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Do you like cute, fluffy rom-coms? Yes? Great. Do you also like more dramatic stories with a bit of an edge? Yes? Great, then this is the manga for you.

I think it's fair to say that the recent score-bombing of It's a Little Late says a lot less about the quality of the manga than it does about the fragile and overly-sensitive nature of a large section of the manga community. Or, to be as charitable as possible, it says that a lot of those score-leavers would answer "yes" to my first question and "no" to my second.

I think it's also fair to say the ... the wildly out-of-proportion reaction that the more recent chapters have received are a testament to how well written the earlier, fluffier chapters are. If chapters 1 to 20 were really just cookie-cutter, generic rom-com slop, then I doubt the fluff-only people would have been quite so outraged at the latter dramatic developments.

It's a shame, the author is really trying to do something different here, and so far they seem to be succeeding too, but a lot of the people who have read it don't like what the author is doing, and a lot of the people who would like what the author is doing haven't read it. There's a huge mismatch between story and audience here. However, for those of us lucky enough to be both a reader of the manga and a part of its intended audience, it's a rare treat. It's a story that manages to capture a whole range of emotions and experiences, and acknowledges that very few things in life are simple, clear-cut, or black-and-white. I also expect that ultimately it will tell a story where our FMC triumphs in the end, which surely is good storytelling - in any other genre it'd be expected for the MC to have some adversity to overcome before achieving their aims, I don't really see why in rom-coms that should be any different.

To all the younger viewers complaining about how boring the start of this new season has been, let this serve as a warning for your future: working for companies with a poor "meeting culture" will suck the life out of you.

Some managers just love a meeting, and will schedule one for pretty much anything. Partly it's a way to make them feel important, but mainly it's a way to fill lots of time and make it seem like they're busy people. The fact that these meetings actually waste everybody else's time seems to escape their notice. I can only assume the decision-makers behind this season ... of Slime also love a meeting, and have failed to notice that they're wasting all of our time with the most boring content imaginable.

The worst kind of meetings are the ones that you don't need to be in, or at most only need to be present for a couple minutes of. Vast swathes of your time is wasted listening to people give updates on things that have no relevance to yourself. You find yourself staring off into the void as managers give instructions to people who you barely know, for projects that you have no part to play in. One has to wonder why anybody would want to replicate that feeling in anime form, but here we are.

If you have genuinely enjoyed the start to this season of slime, I can only assume you are either one of those meeting-loving managers, or aspire to be one someday. On the one hand, I'm happy that there is now anime content that specifically caters to your desires. But on the other hand, please know that shorter, more focused meetings are better for overall productivity and worker satisfaction, and that this season of Slime has so far been about as exciting as one of your Powerpoint presentations, which FYI everybody hates.

In summary: SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN EMAIL

"Toxic AF". "Surprisingly wholesome". Both are descriptions I've seen attached to Destroy It All And Love Me In Hell. Both are also true. It's hard to explain why they're both true without going into spoiler territory, but let's try anyway.

First of all, yes, this story clearly ticks a whole bunch of the toxic yuri checkboxes. If toxic yuri is your bag, or toxic relationship stories in general, then this is an easy recommendation and you might as well stop reading this review now and go check it out. No judgement here, I love a good toxic story myself, the more messed up the better.

But surprisingly ... wholesome? How does that work? Well, basically, the toxicity isn't just toxic. The bullying isn't just mindless bullying. There's deeper motivations to a lot of the darker stuff going on, which lead to pay-offs that are both viscerally satisfying and also, in their own unorthodox way, quite heartwarming. Wholesome even. This is most clearly exemplified in the recent chapter 10, which delivers one of the greatest "fuck yeah" moments in recent memory.

It's still early days, and things could really go in a variety of directions, but if the author manages to keep up this current balance they'll deliver something really special; something that gives us both the delicious darkness that toxic yuri is known for, along with something much more meaningful and uplifting.

I can't recommend this one to everyone (but I'll be damned if I'm saying I have "mixed feelings" about it), a lot of people clearly are never going to be able to get past the overt toxicity. But if you're not afraid of darker themes, or better yet if you actively seek them out, then Destroy It All is well worth your time, and is looking set to rival Kitanai Kimi ga Ichiban Kawaii on the toxic yuri leaderboard.

