Koishitagari no Blue

This seemed to be a very innocent story at first with a silly beginning. It was familiar, too… you know how it is in shoujo. If a guy and a girl get together in a fake relationship for some motive, they’ll “accidentally” end up liking each other while they’re pretending to like each other. Then they reach some complications along the way that prevent them from really being together even though they were kind of already together before.

Even if that kind of story is typical for those who know it, I’m always still interested in knowing how it is they end up liking each other. It’s funny to see them act the part and suddenly blush, and one of the pair usually has a tsundere personality that comes out.

While it was a cute story at first, I was dismayed to find out that the main conflict in the story arose from a love square. There was some history in between the other main characters that were introduced and feelings suddenly arose out of nowhere. They were explained later in some oneshots between the chapters of the main plot, thank goodness, but without those the story would have been more frustrating to read. At times I thought to myself, why does he like her? Why does she like him? I disliked some of the characters when I couldn’t understand their feelings and selfish motives. When things came tumbling down I wasn’t sure whether I shipped the main ship any more.

Feelings were all over the place and there was so much crying. It reminded me of a Korean drama the way they shed so many tears. While I could comprehend the reasons for their grief and pain sometimes, it became a little much seeing the amount of drama there was because of love. I wanted to tear my hair out a few moments because of the way things were going. Nevertheless, this manga showed me the way the human heart works. Love can be fickle at times and so long-lasting at others. You can’t stop liking someone if you do. Sometimes you need to let go.

Ao is probably the most noble shoujo heroine I’ve seen in a while. She has a cute personality and knows she’s not the prettiest, but she does a lot for her friends. Even if making a decision hurts her, she’ll do it for her friend’s sake. She’s so selfless that that’s probably her biggest flaw. Regardless of that, I liked her a lot. She’s the kind of person I’d like to have for a friend.

I’ll leave the other characters out of this blog, but they had their own quirks as well. I didn’t like a few of them, either, so there’s that.

While the manga isn’t that old, I found the artwork looking a little bit aged. You could definitely tell who the more attractive characters were, but sometimes I found a few limbs to be a bit too long. Sometimes expressions looked dazed and dull, but maybe that was the mangaka’s intention. The artwork worked out for the story, I suppose, but I wasn’t too impressed with it.

Despite my irritation with how the romance was going during the manga, I have to say I still enjoyed reading it. I wanted to see how the story turned out and if the main ship was finally going to set sail. I could sympathize with the Ao and the other characters sometimes. I laughed a bit at some scenes in the manga. It was a light read sometimes and heavy at others. It’s a little different from other shoujo manga, so I was glad to have found it. The ending was a little rough, but I still think it was a fine read.

I dont recall what it is that first drew me to this manga, but whatever it was, god bless.

Story: 10
Koishi Tageru no Blue follows the lives of 4 high school students as they go through trials of love and friendship.  This story has romance, friendship, humour, and drama without being too overwhelming. 

Character: 10
The one thing that really strikes me about this manga that's different from your other typical love triangle shojou manga is that there isnt a 'bad' character. You can sympathise with every character and understand their motives, insecurities and thoughts and perhaps even admit that you'd do the same in their sitaution. Ao, for example, isn't the type of mindless girl who would sacrifice anything for a boy, she values her friends just as much. The ideology of love/having a boyfriend is the most important aspect of a girls life that is presented is so many manga really irritates the feminist inside me but these characters, Ao especially, were a refreshing and realistic change.

Art: 8
The art is different, and admittedly can be messy at times; for those of you looking for hot bishies, you won't find any here (the charachter of Riku makes up for this loss) However one thing I have to congratulate Fujiwara on is the expressions of the charachters. They are absolute comedy gold, and make the charachters all the more loveable.

Enjoyment: 10
It's a fun ride, one that can be taken again and again - Its one of the few manga I can reread over and over and still love.

Nobody reviwed this manga yet? Well, that's kind of strange, so I'll review it myself :3

So, I'm still reading this manga (I'm reading it online, and it's still ongoing), but I can say that the story is quite captivating.

At first, it sounds a little stupid, with the 'fake girlfriend/boyfriend' thing, but as the story develops, it gets actually really good.

It really reminds me of Bokura Ga Ita, because of the complicated relashionships and because of the numerous love triangles; but this is what makes the story so interesting.

I think it has a really good plot, and the characters have realistic personalities.

The art is really beautiful and clean too. I have nothing more to say about this aspect, because it's something natural of a shoujo manga.

I'm enjoying it, and recommend it to everyone. And don't think this just a cheesy shoujo romance, because you can also find hilarious comedy there. I think that's all ~

Hope my opinion helped you somehow xDD

This is a story of "a fake love turned real".

You know, the become-my-fake-bf/gf kind of game turned so complicated then all the other characters become affected drama. This is heartbreaking, as you would suffer from being a reader who knows everything the characters have misunderstood. Sometimes, you’d wish you can pull them out of the manga and tell them the whole story! LOL.

Anyway, the art isn’t very impressive though but the facial expressions are done well.

I'm sorry but reading this manga was the biggest waste of time on my part. Its a super generic story about a naive girl, her first love, overly dramatic misunderstandings, and of course, love triangles. One volume material stretched out into six long, painful volumes.

The characters and art are nothing special. Easy to look at, but nothing amazing.

As for the story, you can see every "twist" from miles away; by the end of the first chapter, you know exactly where the heroine, her friend, and the two male leads are going to end up. What makes a good shoujo manga--even a predictable one--shine is the journey the characters take you on and Koishitagari no Blue kind of just takes you for a walk around your bedroom. Twenty four times.

Bottom line: if you want to waste your time reading six volumes of mediocre shoujo "drama", Koishitagari no Blue is the manga for you.

I admit that the plot is not exactly what you would call unique or sophisticated. It's pretty cliche, with your average shoujo school-life drama. If you're ok with generic plots however, I would definitely give it a shot, since I actually thought the characters were quite fun to read about. The heroine, especially, I found quite charming. There's nothing new/unique about her, and she isn't particularly strong, but for some reason I thought her personality style seemed endearing.

All in all, it was a pretty pleasant read, that made me laugh at times and feel kinda emotional at others :]

it's kind of funny that i can't find chapter 21 and on of this manga (since there's 6 volumes and chapter 20 is the end of the 5th volume) but i will be looking for it! I thought the drama in this story was realy amazing. I could never figure out how you can create such extensive and complicated dramas (althougth htis one isn't that complacted) i loved the strong storyline, my only compaint is what took the characters so long to figure out they needed each other badly? LOL i will be searching for the rest of the series