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I wanted to write a review for other readers like me. I'm a mid-30s woman who enjoys reading in general. I've read manga since I was a young teenager. Shojo is my guilty pleasure. In reality, I'm very jaded about romance, but I love the positive, fluffy, feel-good feelings that a well written shojo manga can inspire. But I'm also a fan of things like Berserk, Parasyte, Blame!, Gantz, and Tokyo Ghoul. I really, really enjoy twisted, gritty epics that cover deep philosophical and psychological topics. I started reading Inuyasha as a teenager when less than five volumes were out, but dropped it before the ... 30th volume because it got far too repetitive. I nearly finished Bleach, but also lost interest before the manga serialization finished for similar reasons.

If you can relate to any of that, this review is for you.

Story: Maybe it's just that I found the topics refreshing. I gave it a 10, because I know the target demographic isn't me. Knowing that, allows me to overlook common flaws typically found in shojo, so I'm not going to tell you about that. Instead, let me tell you about the things that stood out to me.

First: There is a happy ending! For someone like me, a shojo manga without a happy ending is a waste of time. I read shojo to warm my heart, not to feel depressed about life and not for gritty realism.

Second: The pacing. I figured a 5 volume series was probably going to have a lot of moments where I thought "Ugh! They're falling too fast, these characters are unrealistic." Basically, I assumed the writing would be heavily contrived and downright bad at least some of the time. I was pleasantly surprised. The pacing just cut out the extra unnecessary crap. Instead of going day by day, the story is told from the perspective of important moments. At some points, it's paced so quickly that if you blink you'll miss it. The pace was just right. The goldilocks of pacing

Third: I was surprised to find some of those heavy philosophical and psychological topics that I enjoy reading about. I wouldn't say they held the depth of a mature epic, but I feel like the main topics are addressed very well for the target demographic. Even better, they're uncommon and not overused by the genre.

Fourth: I'm usually not interested in the intense drama that springs from love triangles. The love triangles in this are handled quickly, without pointless drama, and take a backseat to character growth.

Art: I'm not an art snob. When it comes to art, the only thing I really concern myself with is whether or not it makes a story difficult to read. No difficulties here. It's standard. Nothing to rave about. Nothing that's difficult to look past. Nothing confusing.

Characters: I'm the kind of person who can enjoy a terrible plotline if the characters and their developments make up for it. These characters are interesting, and go through real growth. I could have enjoyed reading about their growth even if the story had been boring. The author did a good job humanizing them.

Enjoyment: I was really surprised here. I read this series straight through. The characters and their backgrounds caught my interest early on, and I was surprised at how quickly I found myself feeling for them. I'm not a fan of the crybaby heroines. Yet I found tears coming to my eyes over the first real heartache felt by the FMC. It didn't get repetitive or boring and left me with the good feelings.

Overall, it's not quite epic and intricate enough to rate as a masterpiece, but it is very good. If the target demographic was my age group, my scores for the story and characters wouldn't be nearly as high. But it's not targeted at me, and I knew that going in. This is the kind of story that I would have adored and couldn't get enough of when I was in the targeted age group. And of course, it also gets a higher rating because it more than satisfied my desire for a feel-good story. I'll buy this one if it's ever available in my country.

[Spoiler in last paragraph]

I rarely feel compelled to write reviews, because I'm lazy and not particularly skilled at writing them. Dengeki Daisy made me want to leave one for others who might share my tastes.

Shojo is my guilty pleasure, but I wouldn't call myself a comedy fan. My sense of humor is warped and most comedy just doesn't strike me as funny. It usually takes either dark humor or absurd humor to make me laugh. (By absurd, I don't mean stupid, low brow, or childish. Think more like dad jokes wherein the comedy is derived less from the joke and more from the audience's face-palm ... embarrassment.)

Dengeki Daisy is a romantic comedy. I chose to read it for the shojo category (and good rating), because I was in the mood for a light hearted and sweet story. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself genuinely laughing and amused by some of the comedy scenes, so that by itself is enough for me to give the comedy part a 10, just because it's such a rare experience for me.

