Kono Uchi de Kimi to

This is a pretty typical shoujo romance with an excellent protagonist and a rushed story. With a bit more time spent on character development and plot, this could have been really good. As it is, unless you are an avid consumer of the genre, there are plenty better manga out there. Story (5): The worst part of this manga. The story is very typical: circumstances force a cute girl together with a stand-offish (but good looking) guy; she falls for him, but other circumstances arise to get in the way of their happy ending. It's not a bad story, but it'sbeen done better. For instance, at one point the main character needs to cook something, but realizes she can't cook and remembers that the guy does all the cooking for the household. But none of this was setup or foreshadowed in previous chapters. It was never even mentioned before who cooked or who could or couldn't prepare a meal. But the plot in that chapter needed her to be a bad cook, so suddenly she was a bad cook. And that wasn't the only time that the plot was conveniently advanced by a character trait that hadn't been foreshadowed. Art (7): Typical shoujo artwork, although the faces are more expressive than most, and props to the artist for making each of the characters recognizable despite having pretty similar hair colors and styles. Character (7): The heroine is great. She's fun, easy going, and genuine: sort of a less capable version of Hikari from SA. The male lead is also pretty good; more capable, popular, a bit cold, but also genuinely kind--he's not quite as tsundere as many shoujo male leads. The rest of the cast doesn't hold up as well. I never felt like I got to know the other two girls very well (even by the end, I was struggling to keep them straight), and the two other guys who are introduced are both pretty unlikable. Enjoyment (6): The out-of-left field plot developments kept getting in the way. If this had been a bit more of a slice-of-life manga with the same characters, I would have loved it. But instead, we are rushed from one contrived scenario to another, and I never feel like I got to know the characters as well as I wanted to. And given that this is a romance manga, that's a bad thing. Overall (6): I enjoyed it for what it was, but was frustrated by the unrealized potential. Like I said, if you love shoujo romance and read every one you can get your hands on, then by all means read this one: it's a perfectly adequate representation of the genre. But if that doesn't describe you, then move on; there are way better shoujo romances out there.