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Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku is a manga that is defined by something not seen in the market of romcom, and that is good comunication. The characters act in good will, and are transparent in what they wanna and what they think, which is honestly a breath of fresh air. Every conflict is resolved with a good an old dialogue, where each character does his best to show their viewpoint.

In the beggining this was amazing. After all, nothing better for a feels good manga than to have wholesome conclusion to conflict, and no better way to have a wholesome conclusion than throught a ... conversation. I enjoyed very much as the conflicts appeared, and I dove in warm and cuddly feelings as I read about the coming of age of those adolescents.

However, after some time, something becomes very clear, the characters are reasonable in excess. They don't act their age, heck, they act more mature than a great deal of adults. Their actions are not flawed in the slightest, every decision made is the best inside the context of the character. Now, I not saying this is inherently bad, however it does bring a feeling of artificiality to their conversations and relationships(especially with the abundance of variations of "sorry" and "we love you" that are said in the manga).

Now, not saying that this is bad. Just like how in other romcoms you have to understand that certains toxic/unhealth/exaggerated traits of characters are made with enjoyement in mind, and shouldn't be take extremely in face value, here the same must be done, but in the opposite way: perfect emotional intelligence traits of characters are made with wholesomeness in mind. And it works, this is truly one of the most enjoyable and wholesome manga I recently read, but for me, it is a little hold back by how emotionally intelligent every single character is. If you don't have the same problem, then rejoice, you're gonna probably enjoy a great manga even more than I did.

Something that I understood after reading manga for so many years is that everything is hard when it comes to making a story, but maybe the hardest thing of all is consistency. It is something hard to achieve, both in life as in art, as it requires to be good not only once, but almost everytime. Now, with a weekly to monthly based market, a voracious public and trending demands, it is no surprise how hard it is to a manga to be consistently good. For that it is surprising that Dunmeshi isn't consistently good, it is consistently great.

Themes are presented and expanded upon, ... in a way so natural you almost forget how little the story was in the beggining. Characters appear and have realistic objectives and unique characteristics and relationships . New designs are showed, so creative and beautiful you may think the author has an infinite well of ideas.

And all that from a simple as a theme as taking sustenance from a dungeon. Really, the story is the definition of humble begginings. Even thought it starts with the death of someone, you are struck with the feeling of this ocasion being only an excuse for the execution of its simple premise: a foodie manga set in a medieval fantasy setting. And for some time, this deception is mantained, as I was reading and enjoying the silly exploits of our charismatic main cast I handwaived every sign that the story was big than it was suggested in the beggining. I took an starter dish, and thought it to be the main course. And when I truly understood that there where a full main course and dessert behind those initial feeling, what a delight it was.

I atribute this delight to two main traits of Dunmeshi: his unique cast of characters and its amazing worldbuilding. It is incredible how the author makes you care about this set of people, their believes and their relationships. Until the end of the manga, a bond is created with the main party that is rare to see in other works. Normally, what is seen in most fantasy manga with parties is an strorytelling tha makes one person overshadows all others. Now, I am not trying to say this is inherently bad, a dish with an ingredient that overwhelms all others can be good. But a dish where you can feel the role each ingredient had in bringing about the taste you feel is a whole other experience. And is that experience Dunmeshi brings. Even though Laios is the definite protagonist, you feel the importance of each members, and the repercussions of their actions. This aspect is not only seen in the main characters, but also all the supporting cast, making for one true scrumptious course.

Now for the world. Initially, the world seens generic, but just like an onion, this one has layers. I will not expand on the greatness of the world, but it is impressive how something shared by so many races and by so many monsters was made so cohesive. Just like a stew, you may not understand in the beggining what is the purpose of each presented thing, but with each spoonful you get more and more knowledge of the "recipe", and together a new appreciation of the flavor and of the warm feeling it gives. At the end, I was completely satisfied with this amazing universe.

