Naze Toudouin Seiya 16-sai wa Kanojo ga Dekinai no ka?
Why Can't Seiya Todoin, 16-Year-Old, Get a Girlfriend?

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THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

This manga is very different from most. In a way it’s a reversal of the typical harem, in that instead of having a protagonist that has girls falling in love with him for no clearly apparent reason but development later on, rather the case is that he protagonist is unable to get into a relationship with a girl despite having so much going for him. The reasons for this are very clearly developed later on in that he is incredibly socially awkward. As someone that it also incredibly socially awkward, I could certainly sympathize with him to an incredibly degree. But at ... the same time, he tries to overcome that at an extreme level. The social awkwardness is cringe worthy but I could sympathize with it, but him trying to get around it through extreme aggressiveness and desperation went well beyond that into often being pure cringe. It was a complete train wreck, but one that's written incredibly well, and hence difficult to look away from. Still, at some level, he's a good at heart, though incredibly lonely and just trying his best to get over that, which I totally get. Seriously though, he needs to learn better when to back off. He also seems to have terrible luck, actually terrible luck, not just standard manga terrible luck, but something that felt a lot more heavy and realistic where the reader can feel the pain of being screwed over by thins beyond your control. All of this leads to there being a lot of really heavy raw emotional moments, especially towards the ending to each arc. This is in part because his romantic interests are also written quite well and fleshed out. The arc with Haruka and Hino was especially amazing, and I was really hoping something would finally happen there. Unfortunately, that was not to be and the ending was weak.

I feel that talking about the ending at all is impossible without spoilers, so I'll just go at it. In the end, the main character does feel like he's grown. Not in ways that tremendously impact his actions or improve his chances of success, but it feels very much like his outlook on the world has improved. But he still doesn't get a girlfriend. I got pretty heavily emotionally invested in him, so him in the end getting nothing was a pretty big blow. In many ways, it fits with the manga quite well, in that that's what had been happening up to that point. But still, as it's the end, I feel something should have happened. After all of that, he deserved something. As it is, the ending simply felt depressing and left me feeling hollow. It's a manga that seems to have a strange sort of dark comedy at its core, but in the end, it just felt sad. It wasn't badly written or anything, so I can't say it's a bad ending exactly. Rather, it feels like it's meant to be intentionally unsatisfying and to evoke those sorts of emotions from the reader, which I can't say I'm much of a fan of, and ultimately can't look beyond. The art overall was quite good.

A very interesting premise that is written quite well, but that seems to make the choice of intentionally having an unsatisfying and hollow ending, for better or worse.

8/10

This is a story about a guy who falls into holes. He falls into them, climbs out, swears up and down to never fall into another hole again, then willingly dives headfirst into the next hole immediately.

Story: 9
The story is a good one. It feels like the author poured his heart out in it, and there are many good moments in it.

Art: 8
Some characters have some really great scenes art-wise. The author's really good at expressing emotions through expressions and gestures, and a lot of scenes have that to thank for the power behind them.

Character: 6
If this manga was just about the girls, this would ... be an 8. Realistic and flawed people, they made it seem like the potential for a great romance was high. The mc is a 4. He goes through a lot of stuff that many people can sympathize with, but fails to be likable because none of it ever changes him. Everyone likes the underdog because he keeps getting back up, but after the 5th or 6th time getting knocked down by the same thing and learning nothing from it, it starts to get old.

Enjoyment: 1
If I had known how this manga would end beforehand, I would not have read it. The only reason I made it to the end was the expectation that things would turn out differently. The story is good, most of the characters are good, there are a bunch of good scenes, and I still regret the time I spent reading it.

/spoiler
The problem with the open-ended, hopeful, new chance ending is that the mc spends the entire manga blowing new chances. His position at the end is the same one he has been in countless times throughout the manga, one he still has never learned from, and one the reader has no reason to believe he will learn from this time.
/spoiler

His only redeeming feature is he understands this better than anybody and loathes himself probably even more than the reader does.

Overall: 6
Bluntly speaking, I hated this manga. But I won't deny that it was a good one. The lessons in it are applicable to real life if taken with a spoonful of common sense, and the characters are human enough to be painful to watch at times. While it wasn't my cup of tea, I probably won't forget it anytime soon.

I found the story decent, but why did I rate the mango so low? The idiotic and horrible mc. The mc is unable to find a girlfriend, usually because he second-guesses himself most of the time. It is understandable and I did not blame the mc at first. As the story progresses, some of his actions do not make sense. As soon as a girl is being nice to him, he assumes she likes him and confesses or tries to confess. The mc as a hard time figuring women, but he has an attractive made two years older than ... him and a female friend his age that he gets along with. For some reason or another, he does not asks help or any advice from them to understand women better. Still, it was not enough of a reason to dislike the mc as much. What made me hate the mc is how much he complains that he can never find a girl that likes him, or if he ever will. Guess what? The same girl that he gets along with confesses to him early on, and he does not give her a reply. Why? Because he wants to confess to another girl first, to figure out if the other girl likes him, but wants to keep the girl that confessed to him as a back-up. That is when I realized why he can not get a girlfriend. He is a pos! Not only did he get what he wanted by a girl confessing to him, he wanted to lead her on in case he failed with other girl. In the same chapter the girl confesses to him, he wonders if a girl will ever like him.