TL;DR: By the end, you only care about the side characters. If you're reading this for the love story or the development of a main character, you will be EXTREMELY disappointed. Try something else and don't waste your time, I've already made that sacrifice for you.
Summary: Although I love the art and (most of) the characters, I really can't say that this was a good series. The plot was very congruent for the first half of the series, and although a bit cliche at times, it made you invested in the story and to see how the characters were going to grow and change. But
...
all of that investment and attachment gets thrown out the window for the second half of the series, as the main characters fall apart, their actions don't make sense, and you end up feeling like you're on a merry-go-round watching the same "who will she choose?!?" trope drag itself out. By the time the end does come around, you become tired and irritated by the main female lead and her partner, and really only stick around to see how the side characters ended up.
Spoilers ahead, you have been warned:
STORY:
The most irritating part of the story is in fact the love triangle. The main female lead spends 80% of her time in the series with a character she will not end up with, and she ends up with male lead instead (second most frustrating part: the male lead has no personality, but even if he did you wouldn't get to see it because he's barely in the story at all, and he has more character development with a female side character. I genuinely thought they would have ended up together because the author kept putting so many scenes of the two of them together).
I have no issue with the main couple being together though, they had been setup to be together from the first chapter, and it was clear the author was going to have them together at the end very early on. And I did enjoy the love triangle at first, because usually in love triangles you see two characters pair off, and the third one usually incites the romance between the other two or helps them overcome obstacles that would have led to the end of their relationship if not for the third's external help. We also usually have an ending where the third character is able to move-on from their love interest and grow as a person, and typically results in them finding a different character to be with that is better for them than the love triangle.
Now mind you, the main male lead is supposed to be Momo, the character the female lead ends up. But since we don't have character development for Momo nor have many chapters with him in it, we have Yuzu who essentially is the male lead, but also will be the third in the love triangle who is singled out.
Yuzu goes through SO MUCH character development, and even reaches the point where he is ready to move on from his doomed love triangle and make his own happiness. And yet despite being on the right track, the author decides to continuously throw him BACK into the life triangle and stunt his character growth for MULTIPLE CHAPTERS, usually because the female lead goes through several moments in the series where she breaks character and acts as if she has feelings for the main male lead (Yuzu), which I don't think anyone was confused about who she was going to end up. It genuinely felt like the story had a set plan of how the characters were going to progress and when it was going to end, and then the author was told "Make 30 more chapters!" And instead of including new content or introducing new characters for our main leads to interact with, the author instead decided to just remove the character growth and continue the "Does she like bachelor #1? Or bachelor #2? I don't know, because I can't give her a consistent personality!" It was *very* frustrating, and by the end I just wanted to know if Yuzu was able to continue his character growth or not.
ART:
As other people have already stated, the art is beautiful, and a large part of my enjoyment from the series came from how beautifully it was drawn. If you're not used to Fukuyama's art style, certain things may seem a little over-exaggerated, but they have an uncanny ability to draw various and conflicting emotions on a character's face that feels honest and real.
CHARACTER:
With the exception of the main female lead and the "main" male lead (Momo), all of the characters were actually wonderful. You get a feeling throughout the manga that the two main leads are kind of separate from all the other characters, and unfortunately that feeling stays until the end, but although [Momo] feels slightly more attached to at least SOME of the characters, the main female lead really only feels connected to 3 characters at best.
ENJOYMENT:
Ugh.
OVERALL:
See summary. It could've been SUCH a good manga, and going from Charming Junkie to this, I'm just so disappointed with the author.
Feb 1, 2021
Fukumenkei Noise
(Manga)
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TL;DR: By the end, you only care about the side characters. If you're reading this for the love story or the development of a main character, you will be EXTREMELY disappointed. Try something else and don't waste your time, I've already made that sacrifice for you.
Summary: Although I love the art and (most of) the characters, I really can't say that this was a good series. The plot was very congruent for the first half of the series, and although a bit cliche at times, it made you invested in the story and to see how the characters were going to grow and change. But ... |
