Love at Fourteen

"Two dorks in love" – is, imo, how you could sum up the main love story between Yoshikawa and Tanaka. It is simple, honest, pure and overall really heart warming. Sure, the story is mainly as easy as that, but this manga doesn't aspire to be a complicated romantic drama, so no point in judging it as such. A "deeper" topic in the story would be the struggle with social "masks" that are so important within the japanese society, namely keeping up the tiring act, being praised for one's fabricated character while musing, whether you could ever show your "true self" to anyone, all happening onthe background of first love. What I found more intriguing, however, was whatever it was going on between Nagai and Hinohara. Forbidden relationships are forbidden for a reason and this just didn't feel right on more than just one level. Even so, I ship it, I want it, it is my new otp and I can't wait to read the spin-off manga that follows their story.

Short chapters compose the bulk of this manga, following a lot of different stories and making for a fun read. So this was more like reading 50 normal chapters. From the beginning the way the relationship between the main couple is presented points to this idea on how, while puberty can make relations between the two sexes more exciting, there's also this poignancy and bittersweetness. Their interactions will always be framed to the casual observer by the fact that they are "man and woman" and since they are in middle school and romance is presumably not allowed, they must act accordingly and hide their true relationship.The innocence is gone, and there are so many things to be aware about. Even just going to each other's house is "improper" when only a year before, with their immature bodies, there would have been no problem. And then there's how genuine their relationship feels. There was never any need for any dramatic confession scene, sometimes actions speak louder than words. They seek out ways to enjoy each other's company, get into arguments, and reconcile. And when they feel ready to have sex, they have honest discussions about it and do their research. They explore it without shame, which is so refreshing and heartwarming (because usually these discussions can be tinged with misogyny and puritanism). So I was genuinely happy for them when it came time. And after they've gone all the way, paradoxically they don't need to worry about what is proper anymore (at least in private) which seems to be a nice "bookend" to the aforementioned theme. There are quite a few age gap romances in a story with a title like this. I don't care about the ages of characters in a romance as long as they don't register to me as little kids (because I like to swoon over the male characters), so I've hardly read any romances that take place in middle school because 14 year old characters are generally drawn as little kids. The male student x female teacher did not turn me off, because the male student generally gave me the impression of a young man and not a kid so he was swoon-worthy. However I found the elementary schooler x middle schooler and middle schooler x office lady strange to read about. Speaking of the male student x female teacher... it is very good, and probably better than the main couple. 10/10 dynamic and writing. There's this gay character that was very annoying, because they seem to have the idea that they can "seduce" this other character of the same sex and interfere in their relationship (YOU FUCKER THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS) and they even get encouraged by another teacher in this aspect (who also pines for a same-sex friend)... And these characters keep appearing over and over (but I kept reading those chapters because I'm a masochist) and the narrative tries to make it so that they're such compwex characters uwu by exploring the "selfish desires vs making your loved one happy" inner conflict. I just hate it when the gay friend is their friend who's already in a relationship/in love in a romance manga, because sure, romance is important to me, but I also want to see how platonic relationships of the same sex can flourish alongside that. On top of that, the object of this gay character's affections wants them to be closer, and is blissfully unaware, which really rubs me the wrong way especially given the drama that happens later on which causes significant loneliness and reliance on gay friend. Ugh. At the very least, all these characters form a supportive general friend group with each other over time.

I don't want to be rude or anything, but this is my first time being so disgusted by a manga. The story tries to introduce us to the relationships and feelings of 14-year-old teenagers, where there is the discovery of new feelings and self-revelations. The manga fails in everything it sets out to do, there is no story, there are characters with feelings and such, but there is no real development, either in the characters or in the narrative. The chapters are EXTREMELY short, the author couldn't even make a story interesting enough to fill a chapter, and had to make several very short “extra” chapters. Thisentire manga is so poor that it doesn't even support its main problem, which would be Kanata and Kazuki's secret relationship, but the manga doesn't even make a point of explaining why they hide it, like, are there any restrictions? Because it doesn't make any sense. It's exhausting to read this, but the length of the chapters or the lack of story wasn't what bothered me most, but rather the pedophilia present. It's not new that many manga have a huge age difference, and that has always bothered me a lot, but now seeing a manga dealing with the relationship between an adult woman and a 14-year-old boy in a normal way makes me sick. I don't want to accuse anyone, but this manga made me think that its author probably has some kind of pedophilia fetish, because it's not just one couple that this age difference occurs, in addition to the physiological difference, it happens in at least three couples from the manga. There are more extremely hideous couples with crazy age differences than there are normal couples. I understand that when we are young, at the beginning of puberty, we tend to be interested in older people, but everything changes when much older people become interested in teenagers who haven't even left elementary school. My reaction to this manga is disgust. There's no story, there's no development, there's no explanations, but there's a lot of pedophilia. ~Nine <3