This manga is about a guy named Manabu that is working hard towards his goal of being accepted into Tokyo University. However, his childhood friend, Megumi, is constantly distracting him. Mainly due to how she is constantly inadvertently showing more skin than she should. The problem with this premise, is that it starts out with both of them in their first year of high school. College entrance exams aren’t until third year, however Manabu is solely focused on passing the Tokyo University entrance exam from the beginning of the manga. Thus, he doesn’t join any club or much any of the standard high school stuff. And him being so focused on studying so early on results in him not being able to make friends either. There’s somewhat of a plot thread involving him seeming to have a crush on a girl that goes to another school named Mikawa, but its completely and utterly pointless and ultimately goes nowhere.
On the flip side, Megumi is the star rookie of the kendo club and over the course of the manga she starts taking kendo even more seriously, with the ultimate goal of trying to get into a good college through kendo. However, there too what matters most is her performance in her final year of high school, and thus the earlier tournaments don’t feel anywhere near as high stakes. Earlier on in the manga there is somewhat of a focus on actual kendo itself, but as a kendo manga it really just isn’t very good at all. Thus, as the manga progresses it shifts to skipping over the actual kendo and just focusing on the results. Megumi is much more social than Manabu so she has a pretty wide circle of friends, but none of them are all that interesting. There are lots of side characters that have a reoccurring presence, but none of them are fleshed out enough to really care about them.
As a result of not much serious happening, the period of the manga that covers the first two years of high school is essentially just really slow slice of life. It’s basically just a series of comedic shorts, the vast majority of which are ecchi focused. The ecchi isn’t all that good though to be honest. It’s very dense, but it’s really basic. There’s nothing particularly unique or interesting. It’s basically just Megumi not being good at keeping her clothes in mind and thus constantly getting into positions that show her underwear or something like that. It’s really repetitive and not all that fun. There are some heartwarming moments or especially funny moments here and there, and there is some character and relationship development from time to time. But this phase of the manga lasts about twenty volumes, so the good parts feel like drops in an ocean. It’s enough to build investment in Manabu, Megumi, and their relationship, but overall it’s just way too tedious and dull.
The manga goes through a major shift when they move into their third year. Manabu starts going to cram school and actually makes friends. Both of whom are well developed, interesting, and likable characters in their own right, especially Yukino. Megumi becomes the captain of the kendo club and starts taking kendo really seriously. Furthermore, one of her friends, Mio, takes much more a spotlight and turns out to be way more of a fun character than she had been before this. The stakes are high because this will be the year that decides their futures. But on top of that their relationship also comes to a head with a good amount of drama. The payoff is great and pretty thoughtfully written, and thus I would say I was pretty satisfied with the ending. I’m pretty conflicted over whether slogging through the entire manga was worth it however.
The art is somewhat mediocre at first but gets significantly better over time. The later color art is downright fantastic, but a lot of it isn’t included in the scanlations so I recommend looking it up on a booru or something. The mangaka uses minimalist eyes on everyone which is pretty unique as far as manga goes and took some getting used to but ultimately I think it worked well enough. Design wise Megumi and Yukino have great designs. Mio is pretty solid as well. Beyond that everyone has a distinct enough design that they’re easy to identify but none of them are particularly memorable.
An ecchi rom-com with a really solid final stretch but absurdly repetitive and slow moving before that.
7/10
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