I love this manga's anime adaptation. Well, Season 1. It went downhill in season 2, but the manga's still continuing. This first volume is a strong example of the series's strengths... but also gives an earlier-than-expected look at the stuff I think is less effective.

2nd year university student Uzaki Hana has made it her mission in life to pester Sakurai Shinichi. He's gloomy, he's cranky and he's in the year above her. He says he likes being alone. She calls him a miserable old bugger who needs dragging out of his shell. Personally, I agree with her. The manga's walking a fine line and I'm sure there are readers who'll hate the cheerfully rude and boundary-crossing Uzaki (whose name is suggestive of a Japanese word for "annoying")... but personally I love it. Uzaki's cheerful, likeable and fun. She made me laugh. I'd hang out with her. I'm on her side, although I completely see Sakurai's point of view and I'd be laughing at his short-tempered explosions when she pushes him too far.

Anyway, Uzaki and Sakurai are glorious when they're simply being idiots. Uzaki winds up Sakurai, so he yells at her. That's a solid comedy formula. Nice and simple. We don't need romantic undertones, mostly because they'd feel inevitable to the point of box-ticking. We're taking that side of things for granted from the beginning. It's a foregone conclusion. Even the manga's supporting cast are surprised to learn that they're not already a couple. Over and above dramatic inevitability and the gravity well of this manga genre, they're a hot girl and a fit boy who've known each other for years and seem to live in each other's pockets. The anime lost steam when it got romantic, whereas this volume is funnier because it's just the two of them being loud and childish. I love Usagi's slang dialect, while Sakurai has some glorious retorts.

Unfortunately, there's also Ami and her father. Did they arrive this early in the anime? I don't hate them, but I think they're pointless. They exist only to be bystanders. They don't have any dramatic purpose, because they don't want to achieve or do anything. Their motivation is just to stand and watch.

On the upside, though, at least we don't see Kuso Cat.

This volume's doing something I don't associate with Japanese manga. It's mostly four-page mini-chapters. Thus it'll sometimes cram in too much dialogue in a single page, sacrificing clarity about who's saying which word balloon, or even whether or not that was a thought balloon instead. It's good dialogue, mind you. It's the manga's strongest feature. Nonetheless, a Western editor would definitely have had a few panels rearranged.

Uzaki has huge boobs, but this isn't a fanservice series unless you think she counts even when fully clothed. (Which is admittedly what they're targeting with their chosen audience.) She has a shower in one panel in the last chapter in this volume, which is more than the anime ever did, but nothing important is shown. Anyway, I loved this. I found things to love in this volume that hadn't come across the same way in the TV anime. I'm not planning to read the whole series, though, partly because it's lots of bite-sized chunks that don't lend themselves to marathoning. You're not reading for any kind of ongoing story, except in the loosest sense.