Manga 83655 Perfect World

From age 5 to age 11, I lived with my grandmother whose body was 96% immobile. From Monday to Friday, she'd take care of me (alone, my grandpa was dead by that time). During the weekend, I'd be with my parents.

This is why 'Perfect World' was a personal premise to me. Especially as I have hazy memories of my grandma's condition - she became wheelchair-bound within 2 years of the first symptoms.

Enough personal stories: let's see why the manga is a solid 7.5/10 to me. Here are 5 bad and 5 good things about it:

The bad things:

- Kawana's growth took way too long. She spent ... so many volumes being the typical shoujo protagonist in a manga narrative that warrants a quicker growing pace.
- The middle volumes were filled with too much drama which sometimes almost reached 'Domestic Girlfriend' levels of forced character confrontations/plot 'progression'.
- Reducing the above drama a little and instead focusing a bit more on the architecture/industry details and its interaction with barrier-free projects would have been amazing.
- Slightly disappointing treatment of one of the main side characters.
- Slightly jarring time skips - realistically, the manga goes through A LOT of years. I'm not fully sure, but it covers a 5-6 year span or so through its entirety.

The good things:

- Aruga-san has done extensive research for her work and it shows. From complications to the general lifestyle of wheelchair-bound people, her compassion and interest shine through.
- Ayukawa is simply a great character. Later on, Kawana becomes a fleshed-out counterbalance to her earlier persona.
- Decent side character cast. They can be one-dimensional, but it's better than your typical shoujo manga.
- Extended period of time covered -- I said it's a bit jarring (the transitions just feel awkward); however, it's great to see a series which follows the main couple through several years with distinctive progression and life situations.
- Simple, but very expressive art style; some beautiful chapters and tear-jerker scenes.


I guarantee you'd feel irritated and itch to drop it around the middle, where the forced drama is the worst. Highly suggest you persist through that, the latter chapters are very slice of life and more mature.

As I said, 7.5/10, a solid one. I wish my grandma were still alive, so I'd read some chapters to her.

This manga could have been great, and it started out very strong, but contrived drama seriously undermines it. The characters become unlikable and typical love triangle (square?) nonsense cheapens what had the potential to be a very powerful romance. The struggles that the main couple would have to deal with provides enough dramatic content to sustain the entire story - it should have focused on the couple growing through their hardships, learning to support each other in an inhospitable world. Instead, far too much time is focused on communication problems and manipulative secondary characters that never really earn our support. The entire middle of the ... manga was a chore to get through because of this and what could have been a 9 or 10 was ruined.

The art is great as is much of the writing, so I'm giving it a 4.

[This review is spoiler free!] TL;DR: It's a dark shoujo disguised as a josei with a disabled male lead.

I am not disabled, so I cannot speak on behalf of the main character, Ayukawa, or those who have gone through a similar experience. However, I can relate to him in other aspects.

The fear of being a burden to something in a romantic relationship, but still wanting to pursue such a relationship; the choice that follows. I can relate to the desire of wanting to do something but being limited by your body, and your own mental demons. These are all things Perfect World illustrates well.

However, ... the complexity of Ayukawa doesn't carry to all of the other characters.

Every other character feels rather two dimensional. Kawana, the female lead, is only there to be the female lead. The female supporting character is there to force the female lead to action. The male supporting character us there to force the male lead to action.

Everyone besides Ayukawa feels bland and boring. It feels like the author created a world for Ayukawa and then added characters so his world didn't feel too empty.

There are lots of weaknesses in Perfect World that we could all spend hours picking out: Kawana being a weak-willed girl when it matters, the unnecessary drama, the shoujo-esque storytelling, all the misunderstandings, etc.

As a whole, Perfect World is not a bad read; however, it doesn't feel like a josei either. Instead, it is a blend between josei and shoujo. It doesn't commit itself to the grueling reality of dating someone with a disabilities, and instead leans more into the melodramatic romance. As many other have pointed out, it feels as if Perfect World doesn't exactly know what it is trying to be. Is it a shoujo? or a josei? Is it cutesy? Or is it more realistic? Because the author themselves doesn't know, it can be hard to get truly invested into the writing and characters.

If you intend on reading this, don't go in expecting a full blown josei. Although it touches on darker matters than your typical shoujo, it has plenty of the typical tropes and situations. If you know, you know.