Title: Love and Heart Vol. 1
Author: Chitose Kaidou
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Romance, Thriller
Publication Date: March 30, 2021
The Story
We have the debut volume of the new romance thriller manga Love and Heart. It centers around a girl named Yoh who discovers that her boyfriend Noguchi is cheating on her. She breaks it off with him but it causes a scene. An insanely hot-looking boy helps break up the fight and heads off. When Yoh returns home, she realizes that she lost her key. Suddenly, the door opens and that boy from earlier is in her house!
His name is Haruma Hirose and, apparently, he used to live in the house across the street from her. He moved to America and is an acquaintance with Yoh’s mother Ryoh who is also working overseas in Seattle… the same town that Haruma moved to. He decided to go back to Japan to study and was given a key by Ryoh so that he could stay with Yoh. His sudden appearance shocks Yoh but he seems nice enough so she lets it go for now.
Things get a bit weird when a stalker begins to take photos of her and Haruma together. A fake online account was also created and weird texts start coming in. Yoh takes the matters into her own hands and finds the culprit. I won’t spoil who it is; however, they have been dealt with leaving Yoh and Haruma in peace. Despite that getting resolved, there is something off about Haruma that Yoh can’t put her finger on. They end up calling Yoh’s mother who vouches for Haruma and that puts Yoh’s mind at ease.
Despite that, the volume closes out with Haruma needing to “take care of something at school.” Once he’s done, a few things that didn’t add up begin to!
Characters
This series introduced a few characters but let’s start off with our mains.
Yoh Yagisawa is living alone due to her mother working overseas in Seattle. She’s a bit of a hot mess of a character as she’s quick-tempered, way-to-quick to judge others based on very little evidence, comes off as a bit mannish, and also doesn’t waste time dealing with things on her own. She doesn’t like to rely on others which shows her strong independence; however, her attitude most of the time is very off-putting. If this were an anime, I could definitely see Yoh as a character as someone who would be constantly screaming at the top of their lungs while the animators gave her the most exaggerated faces they possibly could. Shows like that I tend to drop immediately but in manga form, where everything is nice and silent, it is a bit more tolerable. Still, I don’t really like her as a main character. Hopefully, she changes as the series goes on but after what we were given to wrap up the first volume, I would expect her independence to play a role in future plot lines.
Haruma Hirose is definitely a creeper. The mangaka, Chitose Kaidou, clearly expressed that from the very beginning. Even though he acts nice and innocent, he has a habit of grabbing Yoh by the arm. It’s always a dramatic occurrence whenever he does. Then, there are the panels where they focus on his eyes. There was even an instance where Yoh mentioned that Haruma’s eyes “stopped smiling” and wondered if good guys had eyes like that. Talk about throwing it right in your face!
There is zero reasons to trust Haruma and to make it this obvious in the very first volume is a bit of a letdown. I’ll talk more about that in my Final Thoughts but even most thrillers tend to mask or disguise a creeper character a lot better than this series does. I might be wrong as there are several instances throughout the volume where you are made to second-guess yourself but the ending kind of sealed the deal unless that was some form of misdirection. If it was… that is going to be a really awkward explanation to try and diffuse any suspicion.
The character I actually cheered for the most in this volume was Noguchi. Poor kid has Yoh break up with him over a text message and then some photos he never took. He’s accused of cheating, his name is dragged through the mud, and he is just completely and utterly defeated. Still, there is a scene where he stands up for himself and tells Yoh to basically go screw herself. I actually clapped when I saw that scene because, after everything he had been put through, that was the correct move! I would have done the same! And now, best boy is gone (unless he’s brought back by some sort of plot twist which wouldn’t surprise me in the least. I mean… he has motivation now.)
There are Yoh’s two friends, Touya and Sawako but they are mere background characters more than anything. Given everything that is happening, though… you never know if they’ll become something more; however, right now, they just seem to be pot stirrers. For example, with the stalker/photo situation, they were the ones who really helped Yoh figure out that the order of events that transpired were all a little too convenient. Sometimes, the best way to hide is right out in the open so you’ll never know if their assistance is going to lead to something more or if they really are just secondary characters who are brought in whenever they are needed.
There is one other character but for the sake of avoiding spoilers, I’ll refrain from talking about them because… well… not only are they a bit psychotic but they are not alone in their schemes.
Final Thoughts
Okay.
I tried to be as diplomatic as possible up until this point but this just has to be said.
This first volume was a hot mess.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love romance stories. It is one of my favorite genres but I am also a huge fan of slow burns. This first volume took something that could have been captivating over several volumes and jammed it all within the confines of 190 pages. It also left us on a “cliffhanger’ we all could have seen from ten miles away because Chitose Kaidou did very little to hide things or make things a mystery. I know this series doesn’t have the mystery tag attached to it but you have to leave SOME things in the dark instead of just revealing your entire hand all at once. With the breakneck pace of the first volume, I got the feeling that this manga is going to be over and done within 3-4 volumes. That doesn’t seem to be the case since this has been publishing in Japan since September 2017.
The first volume, to its credit, set up a lot of interesting mysteries and story plots which would have been excellent had 90% of them not been solved before the final chapter. If these had been stretched over a few volumes with Yoh struggling to piece things together, all while keeping Haruma as a sweet and innocent boy who could do no wrong, that would have been PERFECT! Yet, things didn’t play out like that and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
There are countless volumes of manga where I can read everything on a page and not even notice the artwork, allowing me to soak in the story and then appreciate everything that happened. Or, there are volumes where I am aware of the artwork and the speech bubbles compliment it so well that it just has this natural, innate flow to it that helps you immerse yourself in the story.
Love and Heart does not have any of that.
I don’t typically comment on a manga’s art because of that natural flow but with this series, I have to also point out the extreme sloppiness of the artwork. When I say that, I don’t mean the way the characters are drawn but more so the layout of the manga. So much was happening on every page from panels being on top of panels, little chibi icons plastered all over the place. Words just written on top of stuff outside of text balloons, overlaps without borders, etc., etc. This is the biggest reason why I said that this was a hot mess.
There are MUCH better ways to organize panels in a manga and when your eyes are dancing all over the place because they have a hard time moving from one speech bubble to another because there is just SO MUCH going on, you have a problem. The layout and the artwork were more of a distraction than it was helpful.
So, this is going to be really odd for me to say but despite all of my griping… I enjoyed this. My enjoyment didn’t come easy as I was about to put this book down after the first fifteen or twenty pages and offer an apology along with a “I just can’t…” explanation but I stuck with it. When the thriller part of the volume kicked in, I started to become invested… but then they solved a lot of it and gave us a painfully obvious “well duh!” ending. Despite that, I kind of want to see how this plays out. I’ll stick with it for now just out of morbid curiosity.
When I pick out new series, I typically do it based on the premise. If it sounds really interesting, I’ll give it a shot. It’s worked 9 times out of 10 but there will always be that 10th time where I was a bit off in my assumptions and/or expectations. Love and Heart just happened to be that 10th time. Even though I am going to stick with this and give it a chance, I’ll say that there are probably better romance thrillers out there you could invest your time in.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
