Reviews for Under the Umbrella, with You

2nd review and still not used to this stuff. I thought since no one reviewed, I would take a shot at it. I might over rate and ramble while writing this review. Just warning... Story (8/10) Interesting way to start a BL love story. Some parts of the relationship goes too fast. Other parts could get a bit cliché... Art (10/10) I absolutely LOVE Junko's work. It makes you want to go AWWW with every page. Expressions are REALLY adorable.Character (7/10)

The seme and uke personalities is not so different from other yaoi manga.

(I realized the seme is younger than the uke)

Enjoyment (8/10)

It's yaoi, has GREAT art, and an interesting story. Why would I hate it?

Overall (8/10)

It was very cute... what else to say?

[Hopefully I wrote a better review this time]

TL;DR: 8/10 Copied from my Tumblr review This story guys. I can’t… Gah, it feels good. I mean, there are some cliches here and there but it touches them so very gently. Everyone looks the right age, the characters are built well and even when everything goes wrong I don’t feel like sticking my head in a bucket of water called my tears. Not that this is terrible, some would say that’s not entirely good either, I love being frustrated and to the point where I wish to throw my laptop at the wall. When it comes to rom-coms like this, this should always be feeling theytry to achieve. Everything is set up so well… except the time break.

It’s a jarring break because it’s not transitioned properly. It took me a few page flips to find out how many years had passed from a certain plot point. Even with that singular, though rather big problem, I would definitely recommend it.

Was going for a fluffier angle, but wasn't really there for me. Story was quite cliché and honestly forgettable. It's hard to write something memorable in one volume, but the story lingered a little too long in the wrong parts. We spent way too long learning about Mio's bad luck with girls, and too long establishing that he gets along with Yugi and his college friends. Once things actualy start moving, we don't spend nearly enough time going into why the characters feel the way they do. In the later chapters, Yugi's feelings feel way too convenient. There's one act that may have justified part of it,but even then, for him to feel that way about Mio for so long is just too good to be true. If there was just one more volume or a couple more chapters, I really think this would've been fleshed out in a way that would've felt more satisfying.

Would also like to add that, because this is one of Junko's earlier works, their characters suffer from same-face syndrome. There's seme build and uke build, and not much outside of different hairstyles to tell them apart. It does seem like their art has improved in later series, though.

I picked up this manga because I am an immense fan of Junko and took a vow long ago to read all her works. Some of her works are amazing and I will never not love her art. This story, however... was very mediocre. The story felt very rushed- it really could have been stretched out much longer. Even the individual events occurred so quickly, I would be jolted from my immersion. For example, one page was the couple kissing and the next was straight prawn. What? I was so surprised by how quickly things escalated. The characterization, while being mostly consistent, would occasionally be allover the place. I also wish Junko would design some more unique characters. These look good, but her characters to tend to look ridiculously similar to each other.

The central plot is a bit cliché, not necessarily bad, but is excecated poorly. The story constantly had me going "wait, what?". Despite all this, I did think it was a fun read and was able to get through it all in one sitting.