By Spring

By Spring is a short Drama, Romance and Seinen series that serialised between late 2019 to November of 2020 running for a little over one year. I found this series kind of randomly, no recommendation no nothing, one day I just kinda found it while scrolling through Mangakakalot, the artwork piqued my interest and I was kinda interested by the plot, so, I gave it a read.

[Story - 5/10]
The series follows a very basic premise, Middle school kid Souta who lives with his single mother, are living in near poverty and Souta (the absolute big brain) Spends his money on a rumoured prostitute who lives underneath a bridge. The story is pretty ok, some parts are way better than others some parts are way worse than others. The story starts off kinda slow but picks up steam as shit gets more intense at school, at home and with Haru (The rumoured prostitute). It has solid progression and there's certainly strings of events that lead to the climax of the story. Where the story loses me is just how rushed everything feels, I feel like I'm missing so many pieces to the puzzle that would make it so much more interesting. There was a relationship between Souta and a girl named Takasaki (this total bitch), a semi romance, and it looked as if Takasaki had some genuine feelings for Souta, as seen through a flashback. However I get this feeling that it was a scrapped idea so that we could have a generic villainous character. I got this feeling that there was so much more underneath the surface that just never got peeled back. There was also something at the end of the Manga that really miffed me, the message at the end seemed to be along the lines of "You can buy love" which is kinda of a stupid fucking message to be sending to your audience as the scenario portrayed in the Manga is something that wouldn't happen in 1 million years making the message seem kind of stupid.

[Art - 8/10]
Easily the best part about the manga, the art looks really nice. It's not as mesmerising as watching Araki Hirohiko paint with watercolour, but it's still gorgeous. The characters look very nice and the art is good. Well done mangaka.

[Characters 4/10]
The characters are bad, to put it simply they are characters that I cannot sympathise with. Souta and his mother being poor is a struggle that I can totally sympathise with, but the actions that they do within the story just rub me the wrong way, it goes like this for literally every character. Souta is a child living in poverty, he's 14 years old, he should know that his family is poor, and he does, he very clearly acknowledges this. Yet this absolute fucking big brain decides that he wants to have sex, so he gives away all of his money to a prostitute. What? I don't care if Haru is the most PG rated prostitute in the world, Souta acts like a dumbass, It's hard to sympathise with a characters who acts like a dumbass to create unnecessary drama for himself. The mother is much more sympathetic, it's clear that she loves her son and provides for her family the best way she can, to an almost destructive point. But this kind of goes back to the point of the characters feeling unsympathetic, for a woman who was betrayed by her husband, left barely surviving, she just makes everything harder for herself, she acts so fucking stupid. For example, Souta's mother is a sex worker, a pick up girl, a job she hates, here's some food for thought, you're telling me that in suburban Japan, near a city, there's no part time jobs that need workers, they say in the manga you went to college so I'm sure you could get a Job, this way you would have a constant stream of income and would be able to spend time with your son (whom you claim to love) because you have normal working hours and aren't expected to work erratic hours at the convenience of others, plus it's more stable. But no you decide on sex work, the one thing you hate and despise because your husband betrayed you by getting a fucking hooker. It honestly feels as though she is being hypocritical for hypocrisy sake, this is all the illustrate the point that the writer made the mother hypocritical for what is basically stakes in the story because they couldn't think of other ways to implement stakes into the story. Haru is the other character, she is the rumoured prostitute who lives under the bridge. Out off all the characters she is the one that makes me the most confused. So basically she gets money off this kid, even though she is rich. Ok well maybe theirs a justifiable reason for this? But apparently not because the reasoning for this is that She has daddy issues and doesn't want to go to college? What? If I'm not missing something here, thats a really, fucking stupid reason and is another point that adds to the fact I can't feel sympathy for these people. The last character I would like to talk about it Takasaki, Takasaki is a popular Beautiful girl at the school Souta goes too. At the beginning it seems like she is a kind and nice character who likes Souta because he showed some kindness to her. And that's exactly what she was, until she pulled some fucking bullshit 180 and went like full Yandere until her great anime betrayal nearing the end of the story. Now she was obviously upset about Souta being with Haru, but that seemed to be because she liked Souta, until she pulled some fucking 180 and went psycho. My question to her is why? You act like your head over heals for Souta then when he finds that he doesn't like you, you throw him under the bus and get him fucked. You might think? But isn't she supposed the be a villain? And that's what confuses me, to me she didn't seem as if she was presented as a villain, more like a love rival, the part where she throws Souta away would make so much more sense if you established her character that way. Anyway in the end the entire cast struck me as a bunch of unsympathetic cunts who act completely retarded for what is no absolute reason.