At a glance one might be forgiven for assuming that 2.5 Dimensional Seduction is a clone of the much more well known My Dress-Up Darling: both are ecchi rom-coms that use the world of cosplay as their setting, and the former started publishing about a year after the latter. But whatever the authors initial motivation for writing 2.5D might have been, the reality is that it tells a very different story, and has grown into something that far surpasses its rival.

Both mangas leaned heavily into their ecchi fan service early on to build a following, and then shifted focus more towards the cosplay side of ... things as the story progressed. But while Dress-Up Darling has seemingly abandoned all pretences of being a rom-com, and thus become an incredibly dull read as a result, 2.5D has never forgotten what it originally sold itself as. That's more than just remembering to keep up a supply of drawings of cute girls wearing cosplay outfits; it's maintaining a focus on character interactions and motivations, romantic development, and comedy.

If anything, 2.5D has got better as it has gone along. The art has been great from day one, but some of the drawings in more recent chapters have been truly stunning. As they've become more confident in both the manga itself and the readers familiarity with the characters, the author has really started to have fun with the format, introducing some great little recurring gags, 3rd (and possibly 4th?!) wall breaking, references to other media, and using different art styles to highlight the 2D vs 2.5D vs 3D themes of the story. A steady stream of new characters have been added, each of whom gets enough time for us to get a good feel for who that are and their motivations for wanting to cosplay.

That exploration of why the different characters want to cosplay is what really makes this manga shine. This isn't just a superficial vehicle for delivering fan service, it's a solid exploration of a subculture that I assume the author has a lot of love for, and those varying motives for cosplaying give us a cast of well rounded and interesting characters. So much so that they're all best-girl contenders, there really is no clear choice for who the male lead should end up with in the end.

The male lead is an interesting character in his own right too, who shows real growth as the story progresses. He's not just some self-insert blob devoid of personality, nor a Mary-Sue, nor an infuriating Kazuma type. Yes, the setup itself is about as unlikely as you'll find in any harem-esque manga, but at the same time it never feels out of place that all these pretty girls are hanging out with this diehard otaku, primarily because we've seen him do enough to earn the affections of each of them.

If you're not averse to some fan service then 2.5D Seduction is well worth reading. It delivers on all its promises, providing a read that is fun when it needs to be fun and meaningful when it needs to be meaningful. Hopefully the anime adaptation coming later this year will bring it the audience it deserves, and will pull it out of Dress-Up Darling's shadow.

Bait and switch. This isn't the fist manga to pull a bait and switch, and it surely won't be the last, but my god the switch sure is jarring.

The bait: a somewhat ecchi rom-com with cosplay as the setting; the perfect opportunity to showcase our beautiful main girl in a variety of ridiculously skimpy outfits. Cue nosebleeds all round, rave reviews, and a well received anime adaptation.

The switch: a cosplay manga which goes to great length detailing the minutiae of creating cosplay outfits, multiple chapters showcasing nothing but photo shoots at various events, and a complete retreat from anything that could be described as romantic ... or comedy. In interviews the author has basically admitted that this is the manga she actually wanted to write, and that the initial rom-com was largely due to influence of editors in order to get published in the first place, and to build up an audience. As I said: bait and switch.

Now, that switch wouldn't necessarily be such a terrible thing if it wasn't so interminably dull. I quite enjoy arts and crafts, so I'm not averse to learning about how various aspects of cosplay are made, but that alone isn't enough to hold my interest for multiple chapters. I also enjoy well drawn manga, and boy oh boy the photoshoot chapters are stunningly drawn, but again that alone isn't enough to hold my interest for multiple chapters. I'm sure there are people who would enjoy what this manga has transformed into, but I very much doubt they are the same people who were baited by the initially promised rom-com.

