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At first glance, Seishun Forget! looked like it might be a standard romantic comedy composed of male lead #7831 and female lead #5830. You know-- guy meets girl under unique circumstances, they rush to go their own ways without proper introductions, then by the power of fate (read: plot) are reunited, and we become witnesses to their slow paced, gradual grind of a relationship that would make 8th graders seem like dating professionals. Seishun Forget! (SF!) did hit some of those cliche markers but with some unique variations. Our male lead and female lead hook up in the very first chapter! Hey, pretty nice change of pace huh? Well that is short lived as the premise/plot device (something I won't spoil mention here) really shakes everything up and keeps the readers engaged. As far as the story elements go, SF! fared very well. The chapters not only fit nicely together in a continuous format but the pacing of the story was satisfying. While I do think part of the ending was kind of far'fetched, it's always a pleasure to get a true happy ending.
Art [8/10]
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Beautiful art work all around. The overall quality of each and every chapter down to each sequence of panels was superb. We are given a high school life setting and the art never fails to match its tempo. Character designs were very polished, i.e both male and female characters were appealing. The designs for the "supporting/quasi-main" characters while simple, were good enough for me to not forget their faces. Although, one minor complaint is really just due to a pet peeve of mine- overly sharp chins. Now I know that's pretty typical in the manga/drawing world, but just something that I wish worked out differently. As far as backgrounds go, it was kept minimalistic. Nothing more than shades of either black, white or toning with an occasional panel or two showing spurts of creativity. Most of the focus was directed to the characters and I say it worked out pretty well in the end.
Characters [8/10]
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The area of the manga that shined the most in my opinion. The dialogue written for our characters were really funny and realistic. While some of their antics and actions were implausible, they were still very enjoyable and the characters felt like genuine high school students. There weren't character growths per se, more like "character unveilings" as each chapter progressed. We learn more and more about each character and this method meshed well within the story. I can't really say there were actual defined supporting characters because each chapter pretty involved all of the "main" cast in one way or another. Overall, the mangaka did a good job ensuring each character was memorable and able to shine on their own.
Enjoyment/Overall [8/10]
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All in all, it was a very enjoyable read. The mangaka's ability to combine individual story components such as the comedy, the romance, character cohesion and basic story-telling into a wonderful piece of work is commendable. Being a rom-com, it will naturally draw criticism for some cliche and or silliness but in my opinion it can still be enjoyed by veteran manga readers as well as fresh readers to the manga scene.
