Love Me, Love Me Not

[⋆̩] Shining Rain Review: I have been a huge fan of Io Sakisaka since her first publications, and since the release of "Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare" I couldn't help but look forward to this project. As a big fan of shoujo for years, I was happily surprised by this new plot and characters. Perhaps many think that this new story was a big cliché and just really simple, I think the opposite. Perhaps it was the most complex of all that Sakisaka launched until now. With a group of 4 friends, each with their own youthful problems, messy feelings, and differente background stories and family, thestory developed slowly, showing that it had many layers besides incredible art and beautiful characters. Through 12 volumes, Sakisaka developed (I wouldn't say that usually but) in a perfect way her 4 main characters, the stories between them intertwined so well, and although the end was something we expected, the path to reach there left me completely satisfied, because it was not run or poorly explained. Care was taken that each question was answered. I cried feeling the pain of something silly, I laughed several times with the 4 of them, I smiled with countless quotes that seemed to be simple but were completely serious and deep, I felt nostalgic remembering my own adolescence, and I created good memories by reading this manga. After buying even the physical manga, and having read and re-read it, I can say that it is MY second favorite story among Sakisaka's shoujos but I can easily say that it was her best manga. Something said at the beginning may seem incredibly silly, but towards the end you will realize that perhaps it has an even more important meaning. Give this manga a try, I'm sure you'll like it!

Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare is one of the sweetest, most innocent and best written romance manga I have ever read. WEAKNESSES The story takes a while to make you care about what happens to the characters. Initially they may seem silly, too crybaby, unpleasant, intolerable or even indifferent to you. However, trust me, don't drop this manga in the first few chapters. You have to give the characters time to evolve and you won't regret it! Only one negative note: from the first chapters we are told that Inui and Yuna are childhood friends, but for the entire duration of the manga this relationship is not perceived at all. They hardly seemto care about each other or even be remotely close on a personal level. CHARACTERS 7/10 There are four main characters, two females and two males. One of them in particular has a very childish mentality, for that she doesn't seem like a high school student, but rather a student in her early middle school years. Each of the four of them has a different idea of ​​love so I think you will be able to identify with at least one of them. Personally I loved the characters of Yuna and Rio, and especially the evolution of their relationship. Akari and Inui are very well written, but I admit that I didn't manage to completely like them for the entire duration of the story. The supporting characters are also well developed, in particular Rio's classmates (although unfortunately they later disappear almost completely after the first half of the story). ART 9/10 The drawings are really beautiful. Many times the characters are drawn with incredible expressions. Also in this case the manga artist managed to avoid the same-face syndrome effect, which is very present in most shoujo manga. ANIMATED ADAPTATION 5/10 If you've seen the anime... forget about it! The animated adaptation doesn't do justice to this manga! The story in the manga is much better written and above all it is more interesting. They changed a lot of things in the anime, deleted the presence of important characters to show the evolution of some characters, and changed many exciting key points of the story in a silly way. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS I recommend reading this manga to anyone who wants to read a troubled but sweet romantic story between high schoolers. You will find various love triangles, family problems, insecurities of first loves, characters who try to chase their dreams (in the sense of professions to follow in the future). You will not follow the story from the point of view of just one character but each of the four main characters will make you discover what lies deep in their hearts.

So this was one of my favorite mangas, I started reading it when it was publishing around chapter 10, I seriously loved the story and I waited for every chapter to drop like it was a drug. I stopped following it during publishing because of my depression, and this month I picked it up again, and oh maaaan, I still loved it so much even years after reading the first chapters for the first time... and then, I got to chapters 30+ The frustration around Akari and Kazuomi had started building a lot of chapters earlier, but after chapter 30 I seriously was getting angry at howtheir relationship was being played out. No joke I almost threw away my phone because of the frustration. So many things felt completely unnecessary and it felt like the author was just dragging the story. I felt like most of the charm of this manga was being lost more and more with every chapter and I seriously started rooting for Kazuomi's "rival". I ended up really disliking Kazuomi (and he was my favorite character at the beginning!!) and I honestly didn't give a fuck about their (Akari & Kazuomi) ending. At least Rio and Yuna's story was still interesting and it managed to keep me wanting to read till the end, but sadly, this is not one of my favorite mangas anymore. Sorry Io Sakisaka, I still love Ao Haru Ride tho, I do recommend that one.

To put it simply, this is a cute romance story that you pick up for fun, not much more. The plot isn't the most original or extravagant, and Sakisaka tends to pull some nonsense along the way to keep chapters publishing, but it was still a fun little page-turner during the first two-thirds. Later in the story, the fun and joy of the romance starts to wear off big time. This is the first time that I don't want to review this work in separate chunks (characters, plot, art, etc.) because I believe the main issues with this manga lie in the overall execution (and weall know Sakisaka's art and characters are consistently good). The main issue is that there is a severe lack of satisfying wrap-ups in this story. At some point, things start to just sort of work out, despite the focus of the entire story being change, evolution, and growth. While the characters do grow, and I did appreciate seeing them become closer, there isn't actually much in the story that makes the reader feel as though their interactions have evolved. Additionally, the actual couples started losing all spark the second Sakisaka started dragging out the story. The 'main' couple of Yuna and Rio, who are great together when you get to see them, slowly get less and less page time as Akari and Kazuomi tip-toe around each other for the entire second half. Akari and Kazuomi were simply not fun to follow after a certain point - can't quite say when the switch happens, but you'll definitely feel it. Having that dragging love story brings the entire second half down, as Sakisaka also throws in a ton of extra family drama that really needed an entire separate arc to sift through, especially since it was brought up in the final three chapters no less. Every problem that the couples encountered after a certain point was quickly and oddly resolved without the reader FEELING like it was resolved and, personally, I'm here for romance - I want the couples interacting as the main focus while the drama shaking them up takes a back seat. By the end, it just feels like everything this story was trying to accomplish was rushed, and therefore it feels as though nothing was accomplished much at all. Now that the missed execution was discussed, let me tell you what I loved about this story. This was a manga I could burn through in a single sitting if I had the time. For the first 9 volumes, these relationships hook you and keep you engaged with little effort - it's an incredibly easy and endearing read. Yuna and Rio were somehow the sane duo to follow through this (which I didn't expect when I started), and I appreciate their appearances above everything else this manga had to offer. If it wasn't for my enjoyment with them or my appreciation for the friendships Sakisaka portrayed, this story would have dropped to a 6 or 5 easily. Yuna and Rio as a couple have their problems, of course, but they were much more heartwarming to follow than Akari and Kazuomi by the end to say the least. While I complained a bit here, as I am fresh off reading the frustrating end of this story, I do still recommend you give this a read if you're looking for some fulfilling and enjoyable romance. The characters are lovable, and it's a fun romp, it just has a few bumps along the way - a solid 7/10!