Haruto and Yuzuki

Haruto and Yuzuki

Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live) first seems to be just an ordinary love story-manga. A well-made one, but still nothing out of the ordinary. However, just like Clannad, that’s just on the surface – give it a chance, and you won’t regret it.

The story centers around a guy named Haruto Kirishima, who is living a fairly ordinary life until a girl named Yuzuki Eba turns up who will live in his house because she is the daughter of one of his dad’s friends and she desperately wanted to transfer to the school in Haruto’s town. Haruto doesn’t have any interest in Yuzuki since he’s already in love with a girl named Nanami Kanzaki. Yuzuki on the other hand has a clear interest in Haruto.

The story isn’t very original, but neither was Clannad. However, it has just enough originality to avoid being unoriginal, and is executed beautifully. The setting is based on the author’s hometown, which means that it has the same realistic feeling as Love Hina has, and actually feels living. The art style is also beautiful, on par with D.N.Angel and just slightly below Ken Akamatsu(Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima!, Mao-chan)’s art. It has some issues with misplaced eyes and sometimes there’s an arm pointing in a slightly impossible direction, but the overall quality is really impressive. The character designs are quite good too. The main character, Haruto Kirishima is not the most original character ever, and initially appears to be just a stingy, skeptical and a bit shy guy, but similarly to Ryoshi from Ookami-san to Shichinin Nakama-tachi, he can go any lengths for his friends if the situation requires him to. He’s fairly smart, but a bit too realistic for his own good. He could be considered a male Tsundere, but that’s not as obvious as for example Himuro from Fairy Tail. Yuzuki Eba is a far better character. It’s a bit hard to decide if she’s really smart or an idiot, she’s really clumsy (in a moé-ish sort of way) and reminds a lot of Nagisa from Clannad. She can also appear to be completely helpless and lost, just to surprise you by actually knowing exactly what she’s doing – though she generally actually is helpless and lost. She loves Haruto, but isn’t possessive like a lot of other heroines (Shana, Naru, Louise, etc) and actually helps him get closer to his crush Nanami. She also has a mysterious past, but as of now not much is known about this. Nanami Kanzaki is one of those characters you know will just be there to create some tension, since she lacks the details that separates main characters from major characters – just like Yoshida Kazumi from Shakugan no Shana, Risa Harada from D.N.Angel or Siesta from Zero no Tsukaima. She’s not a bad character, just not unique enough to really stand out. She’s a typical cheerful girl who will sooner or later reject the main character who will give up on her and move on to the main heroine. Then there’s Yuzuki’s evil and manipulative little sister (if you’ve seen Durarara!!, think a less prominent version of Izaya and you get the idea) Rin who somewhat shares Ryuk’s viewpoint from Death Note in that she does things because the effects are interesting, and Haruto’s childhood friends Akari and Takahashi who seriously acts like two halves of a whole, acting as a bokke-tsukyomi Comedian pair and cheering for Haruto. Akari also likes smacking people in the back of their heads with Newspapers, textbooks and similar – she once also hit Haruto with a dictionary after Kanzaki’s idea. Takahashi is Haruto’s inseparable friend and they’ve been friends since forever, and he’s also the kind of Kida Masaomi-character who hit on just about every girl he sees but never has any luck with them (sadly he doesn’t have a long list of “Girls I’m gonna’ make my girlfriend” like Kida) and has been rejected by more girls than he can remember – including Yuzuki, Rin and Akari.

The story is a typical slice-of-life one, divide into shorter arcs. It’s really beautifully written and well executed – there’s a reason why it’s one of the most popular mangas on OneManga – and it never really breaks the atmosphere like Fruits Basket among others does, and said atmosphere is on par with D.N.Angel’s. Haruto and Yuzuki also make a really cute couple, mostly by being each others’ polar opposite. The character growth may not be on par with Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima! or even D.N.Angel, but it is there – even though you may not notice it. Even though this is a typical love story, there’s thankfully not much Ecchi like most other love story-mangas tend to be. The first page of each chapter always has an illustration that has nothing to do with the chapter itself (up to a certain point, where it starts being an enlarged panel instead), and while some of them are annoyingly ecchi-ish, they don’t get as much on my nerves as for example Fairy Tail’s does, some of them are actually really cute. The Summary and Closing texts can also be skipped, since they make about as much sense as Angel Beats’ official plot summary (just what is a spilled memory!?). One thing that may cause you to lose track of things like the characters’ ages and such is it’s somewhat annoying way of fast-forwarding through up to half a year, but except for that the story has a good flow without being either overcomplicated or too simple.

Despite it’s faults, the overall quality of it all means that you should immediately start reading it here. It’s definitely one of the best series I’ve read in a long time. It’s position on the top list of the most popular mangas on OneManga is well-deserved.

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Note that this post was written before Yuzuki was redesigned to a hated bitch rather than a moé-ish cute girl…

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