Day 13/30 of the Yurithon: Okay. Initially, I dropped this yuri at five chapters; I thought this manga was just not for me (a.k.a., "mid"). But I guess something compelled me to continue reading; I reckon it was being completely and utterly confused by how the relationship between the characters began (more on that later). Regardless, after reading fifteen more chapters and almost dropping it again, I can safely say that this is a very okay to decent yuri. I guess the main focus of the yuri is the main couple (no shit), so let's discuss that. Initially, I did not buy the relationship between Nagisa andMashiro whatsoever; I'd seen arranged marriages with more chemistry than these two. Nagisa's motivation to enter a relationship with Mashiro is based on Mashiro inadvertently causing Nagisa to miss her high-school entrance exam, resultantly wasting years of studying; Nagisa believes if she can like Mashiro, then she'd get over her failure to enter her desired school. This motivation just felt really artificial to me; I don't think friendship or romance should be an objective one must complete to resolve their own traumas (maybe there are some unresolved issues on my part). I probably would've preferred if she didn't have this bizarre motivation, and instead, harboured true animosity towards Mashiro, eventually growing to actually desire a relationship with her. I would've preferred if they revealed cracks in Nagisa's hate overtime, instead of making such a sudden shift in her mindset. They sorta' touch on this in chapter eighteen, but I felt like Nagisa's switch to want to like Mashiro was far too sudden (its literally in chapter one), and the animosity in her wasn't discussed enough to even be cited. Unfortunately, I never really got over that feeling of "artificiality", even if I began to enjoy and understand their relationship a bit more overtime. Eventually, I guess I saw a bit of the love blossoming; this manga's pretty wholesome, so that kind of helped. But honestly, I was much more invested in whatever was going on with Kuori. Her part of the story handles the complex concepts of love and relationships so truthfully that I was fully engaged in whatever scene she was in.

Spoiler warning:
More on the relationship between Nagisa and Mashiro: I feel like Mashiro's guilt should have lingered way more than a couple pages. I'm not saying that it's her fault for Nagisa missing the entrance exam, but surely she'd feel guilty enough for there to be a considerable rift between the two. On that note: why did they immediately reconcile and then enter a relationship after? This relationship was just progressing at a ridiculous rate, even if I liked the basic romantic beats; there just needed to be more time in between the beats.

Art good; I think I'm just gonna' mention if the art is really unique or particularly bad from now on, because I'm getting bored of saying the same thing over and over again (I'm sure all zero Yurithon readers would prefer that). The pacing was really iffy; I like faster-paced romance, but this shit was just moving too fast sometimes (like the aforementioned reconciliation and the officiation of the relationship in two chapters), and sometimes I felt like the author spent too much time with lulls. When I saw that Mashiro's "disability" (I guess that's what it is) was sorta' the crux of the relationship and their first meeting, I realised that "The Moon on a Rainy Night" handled it so much better, and with a hell of a lot more class. You know what: fuck it, just read "The Moon on a Rainy Night". I think I'll keep reading this manga for the Kuori stuff.