‘I love you. I hate you. I like you. I hate you. I love you. I think you are stupid. I think you are a loser. I think you are wonderful. I want to be with you. I do not want to be with you. I would never date you. I hate you. I love you…..I think the madness started the moment we met and you shook my hand.’

Each and every one of you should have their own interpretation of love, because of the feelings we associate with it. That is why the interpretation may be different. Although, we all are convinced that only our love is real, the most sincere and strong; are you sure that you are not lying to yourself? Are you sure that what drives your love is not simply a passion, lust, or selfishness? Sometimes the line between these feelings is invisible and they are inseparable from each other. What is love? What does it mean to love? One thing we know for sure, love is crazy. It makes us selflessly fight for what we hold dear.

Do not be fooled by the name of the manga; there is no romance and no shoujo-ai here! Happy Sugar Life is a very violent, psychological drama. Its main appeal is that it touches upon topics that are considered to be a huge taboo. Love in its darkest manifestation: nymphomania, same-sex relationship, masochism, pedophilia, sexual violence and serial murder. It is an open secret that it might seem that touching upon such topics is only used for the shock factor. However, this is not quite true. In Happy Sugar Life, the victim is a male, instead of a female. And the manga focuses on the love between the two girls, which makes it more of a platonic love than anything else.

In addition to this, the manga offers the reader several dark stories that are connected with the eight-year-old girl Shio Koube, who is the victim of domestic violence. Shio's mother, along with her children, fled from the constant abuse of her husband. Later on, Shio got lost and was found by the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Sato Matsuzaka, who, trying to save the girl, eventually falls in love with her and becomes obsessed with this feeling. It seems that Sato is ready for anything to stay with Shio. At the same time, the girl’s elder brother is also ready for everything to return his missing sister. As the plot develops, the reader meets more and more people, who are anything but normal.

By the way, the manga is also notable for the fact that you will not see any "normal" characters. Yet, they do not look like typical, cliché movie maniacs and psychopaths. And this makes this manga that interesting to follow. You see a story about absolutely normal people and there is nothing strange about them. However, on a second look, you discover more about the characters and find out that everything is not as simple as it might seem at first. Another fact worth mentioning is that the manga does not try to make the reader sympathize with the characters. Instead of it, it makes you dislike them, which is also somewhat of an unusual way to approach the reader.

Of course, the events taking place in the plot, the characters and their actions do look extremely unrealistic, but the manga did not even try to make the plot so. The main thing here is not the events themselves, or the actions of the characters, but the feelings of the characters that serve as a catalyst for the story. By focusing not on the events, but on this catalyst, the feelings, the author demonstrates the reader that love is crazy and it, depending on the person, is different. However different it may be, it is still the drug and we cannot simply give up on it. If neglected, it slowly destroys us and, at some point, we cannot contain it anymore.

All in all, it is a very weird read and I cannot say I hated it. If you cannot call yourself a sensitive person, do give this manga a try.