Urami Koi, Koi, Urami Koi.

tl;dr: A manga that’s pretty solid all around in terms of plot, character growth, and relationship growth though with some rough edges. The first thing I’d like to note about this manga is the world itself. The manga is about a modern-day Japanese town that’s controlled by twelve clans, each of which has the power of one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, and thus zodiac related mythology plays a pretty important part in this manga. Of particular importance is the legend of why the cat wasn’t included, which essentially amounts to that the rat tricking the cat into being left out. This manga buildsupon that while combining it with elements of Japanese folklore to expand the story such that the cat that was left out was so consumed by hate that it became a yokai that wanted to bring about the destruction of the town. It also uses other elements of Japanese folklore, such as that the twelve families are necessary in order to protect the village from oni, or ogres as they often get translated. It also puts some new twists on zodiac mythology, for example while the standard legend has the rat come in first because it rode on the back of the ox, the twist in this manga was that this was done due to the strong relationship between the rat and the ox, which carries forward into a strong relationship between the rat and ox clans. Thus, the manga has quite the interesting foundation of lore. The story centers around the protagonist Kyouichi, who is supposed to be the heir to the rat based Nekuni family. However, he’s unable to use the power of the rat, and is thus considered a failure. He is attacked by Natsuho, the heir to the cat based Nekogasaki family, and a yokai known as the hateful cat. She intends to kill him and the rest of his family as an act of revenge fueled by the long-standing grudge her family has against theirs. However, she doesn’t, instead beginning to simply observe him and quickly becoming a close friend instead. The bigger issue is that there’s another villain in the background that was pulling her strings pushing her to kill Kyouichi, and they’re still operating in the background, manipulating various others as part of a larger goal. Over the course of the story Kyouichi and Natsuho fight against this villain’s machinations while slowly getting closer to their true identity. While doing so, they are aided and hindered by various other members of both the Nekuni family as well as members of the other clans, and thus end up getting somewhat involved with various inter and intra clan politics. However, the manga isn’t completely serious, and a good portion of the time is simply spent on slice of life and comedy which helps add variety and keeps the manga’s pacing good even when binge reading. As all this occurs, both Kyouichi and Natsuho go through pretty solid character arcs. The Nekuni family is one that’s, to put it in a word, quite ruthless, and thus one that despite Kyouichi being a part of he greatly dislikes. Originally, he simply laments his powerlessness, simply treating them as an enemy, and wanting nothing to do with them, but over the course of the manga he realizes that this is simply running away and what he really needs to do is use his place to initiate change. It feels like some of his original character traits were dropped over the course of the manga, but it’s nothing too jarring. Natsuho starts off basically hating everyone and not wanting to form even minor connections with anyone. Over the course of the manga, her desire to stay away from others changes to simply being incredibly shy and somewhat socially awkward, she makes friends, forms attachments, and outgrows her original hatred, which is quite heartwarming. Many of the side characters also have pretty decent character arcs, especially many of the villains whom eventually become allies, but whose role transition is accompanied by fleshed out pasts and motivations and arcs that grow off of said pasts and motivations in such a way that they don’t feel like karma-houdinis at all. There was some really good relationship development too. The relationship between Natsuho and Kyouichi was developed really well with lots of cute moments where it really felt like they were growing closer together and this relationship growth was also fueling character growth. But just as importantly was Kyouichi and Natsuho’s relationship with a girl named Ayaka, the head of the ox clan, and Kyouichi’s childhood friend and bodyguard. Her friendship with Natsuho was just as important for Natsuho’s character growth as Natsuho’s growing relationship with Kyouichi. Ayaka’s character arc wasn’t that strong but decent enough, being mostly centered around her being truer to her feelings regarding Kyouichi and acting on them, But the relationship development was pretty strong and they had pretty good chemistry as well, heavily in part due to good use of flashbacks. Things with the three of them only really get going properly during the second half, but once they do the dynamic between the three is incredibly solid and quite enjoyable to watch during both the serious and lighter portions. There are also various other romantic relationships and friendships that while not fleshed out nearly as well as with those three, are decent enough and fun considering the larger cast overall is quite likable and worth getting invested in the happiness of. Plot wise, for the most part the manga is pretty consistent and flows well as it feels like it had a clear story in mind that it was progressing through. Some major cracks appear during the final arc though. It feels like there was a story planned out from the beginning, but as the author reached the ending they started noticing some inconsistencies and then had to move the plot in a somewhat forced way to get around them, but that lead to further issues that just spiraled from there and thus it definitely felt like the story deviated from what was originally intended, especially in regards to Natsuho’s backstory. Still, even if the details don’t match up completely, the overall plot comes together pretty well, character arcs all flow well, and thematically everything is consistent, so it’s not too much of an issue. Also, while things are somewhat messy leading up to and during the fight with the final villain, the ending and epilogue beyond that are in more depth than I expected it to be and feel like they do right by the characters. Thus, the ending overall I found very satisfying. There’s a decent amount of action in the manga and it does have a lot of the aspects of a battle manga. A lot of characters have pretty interesting ability sets and there’s even some solid ability growth in the protagonist. It also doesn’t just pull out random twists but seems to properly flesh the action out usually. Still, I wouldn’t say it goes as far as being a battle manga as though a lot of the parts are there and at the quality a battle manga would need it doesn’t focus on them as much as a battle manga would, with the battles always just being there for the sake of pushing forward the plot and never much of a focus in and of themselves. The art is decent enough in quality at conveying what it needs to properly and design wise is solid enough but has a pretty generic style so it’s never particularly exceptional or memorable.