Review: CROWN OF LOVE

Just because a romance is bad (in the sense of it being unhealthy for the participants) doesn't necessarily mean that a manga portraying has to be bad as well.  This series is a good example of that from a mangaka who seems to specialize in these sorts of complicated relationships.

CROWN OF LOVE (Renai Crown), by Yun Kouga.  First published in 1998 and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT:

Hisayoshi Tajima seems to have it all.  He's a talented music student at Hakuo High School, beloved by all the girls in class, and well on his way towards taking up a respectable classical music career like his father.  No one seems to have any notion of just how indifferent Hisayoshi has become to it all.  His world comes into focus after a chance encounter on a train with Rima Fujio, a lovely teen idol.  Tajima swiftly falls for her, so much so that he's willing to work with Rima's former manager to become an idol singer himself just to get close to her again, something that his manager may want for his own reasons.