Manga 3831 Chocolate Cosmos

I picked up this manga when it was first published and freshly translated. I instantly fell in love with the artwork. And that might be the biggest reason why I kept with it, despite it's late updates.

STORY 8/10
Like most shoujo mangas, the were cliches, love triangles, forbidden love, etc. But for chocolate cosmo, it all seemed to be tied together, there were unexpected twist, and also a fair amount of lighthearted humor. That made reading it addicting.I rank the story an 8 out of 10, because despite it's good nature, it was still slightly over predictable.

ART 10/10
As I've said, the artwork is truly ... something else. Now, it is not realistic, but it is beautiful in a way only a true contender to the phrase 'shoujo-manic' could understand. The art made the predictable story line bearable. (And almost made me wish, Hagi was real)

CHARACTER 9/10
As for as character goes, I found each character to be memorable. With a strong leading heroine, a childish and charming protagonist, and a even more charming, antagonist, and a group of well structure friends. It made the story really come alive. I found every character to be lovable, unique and at the same time, I was able to relate with them.

ENJOYMENT 8/10
Not including the long hiatus on updates. I found that while I would instantaneously read when there was an update, I did not lose any sleep pondering when the next chapter would be released. While it did keep my attention hanging on every character's words, while I was reading it, when I was done with the newest update, I didn't feel incomplete that there wasn't a next chapter. Hence, I'm giving it a ranking of 8. It was very enjoyable, just not great.

OVERALL 9/10
Overall, I'd recommend this to artwork adoring fan girls, with a fetish for handsome teachers, and tangled relationship. I recommend this only to those who have patience for cliches, and adore love stories, no matter how simple they turn out to be.

I actually read this by mistake...i thought it was something else. I only noticed when the plot didn't go quite how i expected lol.

Its a cute story but not original or anything amazing.

The story goes, Sakurai meets a boy at the beach, they have fun, spend the day together, and then it turns out they go to the same school.
She vows to look for him once school has started.When she finally does see him again, hes addressed as Sensi.Turns out hes her economics teacher
[i think its actually meant to be home ec teacher, they talk about family and cooking not the global market...]. ... The story continues with Sakurai learning to sort out her feelings and deciding what she really wants.

The character development on sakurai's part wasnt bad, I actually liked her a lot. She's blunt, honest, actually has a backbone...
Hagiwara [sensi] was left kind of vague. Whatever he's thinking and feeling isn't clear, he just happy-go-lucky and all smiles.
Yuushi's character was also pretty good, he's very relatable. I liked his character progression and although the concept isn't new, i liked what he did for the story.

One complaint, I don't get the title. After reading what the author explained chocolate cosmos to mean, I'm confused why she decided to name the manga after it.

It wasn't a bad read, I'd recommend it.
Would I read it again? Probably not.

Story: 7 [good]
Art: 8 [very good]
Character: 8 [very good]
Enjoyment: 7 [good]
Overall: 7 [good]

I actually didn't enjoy this manga as much as I thought I would. It's got a cute start and a cute ending, but much of the in-between felt unnecessary and uninteresting. That being said, overall it's still a good story with decent characters. But for some reason it just didn't draw me in like other similarly styled shoujo mangas.

I think part of it was that a lot of the characters (excluding Hagi and Sakurai) seemed very flat. All of Sakurai's friends didn't get any exploration or development into their character. I know it's a short manga, but still, I missed the depth of a ... whole cast of interesting characters that I get out of many similar mangas. Even Yuushi was too one-dimensional, and he got a lot of page time - it was just all the SAME.

I will say, though, that the two main characters, Hagi and Sakurai, were very interesting and fun to read about. I guess I just wish they had a little more focus, considering the manga is about them in the end. There were really only a few cute moments between them. Of course, those few moments were adorable!

As for the art, it's probably not fair for me to comment, because unfortunately I was reading a scanlation of poor page quality for the most part, especially the last chapter. The few chapters that I did have clearly, though, were very nice - I love the characters' designs and chibi-moments. There was also one extra chapter in color which was beautifully done.

It's a quick enough read that if you like this genre, it's totally worth it, but it's not the best in its category.