Yuuyake Rocket Pencil

After getting a general idea of the story, I was kind of hesitant to continue reading. The fact that it tolerates irresponsible parenting with an enthusiastic cute little girl who is okay with it makes me slightly angry. The manga gets most things right when crafting a lighthearted slice-of-life, but the premise just makes me uncomfortable. Ultimately, I decided to keep reading in hopes of it getting better. Surprisingly it did, but there are a lot of things left much to be desired in the story. At the start, it planned to go episodic with no sense of development at all. The dad is a hopelessotaku who lets her daughter run the shop. All of the chapters build on this premise, and the way it goes around it in slight deviations is to be expected from the type of genre the manga is in. It's cute, it's heartwarming, but most of all it leaves a feeling of pity. It becomes evident that the girl has some serious struggles between peers, family, and the shop itself. She is refreshingly mature for her age but still has her childish traits intact in which she learns how to deal with naturally just like any other kid. However, there is an effort story-wise in making the overall situation better especially when the dad starts acting like one. The story does reach a happy ending, but I can't help but feel that it happened too fast for everything to settle down. Given that this is only less than 20 chapters, I expected a bit more from it. It leaves certain subplots half-baked like the one about the mangaka or the one about the delivery girl. It's such a shame really that it started to discover its potential halfway but never managed to utilize it fully. Overall, it's a decent slice-of-life manga that initially tries to reel you in with the pitiful situation of the little girl but eventually evolves from it into a somewhat mature yet partially realized story.