TL;DR / Summary
This manga had some great potential, I thought it had an interesting concept and I think that the artist is very talented, but it seemed to fall short with some lacklustre characterisation and sub par storytelling

[Overall/enjoyment - 5/10]
I think that if this story had more time to fully develop it's ides it could have been really good, but as it stands it' s a mediocre Seinen rom-com with some very nice art.

i dont know why people rate this manga low (when i write this, rate is 6.XX). first thing first, i think this manga only about something like... fishy romantic genre... but I WAS WRONG

if you guys see until newest chapter, i will says this manga have a best story that can make me so sad. sorry but i can't say why it make u sad, but if you came from poor family like me. i think you can feels what i feels right now when reading this.

until now i think this is the most emotional-drama and romance i ever had.

now came to real review
the story like i said unpredictable you can't think A character is good and B character is bad because all you can think when reading this manga will perish when you read next chapter so story 10/10 for me

For art, yeah this manga is good manga and have good art for me when read it on 13 sep 2020, so if you guys coming from future, pls dont judge to hard. and yeah 9/10 for me.

for character, i will give 10/10. like i said before, every character have unique story and have their problem so with all of that, this manga i sure will have a great story on next chapter.

for enjoyment, i give 9/10 because this can make me sad like first time i read manga koe no katachi, i think this can have same emotional story inside.

and yeah... overall i will give this manga 10/10
why?
you see... manga that update until now, majority of them have "bad" story even when they have a good art... and i think, this manga will get you to another level of manga,
if first you think this just "normal shitty romance-drama" well... you wrong :)
you will experience the feels of any character inside this manga.

oh yeah 1 again, i think, you guys musn't skip or "fast reading" the earlier chapter of this manga, even when that will be boring for you, but in earlier chapter this manga have an orientation of every charater and their problem, so pls read carefully. in past i also fast reading on chapter 1-2 and after i re-read again from first chapter, i can get what the meaning of the character on the lastest chapter. so remember dont skip any text when you reading a manga :)

thanks for read my potato review...
sorry for my bad english, in my country indonesia, English is not primary or even second language that i speak so i try my best to write this review
so sorry if i have some grammar error or something like that, i just want contribute to MAL forum with my review :)

Well, here is my take on this one. First, like the you can tell from the synopsis, the blonde girl isn't "pure" (or at least she doesn't look like) so as you can expect... this really lowers the rating so consider that before dropping this.

This story is sad yet wholesome, despite having the 2 sides of the coin it doesn't feels forced at all. The art is great and the pace is nice and it has a couple of plot twists that spice the things up.

This is the story of a young guy poor dude, with family issues and he gets picked on because of these things. Despite saying this, the story doesn't revolves about this last point despite being relevant.

Every characters has it's issues and it's fair share of time. You really get some development on them.

The art is nice and pretty detailed. The girls are cute, including the mc's mom, lol. The backgrounds are ok too, not much to say because it's a normal modern setting.

I really recommend to check this one, a really interesting story with a lot of emotions and character development. I really wonder how this will end, because I have no idea considering how the things play out in this story.

This story is about a poor boy who struggles with financial and family issues. In school, he has no friends and no one he can rely on as he is often left out. Despite this, he stays positive.

One day, he meets the female lead, under a bridge, which is commonly known as a place to buy prostitutes. In an attempt to know more about the female lead, he tries to buy her. This starts a pure and cute relationship between the two.

All the characters except the two leads are annoying and not likable at all. However, the drama makes the story better even though it is frustrating. It allows the two leads t develop their relationship and become closer to each other.

This is a corny romance with a trite message that despite being a short manga, drags on unnecessarily. The idea for this story is similar to an old passage from the bible. "Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.'" I am not even religious and I feel like that the passage expresses the idea much better than this manga. At least there is no sappy romance or an incredibly unsophisticated drama.

Reading this manga felt like someone who doesn't have the faintest idea about poverty trying to poorly depict it. The feeble attempt to show the hardship of having little money feels numb when the characters are incredibly shallow and have so little personality. The contrast of trying to portray a realistic setting with such a pretty but flimsy cast is awful. Souta's mother might be the only character with an actual personality, but she is so poorly fleshed out that she ends up being the villain since in this story you are either an angel (like the male and female protagonists) or the devil. She could have been a complex and pitiful character, but instead she is just straight out evil.

This is the type of manga that if you read when you are young, you might think it is deep. But if you are older, most likely you have seen all things trying to be told in the story better portrayed in several other titles and mediums.