Hajirau Kimi ga Mitainda

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"Hajirau Kimi..." started off very strong and has subsequently been slooowly losing steam ever since a dozen chapters or so.

The premise ain't half-bad at all! We have the son of a film director stumbling upon a 130% exhibitionist girl who's his age. Forming a peculiar, er, working relationship, they explore various setups and smutty situations. All of their adventures/escapades are backed up by Umagome Rakure's pretty darn good art.

(For real - for a first serialized work EVER, the mangaka is doing a great job in terms of art style.)

Unfortunately, the tonal shifts in terms of relationship dynamics as the manga progresses slow down the pacing ... by a lot. At one point the chapters get obnoxiously shorter, too - we're talking about several instances of a 10-12 page chapter going out.

I don't mind the tonal shifts at all, to be honest. If anything, I'd like to see this manga explore more of the director/behind-the-scenes experience. It'd be great to see the series dig into more technical things while keeping its flirty/ecchi style. However - call it first baby steps for Rakure or not, it's obvious they have issues with reigning in the balance between tonal shifts and pacing.

Nevertheless, "Hajirau Kimi" is a fun series to go through. Great art, enough smut for those looking for that, and an actually fun, not-one-dimensional-cardboard-boxes-of-a-character cast. By adding just a bit more details around the original premise (filmmaking), Rakure will have something original and exciting that stands out from the ocean of bland, cheap ecchi manga with a "premise".

7/10, even though the first two dozen or so chapters were a solid 8/10. Hopefully Rakure bounces back and delivers!

This manga is confusing.

At the moment, I have read 49 chapters, twice, and am still having a hard time understanding where the story will go or what’s the point from scene to scene.
I’ll just be up front, it’s an erotica about two high school kids whose sexual desires stand out from their peers while having ambitions of success in the film industry.
Now, without checking, I can without a doubt tell this is a first manga work from a doujinshi artist, the lack of a consistent story and incredible art told me that. However, I will say this, the manga somehow makes each sequence ... interesting enough to keep reading. I’ll also say something I don’t say about too many mangas, and it’s that the characters have been some of the most thoroughly detailed, or at least interesting I’ve read in a while. Sure the plot itself really isn’t too great, but it’s usually made up for with the interactions the characters share.

As a final note, I do not advise you read 3 or 4 chapters to decide if you like it. It has that effect of starting off wonky and slow, nevertheless what is here might still be worth your time.

Edit: Didn’t know this is from the author of Inu to Kuzu and Sacchan, Boku wa. That is both enlightening and worrisome as the quality of these two are drastically different.

5.0/10


Call me bias, call me unfair, call me sensitive, or even call me trash, but this manga is not it. No matter how you phrase the introduction of this manga, it's simply weird with a wack as lord, unmistakably lazy, plot point. Simply put, this manga is the embodiment of every single weird kid in everyone's class, you know, the one who wanks in the bathroom every period? But, with this manga, the characters are attractive and quirky so that makes it fine, right? NO. No, it does not.

At the end of the day, this manga is about some weird kids wanking off and ... falling in love with each other. This gives me PTSD of the weird-kid couple my friends and I used to see and make fun of and crack jokes at every single day; in other words, the plot is uninspired and simply creepy, there's nothing wholesome nor interesting about this besides for having good art. Maybe I'm missing out on the best romantic developments and characters ever written in a manga, but with this premise, I'd rather pass on this one, chief.


Reading Rankings (Portnoy inspired & A Huang Teizan Original)
10 – God’s penmanship
9 – Must-read. Drop everything else.
8 – Instant bookmark
7 – Entertaining
6 – Good to pass time
5 – Why are you reading this?
4 – Bad.
3 – Typical garbage.
2 – My head hurts.
1 – Retirement is a thought.
0 – “Did they even give you a story?!”