This one missed on the execution I thought, the stand alone storyline could have been a ten. I didn’t really want to comment on this manga but there aren’t many reviews for it so I might as well.

The best way I could describe this is a long short story.

I kept reading chapter after chapter expecting a climax or a big “wow” moment, something, anything at all to pull me in… after a certain point you can tell this story is riding on its ending. And when I came to that point, the emotion didn’t seem conveyed to the level it should have been. It could have reached somewhere amazing but I didn’t feel totally there with it.

The characters start out cliché. Shoujo tends to go one way or another with their characters. This one went with a masculine heroine and feminine hero. Akira’s character development was great. It’s a general progression and he’s fueled by supporting characters. The story follows Takami more but I felt she got cut short. Her role was mostly to encourage Akira’s development.

There is a bit of romance between Akira and Takami but not enough that I would call this managa a romance. The plot shifts from a developing love between the main characters to more about Akira becoming a great pianist. At the beginning I was annoyed with the romance bit. Akira’s comes off as forceful [idk if this was a way of portraying his character maturing or just bad show from the author] it got better as it went on though.

There’s not really much bad about this manga it just didn’t do the job for me. I almost gave it an 8. Would I recommend it? Yes. Would I read it again? Nope.

Story: 9 [great]
Art: 8 [very good]
character: 8 [very good]
enjoyment: 6 [OK]
Overall: 7 [good]