I'm drawing blanks on what's been shown that could be interpreted as lying and manipulating. The reasons why Yamada started liking Ichikawa hasn't been made explicit, but I more or less understood it as her finding him funny and being charmed by how unusual it is for a boy her age to be considerate of her, which puts it on the more realistic end of romantic developments in anime. The bike scene was pretty over the top (and ultimately unnecessary because Yamada's friend would have been the one to save her from the pushy upperclassman anyway), but I mean, I can understand Ichikawa's desire to not be NTR'd there, and he's thirteen so doing something crazy like that as a result of an emotional flare up is pretty typical as well.
As far as stalking is concerned, it's not like Ichikawa's mapping out her daily schedule and following her around or anything obviously problematic like that. They're peers, so their lives are naturally going to intersect at certain locations. Ichikawa following Yamada and the upperclassman after spotting them together on his way to school is probably the worst thing he did. I wouldn't call that stalking, but you probably shouldn't be catching up to people on the street so you can eavesdrop on their conversation and then mentally tsukkomi them. But again, I can understand his curiosity in that situation.
It's been a while since I read Kurosawa so I may be misremembering, but isn't that exactly the kind of development that it went with at the end? Regardless though, Ichikawa's unsociability is much more typical for his age, so it'd be weird if he received some sort of narrative karma for it. Yamada's attraction to him is also pretty reasonable, I wouldn't call it a reward from the author.
Yamada doesn't like MC for being a "nice guy", she's attracted to his akwardness, passion and skills. Also there's only one nanpa guy and the anime literally defended him as not really being a bad person, which is quite benevolent for a potential aggressor if you ask me. Yamada is also quite observant ("stalker") towards the MC but you seem to give it a pass because she's pretty I guess? In the rain episodes she literally buys a umbrella she didn't even need only to spend some extra time with him. You constantly talk about wish-fulfillment and such, so why'd you conveniently exclude the idea of Yamada being a wish-fulfillment for women who are into awkward yet mindful shotas? Friendly reminder that the author is female.
Granted it's not the most creative romcom out there and it's a bit fanservicey at times, but you can do much worse.
how does blue period feel like a battle Shonen in disguise? most battle shounen explain specifcally how a character get from A to B through prolonged training arcs. And the tropes that you list out in Blue period exist in other seinens as well, like akagi and initial d. The worst thing about your review is that associate all of this with battle shounen when that clearly isnt the case.
When do you plan to read/ watch Attack on Titan? The first 40 or so chapters/ First season might not attract a mature audience much but then it gets very, very good. The second half of the show is absolute perfection, for the most part. You should give it a watch...
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As far as stalking is concerned, it's not like Ichikawa's mapping out her daily schedule and following her around or anything obviously problematic like that. They're peers, so their lives are naturally going to intersect at certain locations. Ichikawa following Yamada and the upperclassman after spotting them together on his way to school is probably the worst thing he did. I wouldn't call that stalking, but you probably shouldn't be catching up to people on the street so you can eavesdrop on their conversation and then mentally tsukkomi them. But again, I can understand his curiosity in that situation.
Granted it's not the most creative romcom out there and it's a bit fanservicey at times, but you can do much worse.