Honeymoon Salad

Is it harder to be the one getting dumped? Or is it harder to be the one whos dumping the other person. These are the words our male protagonist Minori thinks about, but wishes to get out his head. After ending a relationship 10 years ago with the girl whom he sincerely loved he is working an average job, randomly one day he meets a girl accidentally and the girl rips his suit. She apologizes and soon enough they end up having sex, and he learns a bit about her past and how she got dumped as well, Minori soon comes to love this girl, and then suddenly his girlfriend from 10 years ago appears. Surprisingly enough... they all get along. The artwork is nothing special, its just "Good" 7/10 I found none of the characters except the girl from 10 years ago who dumped Minori to have really good development. She always had these lingering emotions but yet was able to control them so well. 7/10 Enjoyment: I enjoyed this, and I was satisfied on how it ended and how no one was heartbroken :) 7/10 I recommend this to anyone who just wants to cheer up a bit, and whos looking for some nice romance and comedy, this story isnt anything special but it wont be a waste of your time.

Honeymoon Salad is a solid read - a tonally distinct poly-romance that assumes a melancholic, down-beat mood that is occasionally penetrated by brief rays of sunshine that reveals itself as our three leads find solace in each other's prescence. The mangaka concludes with a brief note, essentially commenting on what the text means to her - and she summarises it by stating that it's about being comfortable in one's own skin, simply being yourself as opposed to hiding behind a facade to impress others or compromising on what one wants in order to avoid being a burden to someone you love, as those loved oneswill love you regardless. To be honest, sure, that's probably what I should take from this tale! In retrospect, I can appreciate how this manifests in each of our three leads - Saito Ichika, a reserved country mouse who constantly apologises for her actions, Saito Youka, Minori's ex who always hid her true self behind a playful façade, and Minori himself, a man fearful of wasting away his life, not having a passion to fight for (not knowing that this can manifest itself in fighting for those he loves, rather than a career). The art is simple, as to downplay the mood and this felt appropriate for what is mostly a fairly downbeat, simply told romance. I'm not entirely sure what to make of the final few chapters, they aren't abominable but the manga wastes time when it could have really explored the poly- aspect of this relationship. Ultimately, this aspect of the manga felt underdeveloped, yet it's the few moments when this comes to the forefront that really stood out to me as being fairly interesting. Still, it was good to see Youka take the spotlight, as her relationship with Minori felt more palpable than Ichika's. In actuality, I never really believed her romance - she felt more like a maternal figure to these two characters, an intermediary but any scene with her and Minori alone felt really awkward and their chemistry, to me, was non-existence. It made sense to begin with, due to her apologetic nature and traumatic past, but she never really comes out of her shell over the course of the narrative. Ultimately, I was more invested in Minori rekindling his romance with Youka as there was more to chew on with their relationship. Their time together was the highlight of the read to me, and I would have preferred for this to have focused more on the two of them. I do feel, that for a manga about a poly relationship, the almost omnibus nature of the storytelling feels counterintuitive - I wished the mangaka could have embraced the three-way nature of it a little more. The ending is abrupt, and slightly disappointing even if it's ultimately a happy ending for all - I'm not sure what I wanted, but it felt... odd.

While the story does support a poly relationship set up and it does seem like a threesome between the three main characters would happen, it doesn't. There are no threesomes. That said, this story is more interested in talking about the introspective guilt and regret that we feel when in relationships. One girl regrets her past and how her relationship with Minori ended, while the other girl feels guilt about finding happiness in life. I think their characters are very interesting but are not allowed the time for them to fully blossom. However, that doesn't really matter because Minori is the fucking worst. Minori is sucha loud-mouthed idiot and the type of main character that I especially loathe. I can literally hear his constant screaming inside my head that it gives me migraines. He's also pretty awful to the women in his life, and I don't understand why they stay with him. Overall, it took 40 chapters for the characters to realize something that should have happened 20 chapters ago and it ends fairly obviously, but annoyingly. I wished it was better because it had an interesting premise.

tl;dr: A manga about relationships that despite being serious doesn't really have much development, but is still casually enjoyable. This manga has an interesting concept for a love triangle in theory, but the characters and their stories didn't mesh as well as they needed to for it to work well in execution. The chemistry felt off and the arc of each individual character felt somewhat shallow. It starts off moving at reasonable pace, though feeling quite dreary while doing so, but then transitions to a much slower pace where it feels more relaxed in a melancholy sort of way. That's not a bad thing though, because it doesthe relaxed aspect pretty well and that's enough to keep the reader wanting more. The problem is that that carries through the ending. During this entire phase, the relationship between the three really isn't clear. There are times that it feels like progress is being made, but it is never committed to. This isn't particularly a problem except for the end, where it sort of hinted at the way things were were how they would stay, but at the same time they don't actually show this, so from an emotional point of view it ended in a kind of fuzzy way where the relationship still feels unclear in an unsatisfying way, when what it needed due to the rest of the manga leaving it unclear was a really definitive and impactful ending, so the final feeling it leaves is a bit hollow. The art is decent, where I like the framing but not really the style.