Year: 2006
Manga
Vol/Chapters: 4 Vol./32ch.
Completed
Mangaka: Kei Kusunoki
Cat.: Seinen, Drama, Romance
Summary:
Daisuke is popular with all of the ladies at school, including his childhood friend Yuzu and flirty Kazuki. However, there's one girl who not only doesn't like Daisuke, but also seems to be afraid of him – timid, guarded Hinako Aikawa. After proclaiming that she's the only girl he has no interest in, Daisuke accidentally discovers the truth about Hinako and the terrible, horrifying secret that she hasn't told a soul. Though she isn't aware that he knows, Daisuke makes a decision then and there to protect her, slowly realizing that the girl he had no interest in, is suddenly the most important thing to him...
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This manga is filled to the brim with anime cliches, but the story itself isn't. This was one of the more serious manga I've ever read.
When it comes to men, Hinako Aikawa has problems - problems which she confesses to an empty and abandoned church. Unbeknowest to her, her classmate, local The Casanova Daisuke Suwa, was hiding in said church to dodge his henpecking Childhood Friend Yuzu Yamamoto and his wanna-be girlfriend Kazuki Ibuse. At first he tries to shoo Hinako away, but eventually relents. He expects to hear a minor confession, and instead receives the shock of his life in learning of years of abuse Hinako suffered. Sexual abuse from her stepfather that got her pregnant not once, but twice, and resulted in at least one birth to a child one year prior, when Hinako was fifteen. Despite initial denial, Daisuke is forced to accept his classmate has indeed suffered these horrors. As a result, even though Hinako was the one girl Daisuke had said he would pass on, he finds himself unable to stop thinking about her. He begins to watch out for her, protect her, and inevitably fall in love with her. The main obstacles he faces in pursuit of this newfound love are Kazuki's jealousy and Hinako's own difficulties around men. For her part, Hinako herself has managed to develop feelings towards Daisuke, but is unsure if he would accept her past.
I give it a 2.5 out of 5.
