Manga Review: Kyou, Koi o Hajimemasu

Name: Kyou, Koi o Hajimemasu
Author & Artist: MINAMI Kanan
Chapters: 99
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, School Life, Shoujo, Slice Of Life, Smut
Plot:

Tsubaki is a girl who loves making her younger sister's hair pretty every morning, but she doesn't think that kind of style suits herself! The day of her High School Beginning Ceremony, after she failed in being the top student (who usually makes the ceremony speech), she finds herself sitting next to the actual top student of the first years, the worst rude guy ever, Kyouta. She ends up cutting his hair on purpose because of the bad things he says to her. Kyouta demands that Tsubaki pay him back with her body, but Tsubaki fixes his hair instead--making it even shorter! After that, Kyouta unexpectedly kisses Tsubaki and swears that he'll make her his woman.

Review:
I dropped and picked up this manga several times already and I've only finished all 99 chapters recently so I will give you my personal thoughts on it.

It's basically your typical shoujo, teen wangst romance. Not that I have a problem but it took itself way too seriously and the main character, Tsubaki, was wangsting the whole way through about her feels (whining + angsting).


Kyouta was pretty much a dickface for, say, the first quarter of the manga since he has this Freudian excuse of being betrayed by a few women (eg. mum etc.) and typecasting us women as lying scumbags. So after he gets past the majority of it and as it slowly dissipates throughout the course of the series, he is a fairly decent guy, passionate about his dreams and a fairly good boyfriend (sorry for the spoiler but it shouldn't be a surprise). He essentially gets his shit together and is a no nonsense guy.

Tsubaki made what could of been an average series into a wangst fest. Despite being book smart, she mostly cries her problems away and acts like an insecure baby. She also lacked character development and stayed mostly the same. I think the mangaka realised this and decided to devote the last quarter to help flesh out her character since the majority was focused on Kyouta and their relationship. If Minami had planned this out a little better, this series length could be cut in half. Or maybe even 30ish chapters. She could have gradually had character development distributed equally between the two and cut all the angst, a win-win situation.  Since she was devoid of a personality, the mangaka latched on to the one and only hobby she has, which was hairdressing.

So putting aside my hate of the female lead, it's a below average manga where I would have been happier if it ended at the confession scene. It's not worth investing you time in reading 99 chapters but if you want some drama, angst and wangst and have nothing better to do, read it. Just be ready to pull you hair out.