KimiKiss

A series of short, melodrama-free, feel-good stories, each of which will leave a smile on your face. Shounen artwork, shoujo character development, and seinen relationship pacing (the characters actually, you know, kiss each other regularly!), but with minimal fan service and no sex. Story (7): This is an omnibus manga with five stories; in each one, the same protagonist falls in love with a different girl. Of the stories, Mao is my favorite (childhood friend becoming lovers), Eriko is the most unique (emotionless genius learning to feel), and Yuumi is probably the worst (that's the shy classmates working through mutual crush).None of the five are groundbreaking, but all are blessedly melodrama-free, all of them are paced nicely, and all of them are horribly cute and pleasant. Art (8): The girls are cute and the backgrounds are pretty enough. Most of the little details are right as well. For instance, the soccer scenes make sense, the food is appropriately revolting (it is supposed to be), and background music is incorporated into the artwork in a nice way. Characters (8): The main is a bit of a blank slate. He's neither spineless nor super aggressive, reasonably smart and athletic but not exceptional at either, is admired by his sister but is not a sis-con... all in all, a fairly typical high school male. The interesting characters are the girls: - Mao is the popular childhood friend, hiding her insecurities with brashness (though not a tsundere) - Asuka is a driven soccer fanatic, trying to realize her dreams at a school without a girl's soccer team - Mitsuki is a sheltered rich girl who dreams of a knight in shining armor - Eriko is an emotionless, bored genius, trying to figure out what love is--and why it is necessary. - Yuumi is the shy girl trying to gain confidence and break out of her shell. These are all stereotypes you've seen before, and yet they are all given enough depth to feel like real human beings with real problems. Enjoyment (8): It's a feel-good series from start to finish. At no point do any of the stories drag or get bogged down, and at no point do any of them ever succumb to melodrama. Overall (8): If you like romance manga, you'll like this one.