Natsuyuki Rendezvous

All ghost stories are about grief and the past, for what else is a ghost besides a sad memory, the remnant of something that should be already gone?
I open with this line because this manga is more of a ghost story than romance, even if it is terribly romantic. It's like the author set out to meditate about love, loss and growth, and this manga is what came out of it, a story not really of the living or the living world, set in silent, beautiful places.

I liked it, but I can see how someone else might not, for its dreamy fairytale narrative, heavy on conversations and short on story. If you only care about the things you could fill a story sheet with - snappy elevator pitch, character as a motivation/flaw/learning engine, setting and its million moving pieces, all the crafty hollywood script things with which a story can be made - then I can tell you shouldn't read this manga right now. Maybe later.
This is a story you should read for its beauty.

Story: 9/10
The only reason why I rated this 9/10 is because I was seriously thrown into a confusing loop that I didn't know what was going on in the middle of the story. Especially with this supernatural thing going on. However, by the end of it, I thought that this story was told in a way that really makes you think. Like how Shimao's character was presented, to be honest. It's a beautiful drama story, if you ask me.

Art: 10/10
Dude, the art. It's so pleasing to look at. It's not your usual aesthetic or over-toned art that's commonly used in common mangas nowadays, but it was drawn in a straightforward way. Only going hardcore on panels/pages where it really matters. With this kind of art style, it personally brings out more impact to important and symbolic parts the story has to bring. The characters really felt alive when I look at them.

Character: 10/10
At first, our main lead Hazuki might seem like one of your usual common tropes in these type of stories. However, it's seriously amazing how his development as a character was seen at the end. The story was written in a way where Hazuki wasn't able to show up like how main characters really are, but seeing his journey makes you grow along with him. That's why the end really hit hard for me. Aside from that, our female lead Rokka-chan is a character you don't usually see as a main. To be honest, I really love how she felt so real and I only hope to dream that more stories with her type of character show up. And Shimao, my dude, his character is so complex. I love how his personality from before still is the same after, the same goes with his line of thinking. It's the kind of passive thinking where it's just a thought that passes your mind, but it's really thought-provoking. Only with him with his own experiences can feel something like that.

Enjoyment: 9/10
I only deducted a point out of that because my heart fell a lot. I was in limbo, then suddenly dropped then back at limbo again. By the time I reached the end, my tear ducts exploded. Tears won't drop, but I felt like wailing so much and I didn't appreciate that. Seriously, though, I enjoyed the journey of reading through this. It was a short, hard-hitting series and this is just the type of drama that I like. With a hint of the supernatural, of course.

Overall: 10/10
I empathized and sympathized a lot with the characters and situations in this series and it's amazing how this manga can make me feel this way. Like I said above, the story was written in a way where the dialogue and references/symbols might confuse at first, but it provides a great journey and will certainly make you feel things. The art is appropriate enough for the mood of the story, and simple things scattered in every panel will make you appreciate the story, symbols and characters more. Each character was different, even supporting characters, and their thoughts really show throughout their dialogue. The struggle of real life emotions about the other side and their loved ones can also be seen, although it's a bit more romanticized. It's certainly worth the read for a heavy-mood reading person that I am, and you should at least give it a try even if you don't feel the same feelings that I did. The story is worth sharing.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous is about a 22 year-old guy falling in love with a 30 year-old widow who (of all positions) is his boss. The twist here is that the widow's deceased husband couldn't move on without his 'middle-school boy' ah- *cough*
charming wife and so he haunts the house/business shadowing her endlessly: stalker-style. The ball starts rolling after we discover that the main character, in this case, (the cougar hunter) Hazuki-kun could actually see the dead husband who had resigned himself to an eternity of being invisible and helpless.

Maybe I'd have felt something a little more, I dunno, exciting rather than the empty void of grey depression that comes after reading eighteen chapters of critically static character development. The author confesses (yay! Confessions!) that this is their first story that's over a volume long (BOOOOOO! *Spits on floor*).

Wouldn't YOU think it weird that there is not a single side-character? In the entire Manga there are only FOUR characters.

Should I be more empathetic? It was their first try... But no, it was I, who in the end, had to stomach (visually) the badly written Manga.

Darn awesome looking cover pages.

In the first volume, there was enough flow and realistic conversation to give this story some hope of churning out a satisfying outcome but, after the author made it clear that character development was- sooooo last year, by stretching the idea of hey! The husband's a ghost! We can make him into a poltergeist. And yeah, let's totally add possession in. I mean: awesome, right?
Three volumes later...
You start thinking:

'I've been reading about possession for two flipping volumes.'
'I'M HUMAN! Give me a break!'
'The major event in every other chapter is her crying. Enough!'
'Just what the fuck.'

In this very particular order.

The art (to change the tone of this review drastically) had good style; sure it wasn't very detailed but the expressions on the characters' faces was top-notch. I could imagine the face a typical highschool drop-out, that was probably the main character, being forced into a part-time florist job would make, waiting bored out of his mind for customers to come in.
The flowers were drawn well, which definitely added to the Manga and appeared to be well-researched to my non-botanist eyes.

Honestly, had their been an inkling or maybe a shadow of further background information or *gasp* a twist being thrown in there... somewhere/anywhere, I would just give this an average badly written Manga grade. However, as I was forced to experience the third level of Manga development Hell, I am clearly unhappy by the fact that no one, except the dead husband, seems to have a family. Did the main characters just pop out of oblivion?

Not recommended. I'd instead recommend an exorcism to be made of the widow's home, the 2/3-of-the-plot possession arc be damned.