Back to Lathaw's Profile Lathaw's Profile

Hitomi-chan wa Hitomishiri is just like any other good slice-of-life + school + romance manga. Doesn't sounds appealing? Yup, it doesn't but I guarantee you, the manga itself is really captivating, so let's go into some more detailed description.

Just like any other manga in such setup it consists of all the cliche events - valentines day, white day, school festival, umbrella sharing etc. But they weren't introduced in such a manner that you'd say 'of course, I knew this was coming'. The way these events were presented was rather pleasant and in my opinion far better than in most of mangas from such genres. In ... short this manga follows the well-known path for a school romance in a good way.

At the beginning it relies mostly on the comedy part, but it slowly introduces romance and develops it in a straight, not-disturbed manner. In every chapter you feel the progress (no matter how small it is) and this progress is not denied next thing in the following chapter (I won't point mangas that keep doing such villain things). Author build it slowly, but surely so you don't feel frustrated. The gags and various weird situations are amusing, so you wouldn't be bored. The only con I could point at this stage is mixing in a lot of fan service dependant humour, people who doesn't like fan service might feel intimidated (unfortunately, the further in the story, the more fanservice not only for the Hitomi but other female characters).

But putting aside the ecchi-related fan service. In my opinion the most wholesome part of this manga and well the true fan service in my opinion is hand holding. Oh boi, I have never knew how brilliant 'plain' hand holding could be. These moments were the most heart warming during my current journey (caught up on chap 86).

Let's talk about characters. I will say rather general things here than going into details. Throughout the manga characters are developing in satisfying manner, each of them, even the secondary characters has their own traits so they are not dull, but they aren't ocean deep. It's light manga so the amount of character uniqueness is balanced enough I'd say. The most important thing is that main characters are developing in a satisfying manner.

To summarize: Setup for this story is just like in any school + romance + slice-of-life manga, but it is not the bad point as it is well handled by author. It's light story full of gags and funny situations, romance is progressing slowly but surely, you can see progress between main characters growing with each chapter. Characters are simple, yet not dull/plain so the story keeps its lightness and simplicity. Romance is satisfying and wholesome (Remember: holding hands)

My overall rating: 9

If I had to answer if I would recommend this manga or not to anyone, I would have a hard time answering this question. This manga is revolving around the fashion world, runways, models, clothes and the process of designing and making them - which I thought wouldn't be interesting for me - I guess there might be lots of people who could relate to this. There is no sudden action, explosions or any other thrilling situations.

Then why? Why did I devour entire 22 volumes in 2 days?

Here is quick TL;DR: It's beautiful, it's captivating, it's interesting, it's understandable and approachable

The story depicts the ... challenges and struggle that Ikuto experiences during his way to become professional designer... Doesn't sound convincing, right? Few keywords: vibe, flow, emotions. Let's talk about the vibe first - mix of maturity, innocence and passion. Pursuing one's dream, experiencing failures, learning harsh reality, adapting, improving, acomplishing goals. The wholesomness of this process was sealed in Runway de Waratte by its Mangaka. You become captivated by the vibe and at some point, you naturally think "I want to cheer them on, I want them to succeed".

The pace is good - not too fast, not too slow, with various timeskips, showing how much characters improved, there is no boring, dragging on scenes that make you go "so when will be the good part?". The good part is always there - author shows us the fashion world in an approachable manner, so it's understandable for any layperson out there and what's the best part - it becomes more interesting with every page. Mangaka did a lot research on the topic and he presents us spectrum of things involved in making clothes for fashion shows, from process of designing,
importance of picking right fabric through making the clothes and ending on putting them on exhibition and presenting on fashion shows - and there is also even more to that.

The amount of content Inoya Kotoba managed to pack into his manga is impressive, but it's not its only good point. Characters, their backgrounds, their aspirations, ambitions, their personalities, their growth, their joyful moments, their anxiousness in some, one could say, without-a-solution situations, their emotions - everything makes you symphatize with them, makes you like or dislike them. I really am (mostly) satisfied with how Mangaka handled characters of his story, how lively and beautiful he made them.

Yes, beautiful - this word leads us to the art which I tried to avoid in this review until now... Astonishing and magnificent - I think that these two words are best possible to describe the art, especially during fashion shows moments in the manga, but even if they are 'best possible', it doesn't mean they are enough to depict how beautiful and impactful are the images presented by the author. Even if I was not interested in fashion in the first place I was really excited waiting for another walk of a model on the runway, just to see how she would look in the designed clothes, what scenery would she show us by wearing 'mere' clothes, what 'aura' would she emit.

I guess my review might sound generic in a lot of places without any examples straight from the manga, yet I don't want to use any spoilers here (hopefully I managed to avoid spoiling at all). If you feel interested I can just tell you one thing: Just read it! If you are not interested I suggest giving it a shot anyway. I really enjoyed this manga from the very beginning to the very end. That being said I think Runway de Waratte is worth your time - yes I'm talking to you right now, my fellow reader.

A little summary:
If you are looking for fashion related manga - Read it!
If you are looking for good character development or if you love when character improves (be it personality or their skills) - Read it!
If you love 'Work towards dreams' theme - Read it!
If you are striving for beautiful art - Read it!
If you look for light yet rich and captivating story - Read it!
If none from above - still I humble suggest you to give it a try I think you might love it anyway!

I hope I helped you decide if it's worth to read it or not my fellow reader - I know I talked about it in superlatives and there aren't any flaws mentioned which I apologize for, but I can't come up with things I could call a 'flaw' when it comes to this manga. Simply put I loved it. Thank you for reading this review!