Last Game

Kujou and Yanagi

Konnichiwa~

Today I'm going to review Last Game by Amano Shinobu, a rather new manga that came out in 2011. Well I guess that isn't too new, but it feelings new since its ongoing and only on volume 4 in Japan. Its been scanlated to chapter 16. Anyway, lets begin:

It begins with the protagonist Hisato Yanagi in elementary school. He's smart, popular, and rich, the center of attention at school and number 1 at everything. That is, until one day Mikoto Kujou transfers and beats him in both in academics and sports. What angers him even more is that she’s quiet, plain, and poor. He soon becomes obsessed with beating her, becoming so desperate he even comes up with a plan to make her fall in love with him; if she does, he’ll consider it a victory. But in his attempts to get closer to her, he falls in love with her. And when falls, he falls hard head-over heals for her. Unfortunately  Kujou has spent most of her life helping and supporting her mother, her only family, so is rather dense when it comes to any type of relationship, even friendship is something unfamiliar to her. The manga skips to them in college: Kujou finally realizes how important Yanagi is to her, how his always been by her side. Though she doesn't realize what she’s in love with him, her social skills are improving. She begins dealing with these new feelings for him that appear. At first she  worries that Yanagi might get annoyed with her and come to hate her and avoids him. But at some point she decides to stay by him and try figure theses new feelings out. That's a good amount of progress for someone as dense as her. There aren’t too many chapters out, so it shouldn’t take long to catch up and start waiting for the new releases.

Now, Yanagi is definitely a tsundere, getting angry whenever he becomes flustered and embarrassed; at first he doesn’t want to admit he has feelings for Kujou and even says that he went out with other girls in a futile attempt to forget her. He’s stopped doing such things and is currently focusing on his feelings for Kujou, looking

Yanagi really cares for Kujou,
its only a matter of time until she
realizes why her hearts racing

out for her and trying to get her to fall for him. He truly cherishes her and enjoys ever moment he can be with her. He's really cute, once they fell asleep next to each other and he held her hand, when he woke up he adorably apologized for taking advantage of her. He’s so cute that you can’t help but root for him. Then there’s Kujou; quiet, studious, and cool. I typically dislike female leads that are dense, but I can’t really hate Kujou who’s spent so much of her life trying to take care of her mother. She’s hardworking in all aspects of life, even when it comes to making new friends. After realizing how important Yanagi is to her, she begins wanting to make friends and experience life a bit more, trying to do things beside housework and studying. And despite not understanding her feelings for Yanagi, its obvious that she cares about him.

The art is lovely as well, very clean and smooth; though the ink lines seem a bit thick at times, it’s overall very charming; the eyes aren’t too big and they look about their age. Though the romance looks like its going to be rather slow, I think its building up to something great and worth-while. 

~Nadeshiko-chan