Horimiya

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

UPDATED REVIEW:
(In my original review I gave Horimiya a 10 but now that I thought about it I changed it into a 9, which I'll explain why in this new updated review)

This updated review is definitely better than ny original one. Yes, this review is 95% based on my enjoyment.

Horimiya is not for everyone so if you disagree with my review then you're obviously free to do so.

I absolutely love Horimiya, the characters, comedy, romance, YOU NAME IT! The casual and simplicity of Horimiya is what makes it special!

I see a lot of people saying that Horimiya is some kind of God of Rom-com ... and I can totally see why people are saying that but I personally do not agree. There are definitely other Rom-coms out there that are better. One of the usual things I see people say about Horimiya is "tHiS sErIes hAs tOo mAnY fIllErs" and YES, IT'S SUPPOSED TO HAVE FILLERS BECAUSE IT'S A FRICKING SLICE OF LIFE! People keep forgetting that Horimiya is a slice of life romance series and people see it as some kind of romance drama for some reason.

I want to talk about Horimiya's meaningful lesson. This series shows such a deep meaning in a not dramatic way and that's what I love about it. Horimiya shows the definition of anxiety and insecurity. Miyamura, the male MC, had anxiety and insecurities so in conclusion, he never showed anyone his true self because he was scared that people might judge him for his obsession with tattoos and piercings (which is very understandable). A lot of people suffer with anxiety and insecurity like Miyamura and I think what this show is trying telling us is that we should leave our fake masks and show our true selves because it might change our lives for the better even if it's a big risk to take.

The story is simple yet it's very fun to read, I absolutely enjoyed it top to bottom

The characters are so lovable but if I had to pick one character that I don't like then maybe it's Hori. It's not that she's bad but the thing with her with the "hiding the fact that I do chores in my house" is pretty stupid, I still like her though nonetheless.

My enjoyment of this series is S tier. The chapters were so wholesome and it just warms my heart. I'm a sucker for slice of life so Horimiya is the one for me. I always saw Horimiya as my "guilty pleasure" manga but sometimes I guess I can see it as a life learning manga as well.

Overall I give it a 9. Obviously it's not a masterpiece but the enjoyment and fun that I had while reading this series is unforgettable. Horimiya will always have a special place in my heart, forever

(TLDR Review at the bottom, as always, thanks for reading)

I never understood the love for Horimiya.

I am not one to go trash on anything with popularity for the sake of "I'm not like the other girls", well, not now anyway, but Horimiya has genuinely confused me. It has this absurdly large amount of acclamation which has led me to believe that Horimiya is worth my while, or at least when I first came across it. After getting into manga like Horimiya and Horimiya itself, I have come to the conclusion that well, this is more or less, well, "like the other girls" in the medium.

I ... have to give props to Horimiya, in more ways than one though, it does a lot of things that not a lot of manga will attempt to do, and when those manga do attempt such techniques, it never usually works. I say this now because I am going to do quite a bit of pointing out flaws for this manga. I don't want anyone reading this to think that I hate Horimiya or something, I quite literally everything I have watched/read is good one way or another. Not even a joke. I can point out good things any day of the week. I do enjoy a lot of things. However, Horimiya just didn't fit the bill.

Narrative:
Horimiya first starts with quite an average start-up, we have two individuals who retain a hidden side to them from the rest of their classmates, only to be united by the power of plot no jutsu or something, I am not too sure. Also, side note, it suddenly occurred to me that how is Miyamura just allowed to hang out with Hori's brother like that at the start, and not get exiled from Japan or some divine punishment, the dude literally looks a shoujo protagonist came out of a yakuza makeover and no one is going to do anything about it. I thought Japan was very serious with people like him going as far as to not offer jobs and have parents that hate you for having such designs. But I mean, if that is going to be skipped over with no questions about it, so be it. In any case, with the union of Hori and Miyamura coming together, comes the strange part of the story, strange because it confuses me as to what Horimiya is trying to be.

Straight to the point, Horimiya's first problem is that it is pseudo-deep.