I got exactly what I was looking for, but I also got one of my all time favorite kinds of stories. The kind that subverts a lot of tropes. The repetitive agonizing over the same dramatic topics that are typical of shojo manga doesn't happen. Yes. There is drama, but it's not contrived, repetitive, and unnecessarily drawn out. It has good pacing. I never felt bored with it. Some deeper topics are explored, but not the kind of heavy stuff you'd find in a college philosophy class. For mature adults, it's light. For adolescents and teens its the kind of stuff that usually feels pretty serious. Realism. The characters are more realistic, but the story itself will still require your suspension of disbelief.

If you're the kind of person who hates stories where things like physics and computer skills can be easily picked apart then you won't enjoy this one. If you can accept that science doesn't work the same in fiction as it does in reality, then you'll be fine. Lampshading happens on fairly regular basis, so if that breaks your suspension of disbelief, then you probably won't enjoy it. Personally, a modest amount of lampshading keeps a story light hearted for me, and I enjoyed that in this manga. It wasn't a tear jerker, and that's fine by me because that's not what I was looking for when I started reading this. There is more action and intrigue than you'd typically see in a shojo. Though not the same amount you'd see in your typical shounen. Something else that I prefer in shojo manga: No NTR or love triangle drama. It's just not to my taste. (Maybe because I've been there in real life and I've had enough to be sick of it? Who knows. ::shrug::) Dengeki Daisy doesn't have any of that, so I was satisfied with that.

The main character is genuinely intelligent and isn't constantly in need of rescuing, but it's stays realistic in that regard too. A 16 year old girl in this kind of story wouldn't realistically be able to save herself and everyone else every single time. No one really has everything figured out, or is capable of figuring out the answer to every problem, and those things are also depicted without being overly contrived, so I was happy with that. This manga won't spend pages trying to convince you with only words about what kind of people the characters are. It actually shows you, and it actually shows character growth too. None of the characters are perfect human beings, and that's something else I love to read. Even the side characters are enjoyable.

When it comes to stories and characters, keep in mind the target audience. I would rate this as being among the more mature shojo series, but don't expect seinen and josei levels of maturity. I wouldn't call it a coming of age type of story either, but there's enough growth and progression to bring it close to that category.

The art: I am definitely not an art snob. It's rare that I think twice about the art unless it's particularly beautiful of bordering on unreadable. The art is neither of those. From my perspective, it's fairly standard. I didn't have trouble distinguishing characters, and I didn't have any "Oh, wow," moments. That's all it takes to get a "good" rating from me.

When I take into account who the target audience actually is, I have to give it a 10. I feel that the overall work captures that audience perfectly AND does an awesome job in portraying messages not typically addressed in this genre. It's doesn't have any mind blowing or unique psychological or philosophical themes, but it is extremely wholesome while addressing important themes that the target audience might find themselves actually experiencing in real life.

Ok. Time for the [SPOILER] part. Info about the ending. One of the main reasons that shojo manga is a guilty pleasure of mine is the happy endings. I seek shojo out when I want an uplifting, sweet and positive story. If it doesn't have a happy ending it defeats the purpose. The most common endings or epilogues that you see in shojo tend to follow the graduation -> college &/or marriage -> kids route. Dengeki Daisy doesn't do that. Instead of "and they lived happily ever after," it gives you "They are happily moving towards their future which holds many plans and possibilities." At first, I was mildly disappointed. Upon reflection, this was an absolutely perfect ending for the target audience. Life doesn't stop and turn into some kind of memory reel at the age of 18 or 25. Life keeps happenimg and moving forward no matter how old you are. The target audience is at a life stage where a lot of changes and future planning happen. The ending treats the changing future like an exciting adventure full of possibility and potential instead of something to be anxious about without actually using such cliche and boring words. It depicts that life is beginning, not ending. I think that's perfect. Not all of the elements of this story are perfect. For me, it wasn't mind blowing. However, I don't require something to be mind blowing or perfect in every possible way to consider it masterful. That's why it gets an overall 10 in my opinion. This manga was masterfully done.