The manga does a wonderful job in every other sphere of storytelling I can think of, specially the art and the ending, which are both so amazing. I firmly believe this to be one of the best written manga out there, and to anyone who has any form of fondness for the fantasy genre I say: dig in, and bon appétit

There are a total of four things that I absolutely love in pieces that I read when well done. The first is realistic suffering, see characters pass throught bad things, and be successful(or the opposite of it) is amazing. The second is relationships, I love to see how characters interact with each other, and develop throught that. The third is worldbuilding, a good and nice world can transmit a sense of wonder that enhances the experience to new levels. An fourth is simply put, the funnies, how much a manga makes me laugh or smirk is heavily correlated with my enjoyement. But comedy is very ... particular, and varies very much from individual to individual, and because of that is a genre very hard to recommend. When it hits, whoever, oh, does it hit hard.
And Grand Blue hit the hardest. Grand blue scores a big fat zero in 2 of the categories(suffering and worldbuilding). However, when it comes to the funnies, this piece has the highest score of any other. If I had to rank in that alone, it would be first no doubt. Everything in this manga revolves around the comedy, even the relationships between character is used as a step stone for bring something funny to reality.
You will not see profound relationships, development of characters, or a rich world, but for this one, that doesn't matter. The enjoyement comes throught slapstick comedy, reocurring gags and character behaviour. From "The Boys(TM)" being absolute pieces of shit, to using a lighter to see if it really is water, to "this is a diving club", everything is worked up with the purpose of laughs. And the author is a master at this. He knows how to perfectly use a gag in the right moment to extract most laughs, he knows when to go hard, and when to stop abruptly, he simply knows.
But of course, this manga wouldn't be so funny if it wasn't for the artist. The art is used in excelence to bring extreme reactions and make the slapstick moments works wonderfully. It was actually what I missed most in the anime, since the art in the manga is used very much as a sudden punchline, which was lost in translation.
If you don't like the style of comedy don't bother, this manga lives and dies in that genre. But if you enjoy it,if you even remotely like, then dive in, and enjoy. This is one of the best

If we pretend other manga are like beautiful paintings, this one is like a puzzle, which you assemble piece by piece until you get the full picture. Jus like a normal puzzle, you may have some bigger gratification depending on how good is the final product(which in this case is pretty good) but most of your enjoyement will probably come in realizing how one part connects with another, and believe me, this work does this amazingly. I found myself rereading entire chapters just to be sure I catched all the references. This enjoyement only increases thanks to the characters and dialogues, which are very well ... written.
If you are a fan of interconnected stories and/or puzzles, this manga is for you.

At the start Kuragehime set a lot of things I would call red flags, per see. Normally, when a manga includes a character that is a crossdresser, and women characters that are considered ugly I've come to expect the maturity of fourth grader and the finesse of a rhino in a glass shop. However, despite some harsh words against our dear protagonist and the amar girls here and there, the manga works along pretty well amongst those characteristics, using that to create characters that are both funny and endearing.
The characters in this manga were the backbone that kept my interest throught the story(looking ... at you Hanamori), together with the dialogue, since the central theme(which could be summarized in fashion and transformation), despite being well worked, didn't ressonate with me.
Now, in the beggining, those were more than enough for me to consider this manga a great one. However, as time passed, it became clear to me that with the exception of the two main characters and Jiji, the development of everyone else was almost a flat-line. Most of them end the manga as they had begun, with the exception of having more experience in working with clothes. Along with that, a lot of time the relationship between characters feel superficial, it as if the author planned some events ahead of time and those just didn't happen.
In technical terms the art and panneling are really good. Specially after the girls transform, the author can really pass the vibe that they should be unrecognizable without changing the entire design of the amars. I feel that special attention could have been given to the drawing of the dresses though. It is not uncommon for the culmination of the central manga theme to receive double pages here and there(goals in Blue Lock, attacks in One Piece, shows in Shiori Experience), but here, double pages feel pretty rare, and when they do happen the focus are almost always the model. But, that is jus a little nitpick of mine, the art is great.
A final point is that the manga feels a bit rushed at the end, like an entire arc was squeezed in two chapters, it didn't affect my personal enjoyement, but I can see it don't sitting well with other people.
Overall, a good manga, that could have been very good if the author had treated some topics and events with greater care. Recommend to anyone wanting to have a nice, peaceful time and read some nice quips here and there.