This far into the story and that statement doesn't mean much, only when you go further in is that you begin to understand that there wasn't much meaning to what went down in the beginning. Horimiya has quite a bit of drama prior to later changes with characters. People are arguing and at one point, things get a little physical. But after these events have elapsed, they don't mean much anymore, what I mean by that is we have all this setting of secrets being hidden, people having an unfortunate past, the crowds negative opinion. But they all go by like it means little. To be fair, Horimiya isn't a drama like a typical drama would be, one of the points in the story is to overlook superficial qualities, I think it does quite well in that category. But then, what was the point of the setup still? I will admit that it is smart to make the setup is some kind of personification of the people you don't need to think about in life, those who try to bring you down, but right after this everything changes for the sake of the new plot. Why wasn't it consistent? Or why hadn't it just gone another way around with telling such a tale? Was it because the characters were emotional hence needing the proportionally scaled responses from others in order to get somewhere convenient? Because if it did contain drama as such, why didn't it go the whole way, the later chapters of Horimiya do not check out with this category. The start is simply just there to drag you into a story where well over 50% of it isn't even remotely similar to the start. Everything that isn't the start is just high school students vibing, none of that of which was given before. Swift changes in the genre are hard to handle. Horimiya does this but it leaves you asking why. I am not one to say "oh because this was given, you have to stay like this" if the incredible change in the story is a good one, who am I to complain, I have seen this happen before with manga, an example is Watamote (I highly recommend it btw). But if Horimiya is going to forget its starting ground, then logically speaking, it had no value, to begin with.

Before I get onto the second problem I do have to talk about a good point of the manga. And that is progression. I won't lie, the character development and the progress of the story is loveable, it doesn't take a good while for Horimiya to develop, which does call for some pacing issues as well as characters speedrunning personality changes for the sake of "story go forward" but as the nice man I am, I actually looked over this, more truthfully, I didn't really care, maybe you won't too. But it is still a flaw regardless I would just point out for those who would like to know how the pacing runs. In any case, the progression of Horimiya is good for me. Not a lot of romance like to get to where the fans want it to be within a reasonable time frame, hell sometimes it does literally within the final few chapters. It is nice to know that Horimiya doesn't follow in this category, which gives it some of its own ground to stand on, thus making it more something people should take a look at.

Now the second problem with Horimiya. The "Between Story"

I call it "Between Story" because "After Story" doesn't make too much sense relative to these characters' lives and Clannad. The title I have given doesn't actually matter as long as you understand what I will give below. That was just a simplification.

As spoilerless and implicit as I can get, there are growing bonds between MCs. But what happens after is what makes the story worse. In romance stories, after the pinnacle of the story, or the climax if you like, nothing really happens from there on out, it is sad but real life isn't that exciting all the time, you can only shove so much until the plot gets ridiculous with trying to play with what is going to happen next. This isn't a bad thing to maintain realism, or for "nothing really happens" to happen, what is a bad thing is if that segment isn't of standard. That is where Horimiya falls. It doesn't have anything of high quality going for itself, maybe that is why most writers won't let characters get with each other until the very end. It makes sense because a drawn-out experience is better than one with the glory that dies out early. Horimiya is comparable to any, and I mean any, generic s.o.l out there. Two examples I will give, being the now completed "Pseudo Harem", and the second being the well-known "Komi-san can't Communicate" which is basically Horimiya but each important moment is split up very far apart. Stories like these get incredibly tedious because as said, real life isn't always outrageously exciting or intriguing, not that I hate realistic stories, but they tend to be generic. There is no real attempt to try something outside the box too if it could at all. Horimiya's later parts are just, that's it, no more goodness, just people doing stuff.

Now for the characters, I would say that they are, ironically in my taste, fine. They fit this type of story and I would argue that they are somewhat better than most characters in the manga I have mentioned above. Despite pacing being a little fast, character development is present. Is it good? Not the best. But it is liveable for sure, it gets slightly better on too. I feel like nothing is wrong with the characters, rather, they were handled poorly due to the story. If you really want arbitrary criticism, there is a tsundere and a gloomy dense dude but that blows away quickly, not the tsundere archetype, of course, there just had to be one. They both can't accept truths sometimes too, but that too disappears. Horimiya knows how to make a character, not a spectacular one, but decent nonetheless. They are basically what you would expect average high school students to be, growing with their friends as time goes by too. I won't look too deeply into characters for this review because there is nothing out of the ordinary that happens with these characters. The only one I can point out is Miyamura and how he changes for the "better" as a human. He grows out of his shell more and interacts with others like they were osananajimi from back in the PS2 days. Everyone else really doesn't have a selling point in all honesty. Quite forgettable in my eyes even though they are the top quality of their genre. I didn't have much interest in the characters, to begin with, so that might just be my bias you can consider if you want. There are also side characters coming and going because plot plot plot please let there be plot. Since side characters don't get the treatment of being remotely important, I won't even spend the time going on about them, you just need to know that you will only come out fully remembering 7 or 8 characters at most. The MCs do have development and a sense of humanity, but they are just the top players on a still very common field. You can reach the ceiling of floor 1, but that isn't the start of floor 2.


