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Jun 4, 2024
Toaru tenin to kyaku no hanashi is yet another manga that begins as a twitter mini-manga, which then got serialized into a full-blown manga. It starts almost immediately, with the female MC, Komatsu Saki, confessing to Shirashi Yamato, the male MC, within the very first chapter.
As with other romance comedy mangas, it hits every trope imaginable:
- Both of the characters are awkward around each other,
- Onsen story,
- Christmas, New Years, & Valentine story,
- “He/she is sick, go check up on them” story,
- A rival love interest who fell for the MC earlier,
- Sharing an umbrella under the rain
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moment,
and so on & so forth.
Unfortunately, it feels slightly underdeveloped, with a lot of plot points just ending up being forgotten or simply thrown into the mix. An example of this: the love rival, which we got introduced as someone who liked Saki before Shirashi even met her. He comes off as being possessive towards Saki, and wants her for himself. Later in the story, he just completely disappears after the confession scene, and there wasn't much of him to begin with! I can count with one hand how much he appears on the storyline.
The characters themselves are not that memorable or have a deep personality either－Saki is shown to be head over heels for Shirashi, but it's not shown why she did she feel that way in the first place. As for Shirashi, he… kinda feels like just your run-of-the-mill employee.
Perhaps it is a consequence of its length, which is very short－21 webcomic chapters + 25-odd manga chapters, which means the writing must be prioritised to progress the main characters’ romantic development. Thankfully, though, the length means that these flaws don't stand out that much, and don't detract much from the story as a whole.
Personally, as a sucker for any romance manga, I enjoyed this quite a lot. Just bear in mind that it's not an intricate, well thought out story, that is fortunately saved by its length.
Final verdict: 6/10 - Fine
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 27, 2023
Kanokari is perhaps the first manga that compelled me to write a review, just because of what it is. The stages that I experienced whilst reading this was:
“Oh, it's just another ecchi romcom” → “Great, it's a harem” → “Hmm, this might be quite good” → “I can't stop my tears” → “What the fuck did I just read” → “Ugh, guess I'll just stick around till the end”
So yeah, I have mixed feelings about this manga. Almost everything up to the movie arc was decent romcom material, and I enjoyed it a lot. Chapter 164, personally, is the highlight of the entire manga; letting
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us see a glimpse of Chizuru’s vulnerable side, and Kazuya's growth to be a more confident, mature person. Which should be a good sign of things to come, right?
But no, instead we got the Paradise arc, which arguably is the worst part of the manga. Spanning over 42 chapters, it is extremely mentally draining just to read through it. It nearly made me decide to stop reading the manga altogether. Almost every single character development that was built up before was completely torn down here—as if the characters just got back to point zero again. It's genuinely frustrating to see that Kazuya regress into his usual meek, loser personality. Not to mention that whole NTR fantasy chapter—wtf? The ending of that arc, while sweet in its own way, still doesn't make me forgive the abomination that comes before.
While it does get better (in other words, back to baseline) after the Paradise arc, it also somewhat frustrates me. It seemed like it's starting again from scratch when it's almost 300 chapters in, which is… weird.
Other characters, unfortunately, get the same treatment as well. Slow, long-winded character development is very rampant here. Ruka always wants Kazuya for herself (speaking of which, where has she been in the last dozen chapters?), and Mami always acts malicious towards him. Sumi is probably the only character to have a clear & steady development, even if it's at a snail's pace.
However, for all its faults, I can't help but shed a tear at every tender moment that I came across, and I genuinely want to see Kazuya and Chizuru end up together. I think they both deserve each other, given what has happened between them so far.
Oh, and the songs from the anime are very, very good! All of them perfectly fit with what either Kazuya or Chizuru felt at some point in the story. I personally like Ienai & Endroll the most; both of them managed to capture Chizuru's feelings towards Kazuya.
In conclusion, it's not a manga that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, unless you can withstand the terrible characters & pacing. I'm giving this a 5/10—just okay.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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