Alok's Reviews > A Girl on the Shore

"Whether you win or lose the argument, everything totally gets ugly later. You can't work to win, you gotta work to understand your partner. If everyone stubbornly insists they're right, then no one gets to be happy."

This was a horrible read. Muddy story, unexplored plot and poorly developed characters. This has overt use of sexualization to the point it seemed more disgusting hentai than the beautiful manga I though it to be. I disagree with other people that it propels the plot forward or was important to the story in all that detail.

No. I think the plot of using sexuality as escape by the characters, "the friends with benefits" seemed immature and stupid. (view spoiler)[ And when the boy had been wanting the girl to go out with him and see more depth than just sexual relation and when the girl does feels so towards the end and even expresses it, his blatant refusal seemed inconsistent. The eponymous girl on the shore was just some insignificant subplot I didn't care about. It seemed poor writing that she somehow overshadowed his partner girl. Especially all he'd seen was her photo. (hide spoiler)] Overall they typically acted as immature teenagers.

There were some important ideas and themes like bullying, depression and suicide, they're left unexplored. I'd have rated it higher if some justice was done to these themes.

This all said, the drawings and some quotes were really beautiful but I decided to not rate it higher still because the rest of the aspects I found too horrible and irredeemable.

It was a bad call to read this. I should have All You Need is a Kill instead or heck even could start One Punch Man. I think that romance would never be my cup of tea. I hope someday something would change it. But nothing has so far.