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As a manga artist, Naoshi Komi is best known for Nisekoi, a light harem with a plethora of humor and reaction images. Given the shift in premise from a comedy to a more dramatic work, my initial thoughts were whether or not Komi could really pull off the poignancy necessary for this type of one-shot to work. With the quality of the Nisekoi one-shot, I went in with relatively high expectations (even though I wasn't expecting the story to wow me given how Nisekoi ended).

Tokidoki is the story of young love covered by the shadow of health problems. Komi is clearly aware of the ... inherent cliches present in the genre, starting the story off as generically as possible. The characters are introduced very quickly (Tokidoki is 49 pages, and there are only two named characters), and the plot dives in immediately.

STORY:
The length does the story no justice here, but you get a good sense of the wonderment felt by Takagi as she discovers new things. Unfortunately, the whole basis of the disease is a little contrived, and again, although it was basically designed to fit the basis of the one-shot format, the true sadness in falling in love with someone that is ill comes from dealing not with the immediacy of the death, but the fact that illness is often protracted and drawn out. Dealing with the illness shouldn't be an afterthought to the fun, it should be a larger focus of the work, or it loses its impact. Thus, the actual plot points feel tacked on more than anything else. I would have loved the story even without the disease backbone just as a story of young love. Framed differently, Tokidoki could have easily lost the melodrama while retaining what makes it feel nice, the mutual development of feelings, discovery, and even something as trite as being in the light music club. The ending is the weakest part, with the melodrama played up to 11. I enjoyed Takagi's conclusion to an extent, although her meteoric rise seems like it was there just to throw the readers a bone. How Komi ends things with Iijima really didn't play off of the my emotions well and accomplishes about the same thing as him just getting hit by a bus.

4/10, easily the weakest part overall, and although constrained by the length, I point to one-shots by artists like Inio Asano to show that finality that feels out of the blue isn't really necessary to make the reader feel a connection to the characters.

ART:
Komi has always had a very clean, crisp art style that accentuates the characters while being simultaneously very cute. Tokidoki doesn't push any boundaries here, but retains his distinctive style of emotive faces and depicting the beauty of the characters well. Definitely some good reaction faces to be found. The art style fits the middle sections - which are far more Nisekoi like - perfectly, and even as the story gets sadder, has a way of showing emotion very well. Backgrounds and the like are also very high quality, no complaints whatsoever.

8/10, again, nothing out of the ordinary for Komi, but he sets a very high bar as far as character design and general art style goes.

CHARACTERS:
There are only two real characters to focus on, and without getting into spoilers for the (albeit) short story there is only so much to say. Iijima Hato is your generic anime protagonist (lampshaded slightly by his introduction as a normal teenage guy), that works hard to make a girl happy. This is really all there is to his character even with an "unexpected" plot twist attempting to add depth. Takagi Hatsu, the female protagonist is slightly more interesting, mostly because Komi is able to avoid some of quiet school girl tropes. Her character goes a little too far in the other direction, but it's mostly an attempt to add cuteness, so it's relatively acceptable. Both characters show their personalities mostly when interacting with each other, without the many of the constraints of the dramatic cloud that floats over them towards the conclusion

6/10, while not bad, the characters in the middle section are really what bring this one-shot together. Their personalities there shine through best when enjoying life as teenagers should, and not during what should be the dramatic climax of the story.

OVERALL:
Komi has a way of making characters that are fun to read, and Tokidoki presents no exception. It was a blast to read, and even with my complaints about the story, given its length, I have no real complaints about putting up 25 minutes of my time to read it. If nothing else, it brings up good points about the pros and cons of the "illness ridden" character that seems to be very popular in many more melodramatic works in a simple package. The light art and legitimately fun to read interactions was enough to carry the bad taste of the melodrama, and I recommend anyone that has even remotely enjoyed his previous works to read it.

6/10: FAIR