Kimi no Iru Machi
A Town Where You Live

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This MANGA.

It's so good and, at the same time, so bad.

What makes it so bad? Well, let's go straight to the point─the story got too good too early. Yes, what makes it good is also what makes it bad (there's some Yin-Yang shit for ya).

Kimi no Iru Machi (or A Town Where You Live) is good drama. No denying. But the part where the writing was at it's prime happened too early in the story so I understand that to follow up an act like that is difficult. But Seo Kouji had the option of ending the series right there instead of prolonging this shit. ... So what happens is the experience, the praise, and the respect that you have with this manga are now replaced with meaningless fillers and fan services. If you're okay with that, then fine. That's your business. But that's not okay with me.

I was close to dropping this manga because the story got too boring in some parts.

I mean, sure, yeah, there are some arcs after "that particular arc" that talks about the ACTUAL STORY but when you realize that this happened after "that arc", it'll just feel inferior and that's a damn shame.

I'm sure right now you feel I'm over hyping you about this '"arc" and how it is superior among other arcs. I'm sorry. Results may vary.
(Edited: For those of you who are wondering, I'm talking about the "Tokyo Arc" here; the one the anime was focused on. And of course, the "better" part is everything before Volume 16.)

But let's talk about the good stuff now. KNIM is packed with a lot of plot twists. Some mild and some heavy which will leave you in the edge of your seats. I also like the amount of realism this manga has. It's one of the few things the didn't waver even after the series went downhill.

And the art. MAN, the art.

The amount of details in the eyes of these characters (especially the girls) is insane. Even to the point that it's..... creepy. I don't know if that's a standard to Shoujo mangas (even though it's not a Shoujo manga). I don't read them.

And the BGs are aces. Kudos to you, Seo-san.

It's kinda sad how this manga could have been better of what it is right now had it not been stretched out. But even though that it's been through shit, I still acknowledge this as one of the best that I've read. The emotional roller coaster this series has makes it seem worth it even though at times, you wish you were reading another manga. But regardless, I do recommend you checking this one out.

This manga is really depressing. But it doesn't have any drama or tragic story. It's depressing, because of how boring those characters life are.

I was reading from start to the end of this manga just in case that something interesting might be happened at near the end of story. And that was worthless, because nothing happens, nothing remotely interesting. This manga is about "real" life, so real, that everything in it is average at best. The story is average and characters are so "real" they got zero personality. And all those jokes, that author trying to pull, are useless, they just bad and uninspired. ... I think that if author trying to tell us "real" story, that the story itself should more "serious" and should have less silly humor and nudity which is plenty of here.

I personally don't think its a bad manga. I think that it is trying to be serious love story and comedy harem-manga in one time. But problem, is it fails in both categories.

If you want to read good love story manga, I would recommend comics like I"s or Bitter Virgin. This one - over-hyped.

Kimi no iru machi is a manga that will pass to history not because of its beauty, but cause of the original yet weird ideas from its mangaka. First one third of the manga was really enjoyable, quite a nice story between the two main characters developing a relationship while struggling with some typical high school problems and family issues. Romance on this part of the manga was really good, quite a cute story. After that is when the story took a very twisted turn. Perhaps as an attempt to make it more dramatic and interesting, the mangaka came up with a very interesting ... and original new love triangle. This might be the very first manga where the main character, Haruto a guy, gets stolen by his love rival; yeah, you heard me right, he, not his girlfriend, gets stolen by the other guy. I guess love lost against friendship on this part of the manga. If you have ever heard the phrase "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," well, this manga took that phrase to a new level. Later on, after those events, the manga became a slice of life centered on what Haruto wanted to do in the future. I do enjoy slice of life mangas, but the problem with KNIM was that it was only in the perspective of Haruto, who was never such an interesting character to follow, and not to mention that the romance part was barely present and lost its quality. Haruto struggles for about half of the manga about what to do for a living, even did weird things that went completely against his character, like breaking up with his girlfriend for a random job he got, only to end up becoming, what was really clear since the very beginning of the manga, a chef.

Art was really good, perhaps the only talent and strength of its mangaka, but even the art also lost a bit of quality towards the end. Towards the end, the heads of the characters had a weird shape at the top, they look a bit like the Coneheads but with hair.
Charaters of KMIN, what can I said about them, they lack development. They fail to show any maturity at the end of the manga. I would even venture to say they were more mature at the beginning than at the end. Sure the mangaka came up with the really great idea to just make other characters say "yeah, you have grown" as prove of their development, but their actions still showed otherwise. Something very funny is how most people did not like the main characters at the end of the manga. The choices taken by the main characters were never that popular nor understood by the readers.

Anyway, If somebody decides to venture and read Kimi no Iru Machi, I would suggest read just the first one third of the manga, when they become an official couple, and then drop it and just read the final chapter. And if you do that just ignore the helmet at the end.