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After checking out the recommendations page for Lovely Complex (a manga that I love and just finished re-reading), I was directed to Saruyama!, and because of that, I both expected and wanted to like this — I really did — but even though this is the second chance I've given this manga, even though I've only made it four chapters in (I believe one more than my reading prior), and even though I don't exactly *hate* this series, I cannot force myself to go any further.

This manga, to be frank, is dull (sometimes cliched and lackluster even when it isn't), moves way too quickly ... (Masaru/Macharu does seem like someone another person could quite easily fall for, I think, because of his personality, which doesn't make Haruna's feelings all that difficult to understand, but the progression into their relationship and of it — how little its build-up is, et cetera — kind of negates that), and is really kind of dramatic (nearly everything seems to end up blown way out of proportion, as if it has to be made into a scene: a happening that is based entirely on audience rather than feeling, which almost everyone who has so far been introduced just has to be a part of). Basically, it's all just so LOUD that it makes it hard to focus on the (rare, as it would so far suggest) quiet moments in which character depth and further familiarity is attempted to be established). And this is too bad, because I have a feeling that I could have gotten into this manga if only it had been paced more slowly and it hadn't been deemed necessary to place every other occurrence on display. After all, the main characters, at least, seem fairly interesting (although not interesting enough to hold my attention despite the other elements I didn't care for, obviously), and I like the idea of a couple like Macharu and Haruna (just not its execution here).

All of this said, however, I'm not saying that this is a bad manga or that it shouldn't be read — definitely not, it's clear from the other reviews for this that there are people who feel the opposite of me, which is perfectly fine — but if you are a reader like myself who needs to have characters/stories/relationships/et cetera be grown into over a period of time, as well as one who requires some patience in delivery, then this may not be the manga for you.