The short version: For me, comedy and romance set in high schools are meant to be consumed like comfort food. Reading Hirunaka no Ryuusei was like forcing myself to chow down a bowl of watery, overcooked porridge, even if it had tasty kabocha and flossed pork in it.

The longer version: think mangaka started off with a great premise. Country bumpkin moves to the great capital of Japan and has to get used to being surrounded by city slickers. There's this stereotype that people from the country are unfashionable and simple-minded but also honest and straightforward. Suzume definitely fits the bill (her hair is plaited at the start and wears simple "unfashionable clothes) but the story fails to develop this further. She quickly blends in with her classmates and it's almost as if the fact she spent the first 15 years in the country was completely forgotten... Nothing more is made to distinguish Suzume from everyone else around her. Clueless transfer student trope done and dusted, the love triangle/square becomes the main focus and character development shunted aside.

Instead, the reader is presented with ridiculous situation after situation where said love triangle/square are thrown together, blush lots, stutter, confess and turn down confessions etc. The path to true love is not always an easy one and I think readers can appreciate a long story where the protagonists go through lots of trials to realize their feelings for each other.

But after twenty-odd chapters, I feel like this is going nowhere. The only thing that made me stick through this was that the pages are chock full of eye-candy and the cover art is gorgeous. Otherwise, I want the 3 hours of my life back...


Story - 5, Art - 9, Character - 6, Enjoyment - 5, Overall - 5

(this is a pretty harsh first review but i hope i've expressed what i wanted to say)