I might be a bit biased in my review, as this was the first "manga only" manga that I've ever read, but I'll do my best to be fair. Hakoiri Drops is a very wholesome, practically diabetes-inducing four koma, that maintains what's expected of such a format, while bringing out the good qualities of it to extremes. The comedy is light-hearted and mostly innocent, though there are several more mature jokes thrown in just to shake this up a bit. It does it's job as a comedy very well, forcing quite a few laughs out of me, so I laud it for that. What I found mostastounding about Hakoiri Drops was the destruction of typical expectations. While I might have been new to manga, I was not new to romcoms, and so I fully expected the main characters to meander about without making any real progression for 100 chapters. What I got was something far more satisfying. While it did take over half the manga for Kasugai to acknowledge his feelings, and another ten or so for Shizuku, one can clearly see the seeds of their relationship grow in a normative, realistic manner. It wasn't any harem show where, out of nowhere, dozens of women begin longing to bear our dear MC's children.

What really blew me out of the water was the SIDE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Something that I rarely, rarely see. I'm not sure if you can call Moe and Ainoki side characters, but their character arcs were by far the most profound of any outside of Shizuku and Kasugai. In fact, I would argue that their progression is even more pronounced (simply because of the evolution of their friendship and how quickly *spoilers*). As another reviewer (the only other, pretty sure) put it, the status quo is not something you'll see for long in this manga.

Hakoiri Drops is VERY character driven. The ending is somewhat "eh, that's it?", but there is a very good reason for it, so I can't blame the mangaka.

There are several flaws, but most of them are genre flaws. I won't go over them in too much detail, but there were moments when the plot fell short or when the drama seemed contrived.

All in all, as the biased man that I am, I rank it as my favorite manga of all time, merited or unmerited, and strongly suggest that you read it.