Koharu no Hibi review

2Precious1
Apr 05, 2021
tl;dr: A manga with an interesting heroine that’s kind of like a non-scary yandere, but that is pretty weak in everything surrounding that.

This manga's main point of interest is its heroine, Koharu. She’s kind of a yandere I guess, in that she clearly does not follow common sense at all and is quite obsessed, but at the same time yandere are generally supposed to be scary to at least some degree, but Koharu really isn’t at all. The fear of yandere generally arises from the fear that the yandere may do something violent or harmful to their love interesting or to those around them, but Koharu isn’t really violent at all, and though her obsession can be frightening in and of itself, ultimately the only person her obsession really harms is herself. She does get jealous, but she’s timid in such a way that her jealousy doesn’t manifest in angry violence, but rather more timid acts of craziness. To put it another way, Koharu is less obsessed with making Akira her’s and her's alone, but rather more obsessed with being as close to him as possible.

A term I’ve heard thrown around for this manga that’s supposed to reflect the heroine better is goudere, and though that’s a term I’m not that familiar with that doesn’t seem right either. A goudere from what I’ve read sounds like someone that does everything she can to respond to what she perceived her lover wants regardless of what they actually want, but that doesn’t really reflect Koharu either because she’s not really obsessed with doing things for him at all but rather just getting closer to him, and furthermore she’s pretty obedient when he explicitly tells her to do or not to do things.

Thus ultimately, I’d just say that she’s an over obsessed deredere with a lot of screws loose. That is a very important distinction I think, because as a result the story is never “I have an insane girl obsessed with me, how do I escape” as is the case with yandere but rather “I have an insane girl in love with me, how do I advance our relationship in a healthy manner”. And that I think as a core concept is pretty fresh and results in a lot of amusing and really interesting events. Her dedication is pretty heartwarming in a sense, and the lack of terrifying traits beyond that that yandere’s generally make her incredibly likable. Thus, it is quite enjoyable to read about her random acts of obsession and watch the characters around her respond to them. It’s very strange, but I found it generally heartwarming and often funny.

However, everything beyond that felt kind of shoddy. The protagonist, Akira, seems to have some sort of character arc in growing to accept her insanity and then doing his best within it, but it really isn’t conveyed all that well and seems really random, ultimately resulting him feeling really flat. Koharu has a lot of character, but any attempt at showing growth felt weird and just made her character seem kind of inconsistent since it never really stuck. The relationship between the two also isn’t given any solid foundation. It’s normal for obsessive love to arise from something random like a single simple act of kindness, but such works generally make sure to highlight that single simple act of kindness, but that never happens in this one. Furthermore, why Koharu has such a personality isn’t attempted to be explained at all either. On the other side, Akira is always genuinely finding fault with her and either being scared or annoyed by her but still seems to love her, with only a very weak explanation of why he fell in love with her in the first place. The chemistry between the two still somehow ends up decent despite this so the smaller stories are amusing and interesting in and of themselves, but it feels lacking in the grand scheme of things, especially as there isn’t really any plot at all beyond their relationship.

There are three other characters in the manga beyond the main couple, all three of which are childhood friends of the protagonist, but none of them felt like they were handled all that well. There is Natsuki, who just sort of there most of the time as a busybody for comedic relief and she occasionally pushes the plot along but isn’t ever all that significant. Another one of them is going out with Natsuki I think, but I’m not completely sure because though he's there a decent amount of the manga, he literally doesn’t do anything ever and is never in focus. Lastly, there’s Mika, who may or may not be in love with Akira, it isn’t really clear at all and her actions don’t make sense at all beyond them being necessary to push whatever is going to happen next, with even major events happening to her kind of getting brushed off afterwards. 

There’s not much of an overarching plot, so the ending doesn’t really matter that much, beyond it showing that what was happening in the manga simply continued. Which is a solid enough ending I suppose even if it lacked impact. So ultimately how good the manga is comes down entirely to the main couple, which essentially only comes down to the heroine, who alone is just enough to make the manga pass the threshold of being very good, though just barely and with it being heavily dependent on what types of characters the reader likes. The art wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t particularly great either with a not that interesting style and somewhat mediocre quality.
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Koharu no Hibi
Koharu no Hibi
Auteur Ooshiro, Youkou
Artiste