Manga Review: I Hate You More Than Anyone! vol. 1 by Banri Hidaka

Title: I Hate You More Than Anyone! vol. 1
Author: Banri Hidaka
Pages: 192
Publication: July 11, 2007
Publisher: CMX
Summary taken from goodreads:

Kazuha Akiyoshi -- a responsible girl whose time is always taken up with helping her parents take care of her younger siblings -- finds herself dealing with romantic relationships for the first time in her life. 

Is Kazuha seriously thinking about becoming a hairdresser, or is she only considering it because it's Sugimoto's career and represents a way to get closer to him? Meanwhile, there's trouble at home when her brother, Chizura, starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Unknown to Kazuha, Sugimoto steps in to try and help the troubled Chizura, but his advice might just lead to a serious rift between Kazuha and Sugimoto.

3 STARS - I LIKED IT

MY REVIEW:

I won this and a few other manga in a contest a year or two ago and completely forgot about them (and I'm still not really sure why I didn't read them back then). I found two of the manga underneath a thick literature textbook. -__-"

Anyway, this series was better than I expected. I thought that it would be your typical shojo manga with an idiot, oblivious lead, but Kazuha isn't stupid. She's just a little naive since she's never really fallen in love before, and she's completely sincere and cares about her family, which makes her very likable, even when she's being stubborn.

Her friends and family are also interesting and adds to the comedic relief in the story, and the love interest is weird but funny, especially when he becomes all clingy, lol. The cast of characters really do make up the plot of this manga series.

The art took a while to get used to; you can definitely tell that the series is not recent from just the clothes alone. But once you look past the art style, the story sucks you in and you kind of don't pay attention to it, only noticing the characters' reactions and emotions conveyed through the images instead.

Although the first volume was entertaining enough, I don't think I'll continue the series unless I can borrow it from someone or find it somewhere else. We'll see.