You spoke facts
I had refused to read this before coz I'm frustrated of the summary, but when I read it, it was actually a masterpiece waiting to be noticed.
Your comment reminded me of how beautiful this is. What I like about this was that both Kaoruko and Rintaro stands out all by themselves. They have personality and the lovely thing was, every of their friends also stands out all by themselves, same as their family and just every characters.
Honestly, I see them as different kinds of characters. I see Kaoruko as a shoujo extra who's the comic relief of the group and where people unexpectedly gets their advice from, that character you want authors to write about, while Rintaro's the slice of life mc who looks delinquent but kind and misunderstood.
Yet despite their genre vibe difference, I love that they naturally have a chemistry, a spark. I love that their pasts and present made it so that their personalities were a chemistry enough to break that barrier.
I sometimes hate that some manga makes the delinquent mc the very handsome mc delinquent type to cater the taste of the many but in here, I just see a love story about two normal people.
Idk if this made sense, I'm writing it half-asleep.
I agree with everything except for one: this is actually shounen (GASP!) I know, a lot of people mistake this for shoujo. It's that good
This is what I mean by good shoujo!! It's not overly cliche that it focuses on only romance. There's proper development. The characters also weren't made to just fall in love with each other, but to live their own lives and be their own person with personalities.
Rintaro didn't start off written as the ML who bakes cakes solely for the reason of gifting it to Kaoruko, the FL, he bakes them because he has a background that's detached from her—he has an actual genuine interest in baking inspired by that chef and his family. Same goes for the other side characters. When a character feels grateful, it's not just direcred as if the love interest is the only person who contributed and actually changed them for the better, they acknowledge that it's the combined experiences they got from friends, family, and other people. It's not a "lover saves me from everything, they are my only saviour" type of trope.
It also feels so refreshing and light to read, sure there are some hiccups, trauma, and personal conflicts that adds depth to the characters—when they struggled about their future careers, for example—but it's not overly exaggerated or not relatable to the point that it's so dark? I'm actually reading a regular person's love story that's easier to come across in real life.
I also really like how the story doesn't mainly revolve as if they're the only ones who exist, the manga also focuses on building relationships between the FL and ML's seperate social circles. The FL doesn't always just hang out with ML and vice versa, we see platonic interactions between all of them like how real life friend groups go and merge.
This is basically my dream relationship! Two people like each other so much while still preserving the person they were before they met each other. Me and who? ;-;