Kokoro Connect

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Since there was no review for this I thought I would write a short one just to help people a bit. I have only read five chapters and it might get better, so take my score with a bit of salt.

The story is a pretty run of the mill body swapping story but with the twist that the swaps are very short. The story does not hinge on lots of extremely embarrassing moments which I thought was nice because I usually cannot read stories that get to embarrassing xD Other than that it's all very cliche. You have seen these characters before if you have ... read pretty much any high school manga. You will also have heard all the jokes before to. The few of them there are anyway. For something tagged as a comedy there is actually not all that much of it. It focuses a lot more on the slice of life aspect which probably is a good thing because as I said. The jokes aren't all that good. The art is a bit above average but nothing special. All in all I would say that this is about as standard and predictable as it gets. The only time it surprises you is when the characters start acting out of character so it's never really in any good way and none of them are very memorable. But if you like the bodyswap setup, the high school setting, the relaxed slice of life story and you just want something to kill time with then sure. Give it a go. The worst that will happen is that you get bored and stop reading it.

Oh and a warning. The translation I read was very bad and made it hard to follow what was going on at times. So you might want to skip this if you can't read it raw. At least at the time of me writing this it may be hard to find a good translation.

tl;dr: A good story with somewhat weak story telling that very clearly feels like it's ending before it gets really good.

I saw the anime for this a while ago and while both the manga and anime are just adaptations of a light novel series, I can’t help but compare the two adaptations to each other. My overall view is that the anime was better than the manga, though I have no clue how either compare to the light novel yet. The core story and strengths that were present in the anime are still here. There’s really strong character development with a varied and interesting set ... of characters. The story is also pretty interesting with decent twists to keep things moving. The relationship development so far is also interesting and worth getting invested in, though it doesn’t get that far. However, compared to the anime and just in general, it felt that things were being rushed through too fast and it didn’t get to convey characters emotions as well as it needed to at times. What characters are feeling is a core part of the narrative and hence that diminishes the impact of a lot of the manga quite a bit. The other issue is that it ends at a pretty strange place, right before things really get interesting, and hence doesn’t feel that satisfying. That’s my perspective as someone that’s seen the anime, as it ends right before the best arc of the anime, but I think it's also something someone new to the story would experience as it ends right after what is clearly a pretty major story point that greatly alters the direction of the story is revealed. The art was decent enough. 

Kokoro connect is....weird. Extremely weird. This manga feels empty but at the same time it's full of very interesting topics that could have sparked nice dialogues. But instead it all falls into a very bland and generic plot that leaves the reader with nothing.

It's weird because while reading it, you feel split between a very well managed supernatural dynamic and a very poorly managed character growth, so much that it feels like many different authors worked on this. Everything that occours in the course of the manga, while justified nicely on the supernatural layer, also feels extremely childish and not worthy of all the ... drama that stems from it. It all seems...pointless?

The characters, that should be the peak of the plot, that carry on their shoulders all the work, are very boring and bland. Well, more than boring, it feels like you get the chance to really get to know two characters at best out of the five (only counting the main ones) that are the main core of the story. Taichi has simply no personality other than being the Emiya Shirou of kokoro connect, the hero always ready to help the lady in need. This also leaves no room to the other male character to shine, and, to be completely honest, the other boy matters so little that he could as well not exist, because we wouldn't notice. The author focuses on the three girls the most, but their personal growth just feels plain and empty. It’s difficult to relate to them when they feel like they come straight out of a textbook.

Lastly i should mention the fact that this manga seems unfinished, cutting short on the plot and leaving the story without a proper closure. Many issues are left open and it simply feels wrong. It this regard I must say that the anime feels like a proper completed show, so if this might bother you i suggest checking out the anime or the light novel (which I didn't read so I can't give you my opinion on that).

Overall, I do not think it's a bad manga, it just doesn't hold up to expectations. It tries so hard to talk about very complicated topics (such as the human mind and dicovering oneself) but it fails to give any depth to it, like the author just decided to throw in whatever seemed sad, tragic and difficult enough. I strongly recommend watching the anime instead.