Romance isn't my favorite genre of manga but it's also the only medium in which I care about it.

I'm not an avid reader of shojo romance manga but when I watched the anime of Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, I knew I needed to know the ending of that story.

I then read from vol. 5 to 8 online very quickly and then bought the physical volumes later and have never read them... until this day. (All of this to say my reading was a little all over the place so I may not make sense sometimes)

I considered this manga to be one of my favorite romance if not THE one. I had even put it as one of my favorites on my profile but have removed it since. Years have gone by between my first experience of this story and my discovery of its ending.

My tastes have changed since then and my interest had faded.

So what drew me back to it? Why couldn't I just let it go? Why is it important to me and why I think it's a solid 8?

The positives of this story :

The characters. In a manga like this, I believe it is the one and most important point, the one that really counts. Haru and Shizuku aren't the plain couple you might imagine. The couple's dynamic isn't one of trying to bring a bit of the other in them. Basically even though Shizuku is a serious student that puts her studies before all, this isn't a story about her becoming someone else or changed. It's about being there and understanding each other. What Haru and Shizuku bring to each other isn't a new vision of life but the ability to freely live their own.
The relationship they establish is an unbreakable bond that will hold even when they spend months apart.
Also this manga's goal isn't to see the protagonists end up together because they do, fairly soon actually. It's about reaching that point where they're really in sync, when they fully understand one another. When there's no more fear that justifies keeping their emotions or lying.
This manga doesn't try and make you doubt about the fact they'll be together.

In this day and age, harem is prevalent. Stories where multiple contenders aim for the same boy/girl don't do a good job at truly developing the ending pair's feelings. You feel like you've read something that could be multiple standalone love stories and the ending feels like it could be one of many alternatives one. Even 5-toubun that ended recently and that I consider very good shares this unavoidable flaw.

This story has none of that, it is a story about the building of a solid relationship. If you like the chase of harem mangas, this isn't it. If you like the slow pace of a romantic settle down then this is for you.

When I say the characters are good, I don't mean only the main pair. I won't go into too much details here since that'd be long to cover up and it's honestly something you should definitely find out yourself. But I'll say that the characters you'll come to like I'm sure are all treated well. There are some truly side characters that don't bring much to the story, but much of the supporting cast aren't left over and they all have good development and conclusions.
There's even a pairing (if not two) that, to me, could have ben stories of their own and they've been just as good as the main one. Those are more of the "chase" kind of stories and I found that great.

I truly think there's everything romance fans look for in this story.

The negative aspects :

After all, this isn't a 10 is it? There are some things I didn't like.

First, the psychology aspect. Now I don't mean "deep psychology" I'm talking about these moments where characters reflect on their lives to make the next decision. Even though they're obviously necessary, I think sometimes the author draaaaaagged it a bit. Sometimes I feel like some internal thoughts went on for too long to reach nothing. I think especially about everything that's Haru's family related. Except his relationship with his aunt and cousin, I think most of it was unnecessary and boring and existed only to get a bit of drama. Basically Haru's family is pretty important and his family and him are in bad terms but because his father is that important, he won't reach out to him. It's a complicated family to say the least but it doesn't bring anything to the table besides being just that: complicated. Haru's family could've been complicated another way, I don't understand why it needs them to be "People". I didn't see the point in Haru's family business existing. So whenever the story tried to make hardships based of that I couldn't really get into it.

So that's it, this manga ended years ago and I don't believe anyone will read this, but if you've read all the way through and I assume you're into romance then give this series a shot, it's nothing like anything I've read and even though I'm sure there are other mangas like this I know that this one is special to me and I'm glad I finally got to reading it all the way through.