This is one of Jiro Taniguchi's later works and being that, I was disappointed by how un-creative it was. It carries over cheesy tropes and dialogue from ages past which shouldn't be an excuse just because Jiro was much older when he wrote this. This was a coming of age story, that acts as a self insert of the author, though the main protagonist isn't really interesting in the slightest as the kid is mostly shy, sad, quiet, and doesn't talk much to others which doesn't blend well with a story based in reality. The majority of the other characters are also very 1-dimensional withvery small arcs attached to them, that don't lead anywhere.

Artwork was mostly good, great scenery images to set the feeling of being there. But the characters suffered from same face syndrome. Which again, didn't help the story that had a boring protagonist. Another weird issue that comes with older mangaka is the fixation of sex in certain parts of the story, where it's completely unnecessary and weird to bring up. Specifically for this series was the protagonist being vexxed by a woman editor because she was guiding a coworker on what to do and protagonist being envious of the coworker for both the help he received and being close to the woman.

I found myself laughing at certain scenes that were meant to be serious as well. It's very hard to take 1-dimensional characters seriously when they begin to act seriously.

The best part about this story was the final chapters with the protagonist's love interest and how the romance blossomed. The story was worth reading just for that pay off.

Not related to the story, but the physical book itself printed by Ponent Mon. The book is very nice hardcover, and bigger than standard size manga to really examine the artwork. Pages were very thick, it felt as if 2 pages were stuck together. Great quality.