Manga 102135 Kirameki No Lion Boy

This manga is just a shoujo that gives you exactly what you came for.
Also there are so many light filters and sparkly effects, I think you'll die if you turn it into a drinking game for each effect. Characters are cute, MC is kinda lame and fragile, guy is chill and stoic, the more straightforward type if you're into that. Rival's kind of creepy but bearable.
I basically mainly read it for the MC's friend cause I like side romances more that the actual romance in all honesty.
Romance is eeeehhh okay. It's not the most character driven or very interesting but it's fairly okay. ... The art style is really cute, and might be a reason for you to stay.
I'm giving character an 8 because I have a huge bias for energetic girls like Nico.
Again, you come for the cute romance, you stay for the cute romance.

First of all, I just wanna say hats off to the author for his art style. This book has probably the most aesthetic art style I've seen in a manga thus far. Truly captures the feel of the kind of read your in for, as it's very cute and pretty straightforward. There isn't too much suspense within the plot, as we are pretty much seeing them date rather quickly. But it's simply a mundane romance, which I personally found enjoyment in, but could be perhaps too low action or plot for some. And the characters are pretty cool, I found that on their own I ... didn't find them quite as interesting as when they were together, given the fact that she's quite fragile and sensitive, and he's more stoic and cool-headed. But I had some enjoyment with the side characters as well, so there aren't any major character holes in the story. After we get past some slight dramatics in the first view chapters, it honestly feels like a typical high school romance, but in a refreshing way. I personally read it between my break with an action anime, which honestly is something I recommend. Overall, it wasn't my favorite romance, but it was a good one, and an adorable read at that.

I loved Maki Youko's older works so I thought I'd give this a try. The story is lighthearted but without much substance. It's mostly pure fluff and shoujo sparkles. I'm kind of surprised that it had this much chapters because the MC's are so bland. I actually only stayed for the 2 beta couples.

Perhaps to make her appealing and relatable to its target audience, the MC is a girl who loves manga - but that's where the resemblance ends. She fully embodies and exhausts the "cute, innocent, pure, sparkly-eyed and accident-prone" trope that goes with your typical shoujo heroine; I find that there's no unique ... thing about her. Of course, eventually, she would grow a bit of backbone, but she mostly remains a doormat who, even toward the end, needs to be looked after by her friends (even the younger ones) because of how she is. Her excessive clumsiness is also annoying, NOT cute. It's just so over the top, so unrealistic, like the author made her that way just so she could get caught, rescued, hugged and intimately touched by any good-looking male in the area, particularly the MC boy and the rival.

The MC boy is your typical cool guy who has a flatter personality than the girl, Miwa (at least she *tries* to be cute and lively). He's basically the satellite love interest whose main purpose is to look effortlessly handsome and cool as he literally sweeps the MC off her feet. Put them together and you get a snooze-fest of a hormone-driven teenage couple without much to go on.

If the story concerned just these two, it would have concluded in much less volumes. Thankfully, we have 2 beta couples (and 1 other that seems to be heading there in the future...) with much more interesting issues, more enjoyable moments and more realistic chemistry with each other.