Horimiya

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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)
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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)
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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:

Words aren't enough to express the disappointment I felt while reading this.

This story had been recommended to me by a few people I hold very dear to my heart. Considering that the anime is only 12 episodes and the manga is 122 chapters, my stupid brain said "well, since the anime cuts that much, I'll go to the manga to read the full story".

My god what a stupid mistake I made. Not only this was a pain to sit through, it was probably one of the least enjoyable manga reading experiences I faced in all my weeb life.
However, I will say that it's not all ... crap and the story has a few redeeming qualities. I'll start with what most people agree on: The first 40 or so chapters are good and the foundations of Hori and Miyamura's relationship in that part are pretty nice to read. Not the most amazing romance I've found in fiction, but fairly interesting and good nonetheless. Even after the unnecesary stretch of the story, they still manage to have nice interactions from time to time. The side characters at this moment were also (for the most part) well handled. I liked the Sengoku and Remi chapters specially.
Also Miyamura himself is a pretty good character and I like the dilemmas he faces and the growth he achieves, I'll say the story of the shy and closed-off character getting friends has been done to death but also it's just a trope that works for me, so most of the time I'll take it. And I'll say his interactions with most male characters (Tooru, Sengoku and Shindou) are, most of the time, nice to read.
However, I guess this is were all my praise for this manga ends.

So well, I'll go to my three points here.

Plot/Narrative:
There isn't much and to be honest I wasn't expecting there to be much of it, but an endless cycle of characters bantering and saying dumb stuff didn't do it for me. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was sitting towards a slice of life with mindless comedy, but this was easily one of the most uninteresting reads I had reading something like that. Why? Because of a few things. Firstly, the humor. When it hits, its great, and when it doesn't hit, its painful and cringy. Unfortunately, the second situation happens more frequently. And I get that teenagers are cringy, I don't tend to mind that in fiction, but here some interactions feel so unrealistic and out of hand that were just downright idiotic.
Lots of things that happen here are absurd and, most of the time, meaningless to the story. Chapters such as the one that Miyamura and Sengoku clean the pool, or Hori suddenly not eating (and then not developing into that issue again aside to make jokes about girls not eating, pls tell japanese men to stop writing about that), or that pointless chapter in which this ex-classmate of Miyamura goes closer to the cake shop of Mura's family and then has the most devoid conversation I've ever read in a manga (to then never appear again). And those are the ones I remember because I'm pretty sure I already forgot half of this manga. These scenes don't do it for me, not only because some of them imply a character banter that isn't funny (eg: the chapter in which Miyamura can't say "atatakai"), they never really dive deep into something interesting for the characters or the story. And I like dumb, simple fun with no plot progression, it really does it for me in stories like Wotakoi or Gintama, but here not only there is too much of it that the story doesn't progress, it's just not fun to read.
Though as I said, I enjoyed Hori and Mura's plot in the beginning and some interactions the characters have are still nice at times so I'll give this manga that.
(5/10)

But I guess my biggest flaw here lies with the characters so here is where my rant will get more intense.
Oh my god, have I ever found a manga in which I thought that most of its characters were complete idiots? (maybe Komi-San, but that's not the topic here) Because this was the sensation that Horimiya left in me. And as I said above, this wouldn't have bothered me if they were funny or the story did something to hold them accountable on their faults. Because that's exactly what I would have liked to see with characters like Hori.

