Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata: Koisuru Metronome

This Spin-Off deserves an anime adaptation. It is my first time to write a review so I'll keep it short. I'm an Utaha fan all the way and this manga was a love-letter to all the Utaha fans out there. Their interactions between Tomoya and Utaha felt genuine to me because of how their relationship develops. The main characters draws their energy/motivation from the passion they receive from others such Tomoya to Utaha or vice versa. This manga shows that if you truly love what you do, you can spread that love to others and it becomes infectious. To end, I'll repeat this once again,this needs an anime adaptation, please make it happen 🙏

I came looking for copper and I found gold. Yes, I have seen the Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata anime, and of course, wanted more content to the story. As we all know there is unfortunately no available English translation of the original light novels anywhere which is why I decided to read this. Basically, I was only expecting a simple Utaha route, but this manga is so much more than that. This manga gives us a little inside view of everything that happens in the production and creation of the anime that we love to watch, the Light Novels and manga that we love to read,and the games that we love to play. It showcases the many challenges that creators have to face as they strive to make an impact in the Otaku world. Probably, the most important thing we can get from it is that all those anime we have seen and manga/light novels we have read were extremely far from easy to make. It showed us how the authors can get torn up with all the decisions they have to make regarding the flow of their story as well as the complexity of making an anime due to the various factors hey need to consider such as casting, character design, storyboards, schedule, etc. As for the romance aspect which a lot of readers have come for, it was indeed a wholesome journey that Kasumigaoka Utaha fans would enjoy. The story revolves around four characters: Utaha, Tomoya, Machida, and Sagara, all of whom have appeared in the main Saekano series except for Sagara who is an exclusive character for this story. That's all I'm gonna say in order to avoid any spoilers. The characters in the story were presented pretty well. They were given proper introductions despite being a spin-off, making it possible for people who haven’t seen/read the main Saekano storyline to enjoy this manga. In other words, this can be read as a whole story in itself and not be thought of as plainly “another route”. Although, there were some references that could only be understood if you have watched/read the main storyline. For the art, it looked clean and beautiful. It did not look exactly the same as the anime, though, which gives it a sense of originality. Additionally, there were quite a handful of “chibi” scenes, but they were utilized appropriately so because they were not used during important and intense scenes. Overall, this manga was truly amazing and had exceeded my expectations. One thing is for sure: it gave me a newfound respect for all creators, as well as the production and marketing staff. As a final word, I recommend this manga even to those who have not seen or did not like Saekano as it indulges the readers into a behind-the-scenes aspect of the Otaku culture while telling a romantic and hardship-filled tale of a writer, editor, and an artist as they create an instant hit novel series.

I wouldn't really consider this manga a romcom, it's way more focused on the inner workings of the light novel and anime industries, romance plays a comparatively minor role. If I had to describe this manga in a sentence it's about a young light novel writer, Utaha, who is being worked to the bone and is having to deal with corporate greed meddling with her art (also she happens to have a one sided crush on her editor, Tomoya). There are very few romantic developments and on top of that, as I've already mentioned, they're all extremely one sided. It's not because Tomoya's the dense type ofMC who's completely oblivious, the opposite actually, he is aware of her feelings, he just chooses to ignore them for the sake of professionalism. The only reciprocal expression of love in the entire manga is found in the last chapter and not only does it feel forced, it's very underwhelming as well. I have been fairly critical so far but I don't believe this manga is all that bad, I simply feel the way I do because I was convinced it was a romcom so I expected romance. However as a manga about the light novel industry it's pretty interesting, although a little shallow in terms of detail. Personally I would've preferred if the author went all in with the light novel industry theme and shed light on this world much more than they did. So in conclusion, it's a decent-ish portrayal of the light novel industry with some very sparse romance seasoning. If you're looking for a manga that'll make your heart skip a beat this is not it, but if you are curious about how light novels are made and would enjoy a little bit of drama to go along with it then this for you.