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“I have to keep moving forward!”
Nonomiya Akane, 17 years old, second year in high school and the eldest daughter of the owner of Yaohachi Greengrocer, lives her life according to that motto. So when her crush of seven years, Nakai Sachio (Sacchin), announces that he was going out with childhood friend, Nishii Kayomi (Kayo-chan), Akane decides to just forget and move forward. Whether she fights with Yamato, her childhood friend, or suffers a heartbreak, she doesn’t falter and keeps working hard to achieve her dreams. So what kind of miracles will Akane be given?
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4 Comments
I cannot agree with these assessments. What we have here are relatively old-fashioned, country-ish people. I see the more country-ish types portrayed in lots of manga as more blunt and abrasive, saying all the things that make the Tokyo types go "Rrrk! Shutupshutup!" And they've known each other since they were 3. So it's one of those can-get-away-with-anything kind of relationships, where they give each other a hard time and pull pranks, and they've been like that forever. Except now there's questions of love in the air. That calls for a very different kind of interaction--suddenly, they're much more emotionally vulnerable and shit they could pull before no problem will do damage now--but their old relationship frame will not go away so easily. So a lot of the conflict is driven by their inability to change gears to a more romantically appropriate way of interacting. And of course it's also partly comedy.
This is early Nakahara Aya, from before Lovely Complex, the manga that made her name. It's a little rougher around the edges, but for me her strengths are already there. The comedic touch is there, the dialogue is snappy, and although the characters are fundamentally nothing unusual they have a lot of life.
Same here. I like strong-willed, positive, forward-thinking heroines who do not falter, which the description promises, but the manga does not deliver.
It's as if the author gets sadistic pleasure out of raising Akane's hopes, then crushing her spirit in as cruel and inhuman ways possible.
And Yamato? Your spoiler is spot-on. I'm all for childhood friend romance blossoming, but this jerk deserves to live a very, very long life without ever having someone love him. He takes the "bully the one I love" trope to extremes. Unfortunately, Akane has been bitten by the love bug, and she is in for a very long, arduous journey while this dirt-bag walks all over her, taking immense pleasure in intentionally being as emotionally cruel to her as possible.
Yamato is not the only vehicle for the author's sadism. She is regularly beaten up by her jerk of a father, leaving her with bruises and wounds on her face that she has to cover with bandages. He should be in jail. There oughta be a "[x] child abuse" tag here on batoto.
It's all pretty unfortunate as Akane is a very likeable girl.
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Maybe I'd be able to bear with it if Akane had anyone on her side at all - if she had a single friend she could talk to - but nope. No real friends, nothing to make me think that any of this will be worth it in the end. So no. Hard pass.