Yasashii Watashi

[MangaDex]

 

[Cynix9]

This is the story of two people who love each other very passionately, but who's own insecurities become an insurmountable obstacle towards that love; a bittersweet tale of emotional codependency. It came out before the 'I can fix her" trend/subgenre but it feels like a bit of a refutation of the whole idea of "fixing" a partner. Self-righteousness doesn't "save" anyone. She's "broken" to you because you can't accept who she really is. You only want to "fix" her because you're broken, yourself. What Yae needs more than anything else is genuine acceptance and support, which despite his words, the immature Seriu cannot provide her (not to say her self-destructive behavior is healthy, of course. She's honestly a rather unpleasant person-but changing isn't something that can be decided for her).

It's the best seinen romance manga I've read, though I think if you told someone this was a shojo manga they wouldn't even question it. There is a feminine sensibility to this manga that you rarely see in seinen, even ones written by other women. And for what it's worth, I also found it to be the most sympathetic and accurate portrayal of BPD I've seen in a manga. Though Ironically you'd be falling into the same trap as Seriu by ascribing a specific pathology to Yae (which might be the point).

I think they're setting up a future romance in the second half, which I really don't like for a number of reasons. It's probably my only complaint about the manga, besides maybe the occasional mistakes in the art, which are at least funny: