nutty nutz's manga / #school life(25)

I'm not against age gap relationships, and considering this one had a 5-year gap, it's not so bad. (I might be put in jail for saying that though haha.) OK, maybe Touya IS too young to be dating, but hey, most shoujo manga show people dating around that age. In any case, rather than the age gap issue, I was more concerned about how the story went. The characters were all flat, and their roles revolved around the love story, period. I can't even say Akari is simple-minded, because she's way too easily swayed and indecisive. This could have been better if the story was more fleshed out and the people had more to them than just a tag of 'female protag', 'male protag', 'other guy', etc. etc. I don't think they even properly addressed the age-gap matter, even though that was the main plot. The drawing was quite nice, though.

Sonohara Kokone, a quiet and expressionless girl, is confessed to by the Prince, Tsujii Minato. Kokone doesn't really know how to interact with him, but she likes the time they spend together taking pictures of the same things.

Miyoshi always watches her crush Tanabe from afar in the veranda. However, there she meets Takayama, who's from Tanabe's class, and spends considerably enjoyable time with him. The thing is, does she really feel love for Tanabe, or is it something else? //Cute drawing. Absolutely. Love this mangaka's drawing style. So beautiful.//

LR:1

Due to an accident back in 6th grade, Morimura Nobara becomes hearing impaired and instead gains the ability to understand animals' thoughts. Nobara now lives quietly as a 3rd year middle schooler, but then meets a boy whose voice sounds clear. As it turns out, this boy who can change into a dog was involved in Nobara's accident three years ago. And so with much reluctance from Nobara, Ro stays with her so that they can go back to the way they used to be. //First things first. I literally LOL-ed when Ro first changed into his dog form. Actually, I laughed a lot of times, too. I liked the mix of humor, fluffiness, and melancholy this manga gave me. It's hard to balance things out, especially when it's light-hearted but there's still drama in it. It wasn't too heavy, but still with plenty of relatable experiences and valuable lessons. To be honest, I thought the supporting characters believed Nobara way too easily when she claimed she could understand animals' thoughts. It's quite unrealistic, because Nobara herself was in denial even when she saw Ro transforming in front of her, but I'm willing to gloss it over. Hey, it's way too cute to be all critical. I know, it's a stupid reason. Whatever. I also put in the romance tag, even though it feels like there really isn't any. I'm glad it wasn't forced into the plot though, because I don't think Ro is ready for that yet, and so we get an open-end for that matter. Oh well. All in all, it was a satisfying read.//