Solo Leveling is one of the many stories you can find at the medium where a guy goes from level 1 crook to level 100 boss because of some cheat-like ability or situation that make the protagonist basically have unlimited potential, this type of premise surely isn't hard to find, "Tensei Shitara no Slime Datta Ken", "Kumo Desu Ga, Nani Ka?", "Re:Monster", "Arifureta: From Common Place to World Strongest" all have a protagonist that is clearly overpowered in comparison to the rest of the world.

After reading this type of story again and again, I can say, at least for me, this type of story ... starts strong but only grows weaker thereafter, and that is due to a sense of lack of challenge that only grows stronger as the story develops itself.

CHARACTERS 3/10

Let's talk about the protagonis, when the story starts Jin-Woo is just an E-rank hunter who got the strange ability to grow stronger after "surviving" against a monster miles ahead of his power, it is a very good start, we know that he is weak, we know that he has only his wits, we know that he's doing his best for his family, we feel sympathetic for this poor guy, so as he grows stronger, the reader also gains this sense of accomplishment, because we know how hard he is training to achieve his goal, but this doesn't last long, the story grows specifically dull after he gains his job(which I will not explain because it's very important to the story), because then the story changes from "a weakling with a meek personality trying his best to become stronger" to "an overpowered hack with a change of personality so sudden that makes you think he must have some sort of multiple personality disorder, oh did I also mensioned that he is now hot and perfect in every sense of the word" basically, a lot of people enjoyed his change of personality, but I found it bad, it felt like we changed protagonist mid-history, if you like badass-like characters you may not find this change as bad as I do.

Changing the topic to the side characters, they are not well used, they mostly just serve to hype the protagonist, this is more evident when the S-rank hunters first appear, they are supposed to be at the top of the hunters hierarchy and yet when they are shown their only job is making Jin Woo look badass, is like putting a bunch of Mercedes inline which one Lamborghini standing out, sure the Mercedes is a very good car, but why to care for it when you have a fucking Lamborghini in the house of the $500000,00 along with them, that's what happens here, the side characters are good and strong in its own rights, but it's difficult to care for them when you know the protagonist is not only stronger but better at literally anything they ever try to attempt, the characters are in my opinion the weakest point in the whole manhwa.


ART 10/10

The art is pretty damn good, it's not even the type of art that I like but I have to give it to the artist of this manhwa, he nailed it, the colors, the character design, the environment, the art is not only the thing that draws most attention but is also the best part of the manga overall, especially the use of colors, I had never seen a mawnha make such good use of the fact that they can be colored, truly an outstanding work

Story 5/10

The story isn't anything outstanding but it isn't bad, despite the lack of good characters the fact that the protagonist is always getting thrown at some new situation totally different from the last makes for a story that, albeit lacking, never feels totally tired out, the visual differences from one setting to another and the different ways the enemies are portrayed truly sells the idea of something new, also the fact that there is always a sense of tension for the side-characters makes the things have some weight to them, but the fact that the protagonist is near-invincible makes the parts of the story where is only him against the world have much less weight, after all, you know he is gonna succeed. Because of that most of the situations change from "OMG, are the characters gonna be able to win" to "OMG, how long until Jin-Woo arrives" which leaves a bad taste after the arc reaches its conclusion since the solution is basically the same every time(SPOILER), use shadow, defeat strong enemy, make strong enemy a shadow, repeat.

ENJOYMENT 6/10

The characters and the story aren't very good, but the art, the flashy powers, the hype when the protagonist arrives at the fight, and the feeling of getting always stronger makes a somehow enjoyable experience

OVERALL 6/10

Albeit lacking in very key aspects the story is flashy and hype enough to make a somehow good read, it's definitely no masterpiece, but it's a fun read to have in an afternoon. Recommend if you like overpowered characters, outstanding art, or the trope of the protagonist that grow stronger as if they are in a game.