Short Review here - Recommended: If you are into elementary x high schooler relationships (If you are then please get help holy.) or if you just want to read about some good old kids in love story. Spoiler Free?: I'll do my best but there's a lot of things I will need to mention that isn't spoiler free. Pros: It's a soft and warm kid love story exploring the innocent side of romance and the naivety of it. Cons: Lowkey being pedophilic with pedophilic characters. Best Character: Kazu and Yumma. They just seem chill. Swears in review: I'm assuming so ♥ In depth review is here: Do you everwonder if it's possible to stray further from humanity while sugarcoating it in childhood romance and the naivety of kids so it's kinda acceptable? Well it is. In Shoujo Shounen Gakkyuu-dan there's many questionable scenery and it implies many disturbing things but you kinda of bat a eye towards it because, hey, they are just kids. I will be explaining this further down in the review.
[Story]: Overall the story isn't bad, what initially brought me to read it was the title and the description of the manga. I honestly liked the idea of the class of elementary schoolers being divided between boys and girls and then having this tomboyish character break the division between the class with sprinkling romance here and there, hell this is a shoujo after all. Even after being disturbed and yelling at my screen "ITS TIME TO STOP!" I found myself reading until there was no more updated available. If you took out the moderately disturbing parts of this manga and pretended, "He's just acting like a big bro", it's not that bad. The story is kind of gripping and makes you attached to these kids. Watching the kids change the lives of people around them and solving their problems and other people's problems is quite entertaining. The story isn't anything special by all means, there's plenty of moments where you find yourself infuriated by the kids or adults/teenagers decisions but its a good quick quilty read through.
[Art]: There isn't much to say about the art but that its nostalgic of 2000s shoujo mangas. The art isn't bad but it does what it needs to be done but sometimes it is kinda of confusing of what they are trying to portray through the art.
[Characters.] Most of the characters are kids and they often make stupid mistakes which is a given because they are kids but I'm not really gonna talk about the kids because I don't have much of a praise or feedback to give them but I do have a character that I have such a problem with. The only complaint I have is that a lot of the kids act way too mature for their age.
[SPOILERS DOWN HERE SO SKIP THE NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS IF YOU WANT TO STAY SPOILER FREE]:
Ken-Nii (Currently in high school) is the older brother to Wataru. Wataru and Haruka (our main character here.) often have conflict with each other which allows Haruka to run into Ken-Nii a lot, the only problem is that Haruka likes Ken-nii. Now Ken-nii has seen her naked, ALMOST kissed her (holy fuck.) and then after Haruka "confessed" to wanting too marry her he entertained the idea by saying "Lmao sure, i'll wait but i'll be an old man by then lol." There's so many questionable scenes with him and Haruka and there's some point of the manga where you are confused if Ken-Nii actually has feelings towards Haruka. He'll say shit like "Yo don't you think shes cute??" and then his friend went "Lmao but im not a lolicon like you." and he gets embarrassed and blushes hardcore? This isn't the only time its brought up that he's a lolicon. Haruka isn't the only person he's kinda weird with. He's attractive too which allows him to get away with stuff like this.
[SPOILER]: he even kissed his own brother on the mouth and didn't even say "No chromo."... .... broski... pardon.. and he will start blushing when grabbing his bros legs. BUT HE EXCUSES himself from kissing his brother by saying "we were always affectionate as kids, can't believe he forgot :(." In short this dude is such a creep. He's only affectionate towards young girls and plays with their feelings a lot and he overall gives me bad vibes.
This isn't the only time where a character has questionable actions. Hell there is two highschool girls who was after Kazu and Wataru and kept asking them if they wanted to see their underwear. They ended up taking them to karaoke and one of the girls led Kazu into a bathroom stall and touched his chest and kissed him. Totally wrong and creepy and disgusting.
[Overall]: This manga is totally weird but i have a strong hope that the characters will mature enough to make the right decisions for themselves. Even though this manga is totally weird i found myself coming back to it, maybe for the pure shock and enragement this manga gives or the reminder of how naive childhood love is at the time.
