Sekine-kun no Koi

[MangaDex]

 

[Purplelibraryguy]

This is a good one. I find it hard to describe, but it's good.

 

[SolutionEpsilon]

Damn, very nice to read

 

[BCS]

All things considered, it was cheap.

Spoiler

The protagonist is an incredibly hot guy with apparently some psychological damage which causes him to be the ultimate no-fucks-given machine. That damage is never explained or really explored. Despite his terminal dgaf, for no real reason he falls in love with literally only girl in the world who has some self-control and doesn't want to immediately jump his D. A love rival then appears, and even though he's a womanizer with a personal grudge against the mmc, he never makes an actual pass for the girl himself, apparently happy to just learn games with her granpa. And that forced drama in the last volume... he sets up the apologize-date but then by coincidence he is hit with overtime AND train accident AND dead phone battery AND the girl sees him with a female business partner and of course completely misunderstands the situation. Come the fuck on.

By the end of it I cared far more about the womanizer and his unrequited love towards the childhood friend than I did about either of main characters. Hardly deserves the Josei tag, all the cheap "coincidences" are shoujo-level.

 

[azuremirage]

I remember the final chapter released for us on batoto on valentines day last year. This and Ran and the Grey World are probably the only two manga i reread religiously.

 

[testrealms]

Reading it all in one go doesn't get you as invested compared to reading it piece-meal according to releases

When this was being released (by the scanlator), the scanlator often took months between chapters, and I mean MONTHS. Often it was 3-6 months and sometimes almost an entire year would pass before getting another update of this

The time between chapters helped me really feel the emotions and frustrations of the characters and really had me dying on the inside for Sekine. I loved this manga and will always consider it one of the great short Josei out there

 

[Swifft]

Wrote a review on this, here it is:
https://terrenceswiff.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/sekine-kun-no-koi/

"Josei demographic" nothin' (actually, this isn't really josei; the magazine is more seinen if anything); I'm a dude and I loved this manga. Sekine is a fascinating, pitiable main characters who is easy to root for and his love interest is nice for how often she throws him for a loop. There's a lot of good about this manga, and I covered a lot of it in a long review I wrote for the series. Although this is a manga with some very serious subject matter, it knows how to be lighthearted and uses its darker aspects with deftness.

 

[hophope]

I always cry when Sekine cries. I just love this manga so much; it really touches my heart.

 

[Uvenam]

Mastah Piece, Mwuah

 

[imnotamused]

What a great read, and re-read, I love the final chapter.

 

[darknesspker]

I was enjoying it until the end, but that ending. All the author had to do was add a few more pages and make the MCs relationship official and completely alleviate any misunderstandings. Other than that, I enjoyed it very much, although, I personally wouldn't reread this manga as I prefer more conclusive endings to relationships in manga i.e. timeskip/marriage/official bf/gf, etc. - I know the final 3 pages w/o text show that they are in an official relationship, it would have been nice if we actually got to see that development w/ words.

7/10

 

[X3no]

I just love how different and real Sekine feels. You don't see that a lot with other manga.

 

[Hootanic]

MC has Asperger's, not being flippant. The parts where he's trying to understand other people and just not getting it

Spoiler

or the part where he is sitting in the cafeteria listening to all the women banter on about their love lives and yet gets nothing useful or relevant from it

hits the nail on the head. Well done, great ending.

 

[u2cyute]

I frequently come back to reread this one. Always get a good read out of it.

 

[LaDeeDah]

The ending was wayyy too abrupt. Could've really benefited from another chapter. Also irritates me a little that all the small misunderstandings FL had weren't really cleared up at the end. Overall tho it was still a pretty good read with an interesting protag.
(also idk how necessary this warning is, but there's a fair amount of sexual abuse/harassment in this, mainly towards the MC).


@Swifft lol what? This is the most josei like manga I've ever read. Has literally all the josei tropes. Feels nothing like a seinen.
(I know this is a 2 yrs old comment but eh 🤷🏾‍♀️)

 

[Swifft]

@LaDeeDah Demographics are arbitrary and Sekine-kun no Koi ran in a magazine mostly dedicated to "seinen" series. Technically, it's a magazine simply aimed at adults.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Erotics_F
https://www.mangaupdates.com/publishers.html?pubname=Manga+Erotics+F

 

[LaDeeDah]

@Swifft Doesn't change the fact that this manga is tagged as josei and has nearly every josei stereotype known to man. All it's missing is a cheating side plot.

 

[Swifft]

@LaDeeDah Okay? Tags made by third parties literally mean absolutely nothing. I don't really care how it's categorized, I was literally only saying that officially it didn't run in something known as "josei". This is a fact.

 

[LaDeeDah]

@Swifft 🤨 If you say so. Either way the fact that it ran in something you don't consider "josei" isn't what I'd consider a fact, and it doesn't automatically make this manga not a josei. That publication has enough yaoi, shounen ai and other josei titles that it looks more josei than anything else.

Anyway I wasn't trying to get into some big argument. I just disagree that this is more of a seinen.

 

[Swifft]

@LaDeeDah
> Either way the fact that it ran in something you don't consider "josei" isn't what I'd consider a fact
Honestly, are you a bit dumb? It's not about my consideration, it was a magazine without an official demographic. Jesus christ