Art:
The art is painfully simple, it is easy to compare this with other similar manga and see the similarity in plain art style. In saying this though Hagiwara has no doubt coined this style for their own, it looks a little manhwa webtoon-ish at times but even if Miyamura was rocking with Sung Jin-woo hair, you could still no doubt tell a difference between the two. Sometimes the scenes feel a bit magical like they were out of a bubbly version of Shaft, but I noticed this early on and it doesn't seem to hold true later on in the story. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it is pleasant to look.

Also multi-coloured monochromatic hair lol.


Enjoyment:
I will say this again for those who read my reviews or are new to reading them. I enjoy everything (in some shape or form). Everything. Horimiya is no exception. Sometimes Horimiya makes me laugh. Sometimes Horimiya doesn't make me laugh. Sometimes Horimiya is yes. Sometimes Horimiya is no. In a more universal enjoyment approach, I would like to imagine that all fans, regardless of if you hate this or not, probably found something at the very minimum decent with this. Whether it be the fun cliche setups here or the humorous misunderstandings. Other aspects that would arise is just how plain simple this is, whilst Horimiya seemed very confused, at least it has simplicity somewhere. I didn't mind reading about high school students vibing even if it didn't work storywise. It just happens for so long that it does feel boring to read at times, but it was endurable for me. I just happen to have crazy endurance. It is also really sweet at times. That's a win.


Overall - 5.5 (6)
----------

TLDR Review:
Story - 4: Hey, it does a good thing with the pacing—though even that has its problems—in allowing itself to stand on its own, but really and truly Horimiya is rather low quality and baseline, with prior elements changing for the sake of whenever the plot needs to go somewhere. It tries to incite a real story but ends up being rather bland.
Characters - 6: Only Miyamura is good. Others are decent characters, top of their game in terms of the genre, but there is nothing to expand on that making them rather average. Side characters you won't remember too.
Art - 6: Simple art you will remember if shown again to you with its coined character design. Bubbly at times too.
Enjoyment - 6: This is fine, I liked it, but it should have got cut off ages ago or tried something out of the ordinary. It is very simple.

Overall - 5.5 (6)
----------

I remember coming across Horimiya a while ago on most popular or top-rated, I can't remember, and thinking to myself, "hey this looks decent" and decent it was, more like generic, but I am being nice here. Horimiya in the grand light of things is truly overhyped beyond belief. I have been told time and time again that simplicity is what gives it the credit it receives but it tried to incite a real story with its pseudo-deep writing and then proceed to say it never happened and then do the "nothing happens". Bruh. I mean, it is just an alright manga in my eyes. Nothing too deep or special. I would recommend this but it would be as if it were some other romance manga no one really talks about. It has its benefits and doesn't at the same time. There is better out there.

Yes, I will recommend Kimi ni Todoke. The pinnacle of wholesome vanilla ice cream on a good beach episode. Horimiya probably stole from it anyway. How shameless! :kuuderehmph:

I will NEVER forgive the author of this series. The main story is ok, its nothing spectacular, its very much so drawn out, but its not unreadable. Hori and Miyamura are sweet and are interesting for the first 60ish chapters, but the last half of the series is completely devoid of real character development barring the last few chapters. whatever, thats not what makes this a 4/10. I will preface this by saying, the side characters are significantly better written than 95% of side characters in other series, but thats what ruined this series for me. This author developed a relationship between 2 people, having ... them edge the line of dating and not dating for the whole series, and never gave them the conclusion they deserved. They deserved happiness and this author was too lazy to give them 1 more chapter to concluded their story. not only that but nobody besides miyamura and hori get a real conclusion anyway, nothing, we're just done, these characters that we adore are just, not getting an ending. I will never forgive this author, the unnamed couple deserved to be together. I love this story, and I LOVE these characters, but for everyone out there, don't read this, the joy of this series is not worth the pain of knowing who doesn't get a conclusion, you can probably figure it out pretty quick and yea, its messed up. not cool.