I don't downright hate Hori, but I think she is one of the worst romance female protagonists I've ever read. She is fine at the beginning of the story but she ends up being pretty intense (specially with how she treats Mura) and despite the story and the other characters acknowledging that she has some pretty bad personality traits, Hori never does enough introspection herself to question that. I get that the story tries to be simple, but if Miyamura did question himself, why didn't Hori ever did so? That would have been great to explore and would have left to better development for the two of them!! I also get that Miyamura likes her as she is, but realisticly speaking, your romantic partner can take so much of your shit until it blows up on them, and if you don't make the effort to change your bad relationship habits, most probably you'll end hurting that person very badly. And believe me, reading Hori behaving like this made me realize about my own bad relationship habits and how I had to acknowledge and question them in the past so my partner and I can be healthy towards one another when conflict arises. So really, considering this is a shonen, it would be a nice lesson to teach to pubert kids, but I guess it wasn't in the author to do so.
My point with Hori is: she does shitty stuff to the people around her and despite the characters by her side knowing she doesn't treat people right, she still gets a pass and it's super popular. And really, if you wanted her to be like that and to work as a character, a little bit of questioning and her being hold accountable would have been great. She is just too much and at times had me saying "this girl is an idiot", which I don't really tend to do with protagonists when reading fiction, even less with female characters.
Then there is the rest of the characters. I like some of them (Sengoku, Tooru, Remi, Sakura and Shindou) but the cast ends up being so fucking big that the story sidelines into the most unteresting plots or (almost non existant) character development.
If it's not this, its just a gimmicky character that's here to add mindless drama (the blonde boy with glasses and that girl who has a crush on hori, or the few teachers). To add up to the fact, the reactions some characters have to some situations (eg: this green haired guy who has some chapters dedicated to him cockblocking his sister's crush) are too intense and don't help me care for them or like them at all! Chill please!
But to sum up, I guess the amount of characters did end up stretching this story into meaningless arcs thar really don't add anything up or end up just feeling flat.
At least Hori's father has a nice relationship with Miyamura, though his dynamic with Hori ends up being a little bit too repetitive (and even problematic if you ask me). Mura's dynamic with the Hori family its quite nice too.
(3/10)

Art:
It's fine, it does what it has to do. The only issue I have is some male designs, when you have Sengoku, Yanagi and the green haired guy together, they have the same hairstyle so you can't really tell them apart. The monochrome could be better used also, it doesn't really help to recognize the huge amount of characters this has. (6/10)

Some other stuff:
-Who thought that Hori saying that she feels worse about Mura cheating on her with guys than with girls was a good idea? (or even thought it was funny?). Maybe this is my western brain speaking but that statement can be really easily interepreted as homophobic, and the manga should at least try to stop Hori on thinking like that, because it's also a toxic behaviour on her part.
-Yes Hero and Haigawara, we girls tall about our tits, it's just natural to talk about your body with your friends. BUT WE DON'T GO THERE TAKING OUR FRIENDS CLOTHES IN PUBLIC TO PROVE HOW BIG SOME OF OUR FRIEND'S BREASTS ARE. AND ALSO YOU DON'T GROPE YOUR FRIEND'S TITS OUT OF NOWHERE NOT EVEN IF IT IS YOUR BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD. This is not the only anime/manga in which this happens and I'm so tired of this scene happening because it's the most unrealistic shit I've ever read in my life. Specially considering the characters are Japanese, which tend to be very prudish people so this makes even less sense by their own standards!! (lots of scenes in this manga don't make sense at all considering their standards, to be honest, eg: miyamura being tatted af being 16 y/o). But well, guess it's just an excuse for underaged girls to undress? It's not like shonen editors ever see a problem in that, but still, this was completely unnecesary. And it isn't even funny for fuck's sake.
-On the same note, perverted teachers aren't funny, they're creepy af!! If you're going to have a character like that please make it be held accountable for their actions.
-Why did the story set us up with the fact that Hori's parents are never home to then have the father constantly acting like a parasite in the house? What a fast way to contradict your own statements.
-Yeah maybe this is just me but honestly If I'm going to read a slice-of-life set in a school I'm going to excpet realistic interactions and midly realistic people. This manga didn't give me this at all so I guess that's were most of my problems lie in here. No fucking brother cockblocks his younger sister like that, almost no father acts like Hori's father, no married couple with self-respect towards each other keeps sustaining a marriage in which they barely see each other. Editors, please, stop giving Shonen such passes, I'm begging you.
-Why didn't this close up the love triangle between Sakura Tooru and Yuki?? Why didn't Yuki and Tooru ever dated? I didn't really liked them together but the fact that this relationship has no closure is also pretty nonsensical.

Well, I guess this wasn't for me or I'm just getting old for this stuff. Don't waste your time reading this if you're looking for an interesting realistic story with nice progresion and good character development, there is almost none of it here. Some scenes may warm up your heart but at the end, you'll find out they're scarce and won't really fullfill what you're looking for.

The dream sequences with the cats were cute though.