Back to twinkletoes's Profile twinkletoes's Profile

One thing I always wish is that manga grew with their audience - if you think of someone starting to read your typical shoujo manga in middle school (say, 15 years old) and the serialisation takes 5-7 years to complete, if the plot and tone of the manga stay the same all the way through, it's very unlikely that the 20-22 year old who finishes that manga is going to enjoy the ending as much as the beginning, since they valued different things when they were 15. This is a manga that succeeds in growing with its audience, and is absolutely amazing for it. ...

When I first picked this up, I was not particularly captured by it - I actively disliked the art style and will very rarely read something where I don't like the art - and the plot didn't seem very original. However, the more I read the more involved I became in the story - this is absolutely not your typical shoujo. The character growth displayed by main and side characters alike, the way that various strands of the plot are brought together across dozens of chapters, and the personalities of the characters all go to show that this mangaka is a master storyteller who values the thoughts and struggles of real human beings. Of course it's all punched up and dramatised to make it more exciting, but never once (as I often do when reading shoujo manga) did I find myself screaming, "You're an idiot! No human being with half a brain would have made that choice!!!". This manga deals with surprisingly dark and mature topics in a thoughtful and loving way. If there's anything else quite like this out there, I haven't found it yet.

Absolutely recommended.

What the everloving crap did I just read? This was the B-movie of shoujo manga - you're either going to love it because it's so utterly bizarre and is one of those things that make you go, "Oh Japan, you're so lovably crazy," or you're going to come away feeling like someone just stuck the most mediocre shoujo tentacle possible through your ear into your brain and wiggled it around for a while.

The premise is slightly weird and is taken to stunningly weird extremes by the unrealistic actions and reactions of the characters. Other than that, this manga laps up every single shoujo manga ... trope and shoehorns them in with hardly a smidgen of originality despite the initially odd premise.

What an interesting manga.

PROS:
- The art is beautiful and the characters are drawn with an absolutely stunning range of amazing expressions. It's wonderful how you can really get a sense for surprisingly complex emotions from the characters from the way they are drawn.
- The characters are likeable, interesting, multifaceted and do not always act in the manner you'd expect them to.
- The dynamic between Haru and Shizuku is really interesting. It's very refreshing to have a pair of characters who evolve in interesting ways together, and who interact in a variety of different ways depending on the situation. They're not always in 'love-love shoujo' mode ... to each other, and actually enjoy spending time with each other for their personalities and interests. It's nice for it to not always be blushes and sidelong glances.
- Great character growth on all fronts.
- This manga doesn't suffer as much as many others do from a sense of repetitiveness - although there were some instances where I felt material was being rehashed, the were relatively rare.
- I like how the side characters manage to have their own stories without seeming to take away from the main plot and characters.
- The plot definitely deviates from the typical shoujo narrative at many points. There are some aspects of the plot that are never fully explained, but are presented in such a way that you are comfortable with the level of insight you have.
- I like a lot of things about the last few chapters. I've never seen a mangaka present so much plot and emotion in a chapter that has almost no text. It was super interesting!

CONS:
- Although I understand why they were presented in the way they were, the ending chapters were a bit disjointed and unsatisfying. I think maybe breaking up the last chapter into two slightly longer chapters would have been more effective.
- Uhhh...that's honestly the only one I can think of!

A really adorable short story! I was surprised by the depth of the characters - the thoughts and dialogue are more realistic and nuanced than pretty much any other shoujo I've read. The emotion is honest and multifaceted, the art is cute and clean, and the pacing was excellent. I honestly think this manga deserves a much better score than the one it has.

The interaction of the characters and the honesty that they use in interacting with each other is really refreshing. The characters' dilemmas are communicated clearly without resorting to long, over-involved monologues, and their responses and feelings towards other characters (for example ... the mother's relationship with her daughter) are realistic and an unusual find in this genre.

Every once in a while, I go to read a manga and am really pleasantly surprised by the depth of what I find. This was one of those manga. It deals really poignantly with the feelings of children abused by their families, and a struggle to trust and rebuild mental health. The art is adorable and the characters are unexaggerated and relatable.

As much as I like reading about taboo and age gap relationships, this one was a bit of a stretch for me. However, as it never really turns into a romance and nothing inappropriate happens, it comes across as a strikingly believable scenario of ... a young girl developing feelings for the man who saved her from a rough situation, and a lonely guy who is still hurt by his own experiences as a child finding solace in helping and loving someone who is in a situation similar to the one he experienced. The 'romance' doesn't even really need to come in to it - this is a story of two people with complicated feelings who thankfully understand and come to lovingly support one another.

PROS:
-Faster Than a Kiss was a pretty good, fairly typical shoujo read. Given that the love interests are living together, there are more opportunities than usual for those really cute shoujo love-love moments, and Faster Than a Kiss does those well.

-The main characters are pretty likeable, and the story isn't weighed down with concerns like 'actual real life consequences to actions' or 'reasonable adult characters'. That may be a pro or a con for you, depending on what you're looking for. I was in the mood for it at the time, so it was a pro for me.

CONS:
-The main character has the tired manga ... trope character flaw of freaking out, yelling and screaming, and kicking people into the stratosphere when anything remotely surprising happens. Personally, I find this exhausting. It doesn't make her overly obnoxious or make the manga unreadable, but that trait in particular gets boring.

- There is surprisingly little plot for a 50+ chapter manga with long instalments. Honestly most of the manga takes place in a 'shoujo holding pattern' of:
1. Let's go on a secret date!
2. Something is causing tension between the couple!
3. Sub characters interfere with the date!
4. Oh well, we'll get our chance another time!

- The overarching plot of Kazuma being estranged from his father makes absolutely no sense, was in no way resolved, and was just periodically used to throw a wrench into the works with no logic to why it should be as disruptive as it ends up being. The father, completely arbitrarily, interferes with Kazuma's life despite having 'cut all ties' with him, and he just goes along with it instead of putting forth the completely reasonable response "No, you never showed any interest in parenting me, disowned me, and I've built my own life so with all due respect you can f*** off and die." The fact that at the very end (HUGE SPOILERS) he arbitrarily decides that they can get married but Kazuma has to go live on a remote island and teach there for four years so that he and Fumino can't live together? What the ever loving crap was that.