Japanese Title: Haru yo, Koi

 

Genre: Yuri Drama Romance

Length: 11 volumes

 

Positives:

• Nothing

Negatives:

• Bait and switch narrative setup.
• Incompetent cast of characters that I hope trip over and break their necks.
• The drama keeps extending through contrived means.
• The same sex scenes repeat dozens of times.
• Dark, muddy artwork.

I hate this manga. Haru yo, Koi is bloody awful. It’s a dishonest rag of melodrama, pathetic characters, and smut. Mafuyu moved to the city with her brother because she was caught fooling around with a girl in her last high school and was expelled. Sae, the girl from high school, runs away from home to chase Mafuyu and invites herself to live with her and her brother.

So, you run away from home for someone, you must really care for her, right? Nope. A few chapters later, Mafuyu is sleeping with their hairdresser and Sae lusts after her brother. What caused this? Well, Mafuyu started volleyball at school and made friends with the team… Yes, that’s it. Brother then goes for a singer. Next volume, everyone is sleeping with someone else. Then someone else the next. The manga does this to trick you into thinking it’s deep, dramatic, edgy, but it’s far from.

The manner in which these new relationships start is some of the laziest drama techniques imaginable. There is no rhyme or reason, no character motivations, when they cheat on each other. It’s clear the writer knows nothing about twists and transitions. For example, one overused moment goes something like this: Two characters hanging out, pretending to be friends, sudden kiss, stop, depression, kiss, go home, sex, next morning, sex again, and repeat with the next strumpet. To call this a soap opera is an insult, quite frankly. In soap operas, they at least try to be creative with evil twins and psychic comas.

The characters, particularly the female leads, are pathetic, which makes them so unlikeable – reminds me of Hen Strange Love, though not as bad. Characters ping pong between each other for sex. Every few pages it seems someone cheats on the person they just said they were in love with, derailing the plot with new relationships. In truth, it’s all an excuse for smut. The number of sex scenes is staggering, all similar to the point where they blend into one. It explains how such a dull story managed eleven volumes. Even if you are in it for a yuri plot, there’s nothing here, as it deceives you and focuses on the brother’s pathetic incompetence.

Lastly, there’s the art, which is too dark. I get the impression that the artist drew everything in colour and then applied a black and white filter over the top, not considering contrast and shading balance. It’s like trying to read a manga in Queen Victoria’s bog.

How this got the green light for eleven volumes is beyond me. Avoid it like the plague.

Art – Low

Art muddled by a lack of understanding in use of black and white.

Story – Very Low

Soap opera level drama that drags on and on forever.

Recommendation: Avoid it. The constant false drama leads to a story of boredom and pathetic characters.

(Find out more about the manga recommendation system here.)