April showers are bringing us a month of manga with flowery titles. It's also the season for sakura blossoms, so naturally we should start with a schoolroom romance featuring a Sakura.
SAKURA'S DEDICATION (Sakura wa Watashi o Sukisugiru), by Fuyu Yukimiya. First published in 2021 and first published in North America in 2022.
PLOT:
Sawa's just broke up with her boyfriend for cheating on her. Her classmate Sakura confesses to her almost immediately upon hearing this, but she turns him down because he's just not her type. He's not deterred, though, and soon Sawa begins to understand that maybe what she needs isn't someone who is 'her type,' but instead someone loyal, honest, and true.
STORY:
I'm not going to lie, the early chapters of Sakura's Dedication had me worried. Sakura himself didn't seem like an Asshole-Kun, but I was not happy to be reading a shojo manga about a guy who doesn't know how to take 'no' for an answer. Thankfully that's not the kind of story Sakura's Dedication wants to be, but is it weird to admit that it might have been more interesting if it had?
Sawa and Sakura seem like nice enough kids, but it's hard to deny that Sawa comes off as a bit of a drip. She doesn't seem to have any sort of strong feelings for anything, so it's easy for Sakura to sweep her off her feet with even the mildest romantic gestures. That also means it's very easy for Sakura to be thrown into an anxious tizzy because OMG HE'S GONNA SAY SOMETHING ROMANTIC IN PUBLIC, NOOOOOOOO! The way she stresses over actions as mild-mannered as hand-holding make her feel like a parody of a shojo romance heroine.
As for Sakura, there doesn't seem to be much to him beyond being a nice guy. He seems to have no interests beyond hanging around Sawa, forever waiting to respect her boundaries and soothe her whenever any sort of situation occurs or anytime her anxieties get the best of her. He's not so much a character as he is a teenaged fantasy of what having a boyfriend would be like. The lack of drama doesn't stop there, though. The two of them are together by the second chapter, so the rest of the time is dedicated either to dates (including the requisite trip to the aquarium) or Sawa's anxieties turning social molehills into mountains. Not even the reintroduction of Sawa's ex helps because he seems to be here entirely just to prove how impossibly perfect and wonderful Sakura is meant to be. In the end, I ended up skimming through much of this volume because I've seen every character and story beat present done better elsewhere.
ART:
Fuku Yukimiya's art is soft, sentimental, and unchallenging. There's nothing wrong with any part of it: the character designs, the paneling, the backgrounds, the use of simple screentones to enhance the more emotional moments. It's just that every creative choice she makes is the safest, blandest choice possible. There's no passion in this art, just as there is no passion in the story.
RATING:
This manga is published by Kodansha Comics. This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available. All five have been released and are currently available at most digital manga storefronts.
No comments:
Post a Comment