If you're interested in the bait but not the switch, then by all means read the first couple volumes' worth of material. If you're interested in the bait AND the switch, then by all means read everything that's been published so far. But if you're in either category, you'd do a lot better if you instead read 2.5 Dimensional Seduction, which is in every way a superior ecchi rom-com with a cosplay setting; it goes just as hard into the cosplay side of things but never loses focus on what it was that drew in readers in the first place, it never becomes self indulgent, it never stops having fun, and has not one but several main girls who all beat Marin in terms of character development, general cuteness, and being "best girl" material.

In a genre dominated by teenage high school romances, anything with an adult cast and literally any other setting is automatically something worth checking out. Unfortunately, if this is the best we can manage outside of the norm then we might as well just go back to the teenagers.

As of chapter 17 there's literally no rom in this rom-com, and at the current rate of progress there'll barely be any in a hundred chapters time. There isn't even the slightest hint that the older male love-interest sees our MC as anything other than a co-worker and possible surrogate daughter, which means that there's zero sexual ... tension, and all we're left with is a slightly pathetic MC pining after an older man simply because he's kind to everyone. This guy is going to require a complete personality transplant if we're going to see any kind of progress, because the pained lengths that he'll go to in apologising for possible sexual harassment - for things that don't even begin to warrant any kind of apology - are so ingrained into his mode of being.

Honestly, if this is an even slightly realistic representation of how things are in the modern Japanese workplace then it's no wonder birth rates there are so low. But realistic or not, what it provides is a decidedly frustrating read. Yes, a slow rate of progress is the norm in rom-com manga, but there's usually at least some hint of things to come, a good reason the MC is interested in who they're interested in, a hint that those feelings are returned, really just anything that keeps the reader coming back. It's a struggle to find any of that here, and it doesn't seem worth sticking around in the hopes that they might appear at some distant point in the future.

Artwork in the manga is mostly decent, the MC in particular is really nicely drawn, but the same cannot usually be said of our wet blanket of a love-interest. When he's being drawn as an attractive older man he sometimes looks ok, but the more comedic faces he's given are horrible, and just add to the sense that this is a guy with utterly zero rizz, who quite honestly the MC has no business being so attracted to.

Every now and again you come across a manga that really feels like it breaks the mold, either in the art style that it uses, or the kind of story it wants to tell, or the way it wants to tell it. Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta seems intent on doing all three.

The art style is extremely distinctive - possibly even off-putting if the front cover is all you've got to go on - but it's really worth bearing with because it's actually beautifully drawn and suits the story perfectly. Characters are expressive and fluid, backgrounds are nicely detailed, the use of lime green ... highlights makes scenes pop (eyes especially), and the overall slightly chaotic layout really adds to the feel of what's going on. Our main pair are so well drawn, the visual storytelling from their expressions and movements is top notch.

Speaking of our main pair, they're both great characters. Aya is not your run-of-the-mill gyaru, and Mitsuki is not your run-of-the-mill introvert. Both have a lot of depth to them and feel like real, fleshed out people. I'm a big fan of gyaru x [otaku/neet/introvert/etc] stories in general, but this is a particularly good one. It feels more believable than usual because we're immediately given a good reason as to why Aya and Mitsuki would be drawn to each other, it's not some contrived situation where you have to just suspend your disbelief in order to accept the story. The tropes that you might expect in this kind of a story only ever serve as a starting point, and so in the end we get a good balance between the comfortable familiarity of tropes, and fresher, more innovative storytelling.

Watching the development of things between these two slightly awkward teens is really lovely, you can't help but root for them. Which just happens to be exactly how a lot of the supporting cast feel too. Uncle Joe and Narita are both fantastic supporting characters - Joe especially - who act as a great proxy for the reader in the way they do their best to help our MCs as they struggle to work out what's going on between them. The development doesn't feel rushed, but the 4 or 5 pages per chapter format means we get through quite a lot in a seemingly short space of time.

It's also very obvious that the mangaka is a big fan of the kind of music our characters both love. If your own musical tastes are the same then you either get to join in with them in nerding out over albums you love, or else you'll get some recommendations for things you might not have listened to before (I've had both experiences with this manga).

All in all this is a great manga that more people need to read. I don't think you have to be a yuri fan to enjoy it (though if it serves as your gateway to the world of yuri then all the better), and I would happily recommend it to anyone.