Maddies Manga

After her boyfriend disappeared one day, Mao stopped going to school to search for him, to no avail. This has caused her to have to repeat the 11th grade, and she just so happens to now be in the same class as her cheeky underclassmen from the soccer club. Can she successfully rewrite her second year of high school?

You can check out volume one below

What’s this manga about? (Chapter 1 spoilers)

Mao, one of the managers of the soccer club, is in the awkward situation of having to repeat the 11th grade. After her long-term boyfriend suddenly disappeared one day, she too stopped coming to school while she searched for him. In the end she never found him, and she failed the school year.

Now, she has to suck up the embarrassment and hold her head up high amongst her one-year-younger-than-her classmates. She is able to fit in rather well with just about everyone. Hachiya, one of her underclassmen from the soccer club, can’t help but tease her when he realizes that they’re now classmates. Though at first glance they may seem to have a slightly combative relationship, they actually get along very well. They have good banter, and tease each other only the way that good friends can.

After classes end, they make their way to the soccer club, where Hachiya eventually makes the bold decision to take over Mao’s ex-boyfriend’s position. While he’s playing, for the first time, Mao can’t seem to take her eyes off him. Is it because he’s playing extraordinarily well? Because he’s playing the position her ex-boyfriend played? Or, is it because he decided to wear that ex-boyfriend’s jersey?

When the match is all over, Hachi makes a startling announcement.

My thoughts (spoilers)

I haven’t had all that much luck with Flower Comics manga, so I was a bit apprehensive to start this one. The art is very pretty, and I can usually get behind a good high school romance, so I decided to give it a read.

I really enjoyed the way that the author decided to tell the story! While it is a linear story, we aren’t given all of the information right from the beginning. This is a series that utilizes “show don’t tell” a lot of the time, which I appreciate—it makes for good storytelling! We don’t even know about the existence of Mao’s ex-boyfriend until near the end of the chapter, putting a lot of weight onto the reasoning behind her repeat-year.

I think Hachiya’s character was created with just the right amount of cheekiness. He’s not so mean that I find him to be offensive, or not deserving of a girlfriend, but he’s not so nice that he’s boring. He knows when to poke fun at Mao, but he also knows when to stay quiet—we love a male lead that knows how to read the room!

I also think Mao is rather interesting. It isn’t all that often that we see a female lead that has to do a repeat year of high school. After she made that embarrassing declaration at the start I was afraid she would be subject to bullying, but thankfully that’s not where the story went at all—this is a rather lighthearted story. The furthest we get into sad emotions are when the disappearance of Mao’s ex-boyfriend is brought up. I do have to say, I really commend her for going all out trying to find him. What kind of person just ghosts literally everyone when they find out they have to move away? Especially their girlfriend of a few years!? She at least deserved a goodbye! If he ever makes his way back into the story, I hope he has a really good explanation for what happened.