was a bit turned off by the ending, which seemed a bit juvenile and was completely unfulfilling. Perhaps that's a ... matter of my personal preferences, and other people will respond to it differently. I wouldn't say it's poorly done, I'm just bitter that it ended differently from how I envisioned and wanted.

Perhaps my favourite part of the manga was the artwork, which was fairly close to that of "Horimiya" and other shojo-ish shonen/seinen works out there. Everything was such a joy to just look at, that a lot of the more underwhelming aspects of the story went by without too much trouble.

I'd recommend it more readily to people interested in a light slice of life drama with elements of comedy and romance than those looking for a harem rom-com (there isn't really a harem here in any meaningful way, just a majority of female characters).

SOME MINOR SPOILER AHEAD
A great underrated manga but definitely not for the romance manga (especially shoujo ones) lovers.

Don't be fooled by the romance tag, the manga focuses on two characters and their struggles in the academic field: Yuu Tomonaga, a genius that has faced the hardships of the backstage of the research field for the first time and Aoi Hirose, an equally genius highschool girl trying to conciliate her complicated family conditions and the dream of pursuing an academic career.

I think that "Yasashii" does a great job on showing the reality in the academic field and this might be the best manga on doing so. ... Professors stealing their students thesis, fight for a titular professor chair, research fund cuts, etc. Although there are some details that give right away that the author herself is not a scientist (I mean, that two-piece blackboard on the prep room is a joke and so is the whole sequence on which Tomonaga HACKS into his brother's PC).

There is romance though, but it's very underdeveloped. The main couple in particular is not very convincing as they lose the spotlight to the secondary couple AND to the main plot.

The art is pretty but forgettable and the character design is bland.

The only character that felt off to me was Kusakabe, she can be seen as the main character of the manga too, I hated her guts. The fujoshi was fine, every manga needs a comic relief right? And I really loved the Aoi character, even more than Tomonaga, she had the best character development by far. Touko is great too, really likeable character.

If this manga had ~3 more volumes and had it ended slightly differently, I'd have here a possible 10/10 contender.