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Solid, but a little disappointing considering the strong reviews I read beforehand, some even claiming it’s better than the original. To give a sense of where I’m coming from, I was Team Megumi in the original anime because I thought she was a better fit for Aki (admittedly I haven’t read the original source), but Utaha was by far my favorite character. I would have had no complaints if she ended up with him instead, because there were times when they had great chemistry, at least. So seeing an alternative route for Utaha was very interesting to me.

The art is beautifully done, it was good ... for some laughs, and the overall story was pretty interesting (assuming a healthy suspension of disbelief about Aki being hired as an editor). There are some fun parallels between the two fictional series of novels Utaha writes in this manga with the original Saekano and this series.

But I actually found the romantic chemistry between Aki and Utaha to be less convincing and more forced in this route than in the original Saekano. As I made my way through the later chapters, I was wondering how they’d end up together because I saw little evidence that they were in love or moving towards a closer, more intimate relationship. It seemed Aki was more enthralled with Utaha’s writing than with Utaha herself, and her feelings for Aki seemed shallow and even more unlikely this time around.

So this is probably a satisfying alternative if you were Team Utaha, and I would recommend it to fans of the original because it is beautifully drawn and an enjoyable read, but I wouldn’t agree with those who say it’s on the same level as the original story and characters.