Kimi no Iru Machi chapter 1 review

Kimi no Iru Machi, or A Town where you live, is a new manga series written by Koji Seo and published weekly by Weekly Shonen Magazine. It tells the story of an introverted boy named Haruto Kirishima who, despite fervent objections, must now share his home with the beautiful extroverted, but mysterious girl Yuzuki  while living in the Hiroshima prefecture, all the while struggling to express his feelings to his classmate crush. The story is a cross genre shonen/romance series that will utilize character driven interactions with budding young romance.

While I haven't been on the slice of life run since Mysterious Girlfriend X ( an interesting series ), first thing I noticed about it was the presentation. I was welcomed by a beautiful journal styled opening quote by the main character. Turning the page introduced me to a wonderful colored page scenery of the story. This story's main setting is the Hiroshima prefecture on  the countryside of Japan, and the main character is first shown anxious about something outside of his control.

What I found really outstanding about this manga was the character interactions and their personalities that match. I'll say right now that I did not like the male protagonist's personality right away. He was very rude to his mother and to the secondary protagonist, Yuzuki Eba. That's OK, though, because the female lead is also a ditsy, dark haired, but beautiful, girl who is oblivious to Haruto's visibly present displeasure; or rather, she chooses to respond in a different way. However, nearing the conclusion of the book there is a small hint of change coming from Haruto, to which Yuzuki points out. It is also implied that she is well aware that he doesn't really know how to communicate with people properly, so she tries many times to make things more relaxing; this often, hilariously, comes across the wrong way to the other characters.


Midway through the chapter we are introduced to the primary love interest, Nanami Kanzaki. While she did not really play that big of a role in this chapter, foreshadowing and her body language reveals that she may feel something towards our protagonist.

The art in the manga was really good and I did enjoy the background panels, as they were beautifully drawn. The character designs were fresh and stylized, and fans of this genre will welcome the neat and crisp line work as well as the inking of the characters; this gave the book a pop feel to it, common to this genre. There were some instances where the art took the lazy side, and that's when extras were shown.

The panel layouts were simple and basic. I don't think much thought went into the panel designs themselves.To me, panel art helps to engage me in the art and also gives that extra ingredient in a good manga and in my opinion they were not all that engaging.

The character designs were very simple and pleasing. I found Haruto to be very plain, though. Yuzuki was the outstanding one in terms of fashion wear. Koji Seo put a lot of detail into Yuzuki. Both characters were designed to be a contrast to one another, even down to their dress.

The tone of the book was also lighthearted and gave me that sensation of being a teenager again, meeting someone new, and trying to fit in. The pacing was also pretty good. If I don't have to keep retracing my steps, and I can easily glide my eyes through, then it's good.

This book made me want to see these two characters grow stronger as friends, and I might just decide to give this series a chance.

Verdict: Kimi no Iru Machi was an enjoyable and engaging read and I recommend it to anyone familiar with this genre.