Is no one going to talk about how great the mangaka put the perspective of the MC? I keep on reading these comments of just cliche arguments, etc. How about we talk about how the artist shows the views and certain things we can relate to. Well some things. The way the MC truly loved that girl even though she’s married she’s very aware that she can’t exactly do anything about it. Like some of us or maybe most idk, we in some situations have to face things but don’t do anything about it when we should have. Another thing is the way this is realistic. Instead of it being a little bit too dramatic they have conversations that aren’t over the top or just everything is sad life sucks.
I just love the fact that whenever her ex or crush acts in the panels we don’t know what she’s thinking. It’s hard to understand her just like the MC is having a hard time understanding her too. We can understand her position.
These are the things I like about this manga also. There is a real ambiguity as to how much of what we are seeing is Maki's unreliable read on her situation. There are a lot of unusual panel compositions in this manga where we see Maki from a low-angle, moving through rooms––implying a sense of vertigo, or a skewed perspective. And yet, when Midori isn't in a scene, our perspective on the scene seems to flatten out into more traditional head-on compositions. There are also other more experimental panel compositions and design motifs when Midori is present in front of Maki, like the ovular sparkles that rip across the page when Midori and Maki are walking hand in hand. This stylized design, present only when the MC is in the presence of the woman she loves, seems to suggest that you can't quite trust Maki's point of view when Midori appears within it. It makes it seem as if these sequences are in some way heightened––enhanced by Maki's repressed and overwrought romantic imagination. So even though the husband writes himself off as a villain in his first appearance, I wondered to myself whether or not what he said was in reality somewhat different than what Maki heard him say. Not to say that he wasn't a jerk, but maybe he wasn't quite such a jerk as appeared to Maki. In the times I've been in love, I often found myself interpreting things people said differently than they intended them, and sometimes seeming to hear things people said a little differently than they actually said them. I'm not saying that's definitely how to read this manga, but I feel like the writer is giving us a perspective laced with swooning shifts of perspective, from rational to pie-in-the-sky-romantic. As a result, when I read it I don't know how much I can trust Maki's point of view––she sees situations through rose-tinted glasses, and she frequently dips into flashback. And so when Maki's around Midori it's hard to know exactly what's going on in Midori's mind, how much indecision she's grappling with, and what her motives might be. Is her appearance in front of Maki in the first chapter a lucky accident, or is it something she did on purpose? Does she want Maki around because maki might just run away with her, and help her escape her problems? Sometimes she seems dense and weak-willed, but sometimes she has a little bit of the air of a manipulator, like a femme fatale.
As far as the cliches in the manga go, I think that they have so far been employed to good effect. The story is moving at a brisk clip, and that's one of the really good uses for storytelling tropes––to take us through more commonplace or expected aspects of the story quickly, in order to set up something hopefully heartfelt or stirringly well-crafted or unexpected and delightful enough to move us. Of course, if that next leg of the journey leads to yet another cliche, it can get a little tiresome. I find myself very accepting of most cliches in storytelling, and willing to let them lead me to something I hope is more cumulative in its effect than the cliches in the story. So far I find the emotions Maki feels in the story seem very genuinely rendered, and the art is very special.
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