Honestly, Shinbashi was one of the best side characters I've seen. He started out as kind of an annoying comic relief character, but he had constant character development. He ended up with a lot of maturity, being able to get over his original crush and recognize a better partner for himself. And he provided a lot of assistance to others along the way. Sure, at first it was a bluff to make himself seem more respectable, but he ended up growing into the role. It's great that this was recognized at the end with his complete success.
And of course, I have massive respect for this series for never going down the path of, "Hana, let's change who you are so you can be prettier!" Almost every single manga was the premise of "female lead is ugly/out of shape but a guy likes her anyway" immediately turns into them losing wait, learning how to be trendy, etc. And I just feel like that's never what the audience is looking for. There's a million romance stories with beautiful characters, and when one tries to differentiate itself by saying "what if not?", it always seems they shoot themselves in the foot by abandoning that premise immediately.
This story never abandoned the premise. And that makes it quite a rare gem.
