Bench-chan is truly the main character.
I enjoyed the Star Wars-ish theme the animé crew gave as the bench’s “theme song.” By the fourth or so confession, we can hear the sound of Darth Vader’s breathing system mixed into the music. That had me in stitches.
On the serious side, I'm told the light novel just keeps going “down hill,” in terms of Joro’s character. However, this isn’t the light novel. And this manga is better in terms of story-telling than the Anime, but the Anime has some super fun fourth wall breaking moments. Never the less, this form of the story is better than the anime.
I rate this story highly, although I cannot deny it is painful to go through since I too struggle with Joro’s sense of inferiority. So having him be encouraged that he’s the center of his friends’ group involvement is a hard pill to swallow, but a good one.
And the way the author makes Panji (Pansy) be naughty toward Joro, ensuring his resistance to her, is brilliant. It’s well-executed in this manga, filling in a lot of holes the Anime leaves gaping. While this story has its utterly frustrating moments, my comment is: the players feel real. The goofs feel real. It only takes a few moments before the notion that these are ink&drawings vanishes and what I'm seeing are characters with real struggles instead of typical manga-lite issues. My hope is that the conclusion will match that of the Anime.