★★★★☆ Art
★★★☆☆ Story

There be spoilers ahead, me mateys.

I love Io Sakisaka’s work. She’s one of my all time favorite shoujo mangaka, but this story just never breaks orbit for me. On one hand we have a wonderful interlude where Futaba hangs out with Kou as he travels around town, revisiting painful places and replacing old memories with something more positive. Then Futaba gets her pocketbook stolen, shows enough gumption to chase after the thief, demands her pocketbook back (along with the heart charm from her feckless boyfriend), then panics, hides, blubbers, gets sick, and needs rescuing. Go ahead and guess who rescues her.

So many of the characters are passive-aggressive and timid in this work, I’m having a hard time liking any of them.

But the art is wonderful. The sequential paneling is masterful. Sakisaka is a manga master. I just wish I cared more about these particular characters.