PAJAMA NA KANOJO

It's rare that I read a manga that actually genuinely makes me angry, but this is one of them. It's basically a bait and switch. It starts off is a very basic romance, with a childhood friend whose loved the MC forever, the most popular girl in school suddenly liking the MC, and a love triangle between the two girls and the MC. The MC tries to decide who he likes, while both girls get hurt at his indecisiveness. Basically, every romance ever written. However, it throws something new at you. The childhood friend falls into a deep sleep, and noone can wake her. On top of that, her spirit starts to haunt him. Awesome catch right? Bait set.

If you were interested in a ghost love story where a boy tries to put together the pieces of the mystery and find a way to save his child-hood friend while steadily becoming closer to her in the process, you'll get some of that... as long as you replace "getting closer with childhood friend" with "getting closer to the other girl while he continually alienates his childhood friend." Although, even that's okay as a story, then about 15 chapters in, the switch comes.

The entire ghost arc gets wrapped like the manga was suddenly cancelled and the author had to finish it in two issues. It was finished hastily and without any care for any of the characters, sleeping beauty metaphors, or really anything this manga bothered to do. It was jarring how quickly the whole story just got tossed away. It was as if the author got bored of their own story half way through and decide to just flip it into something else. And that something else happened to be just a very very generic love triangle story, complete with challenging little sisters, the formation of a new club, and everything else that makes these kind of stories uber cliched. So what you end up with is a very generic high school romance story with the atypical love triangle and the 'will they/ won't they' unclear confessions that could be resolved in two pages if anyone was just honest for once.

The ending... oh god... the ending is atrocious. If you want to know what the ending is like without spoilers... I have one word for you. Sapranos. Yeah. It's like that.

I've never seen a manga that seemed to actually hold contempt for its readers, but if one existed, I'd imagine it'd be like this. If you came for the supernatural, don't even bother. NONE of the lore gets explored, the story gets a brief and incomplete toss away explanation, and the sleeping beauty angle is never explored. Even the parts where the friend is a ghost spend more time focusing on the love triangle and his steadily growing closer relationship with the new girl. If you came for the romance, it came off more annoying than romantic, since every romantic scene is followed by ghost childhood friend crying and being in physical pain (because of some kind of curse nonsense that is NEVER explained). They even throw in a 3rd girl into the romance 3 chapters before the finale... who does that?

This was a well of untapped potential. Unless you are happy to guzzle down anything with a romance tag, you'll almost certainly walk away from this manga disappointed.

tl;dr: A manga that starts out with an interesting plot and relationship development only to throw it all away without resolving anything to turn into a manga that's really different, far more generic, and significantly worse.

This manga is pretty good at first. The core mystery about a girl being stuck as permanently asleep with various references to fairy tales with princesses sleeping was interesting. The rate of development of this mystery was slow but it did move along well enough and there were various events outside that felt substantial enough to keep the pacing feeling solid. These various events did a good job of developing characters relationships, particularly the love triangle that serves as the other core element of the story. Both heroines are well developed and get decent relationship development, and though there are certainly elements of denseness to the protagonist, it leans more towards him struggling to understand his own feelings which is sympathizable and not as annoying.

However, all of that gets thrown away pretty abruptly about two third of the way in. There are mangas that go through pretty big transitions with varying levels of success, but this has to be one of the worst I've seen so far. It pretty much throws away everything from the first two thirds, with essentially none of it being explained and just suddenly resolved, and none of the characters seeming to care all that much. Even worse, it also feels like it throws away all the relationship development that occurred as well. Characters actions in the last third not considering the first two thirds are still somewhat random, but taking into account what occurred in the first two thirds they're incredibly inconsistent and simply don't make sense. The disconnect is extreme.

Furthermore, the last third is pretty terrible. There's no overarching plot anymore, so it's focusing solely on its characters. All three of the main characters are just kind of annoying at this point, adopting the worst traits of characters in such roles in the genre. It also randomly adds characters and plot events that are interesting enough on their own, but don't fit the narrative at all. It isn't clear at all where the manga is going or at all until the end which is awful. The ending in a broad sense is one that's pretty much what was expected from the beginning, but the way it's told is awful and not what the manga needed at all. It's trying for the standard bait and switch in order to bring out stronger emotions for when things get reversed, but the build up to it wasn't nearly enough to warrant it, and it felt overtly melodramatic, and actually left me kind of bitter as the reversal into good doesn't feel anywhere near strong enough to counter out the bad.

The art is pretty decent in quality throughout. It felt like the artist was trying harder to have panels that were eye catching during the first three quarters or so, but stopped putting as much effort in the last quarter.

Think western fairy tail meets ecchi love triangle story and you get Pajama na Kanojo.

A story about a girl who falls into a coma but her spirit is still visible to her childhood friend, who in the mean time is trying to find away to bring her back into the world. Whilst he tries, he keeps running into a series of misunderstandings with the most beautiful girl in his school.

The artwork for the manga is very typical with romances, especially with ecchi romances - so expect a lot of graphic drawings. The disappointment so far have been the characters which don't come across as likeable, thus contributing to lesser enjoyment of the series which already exists from this being a sad story.

Something like this does seem to be something Weekly Shonen Jump would run, but whether it gains popularity is yet to be seen.

Ah, fucking manga. Though I struggled ship MC with Shirai, but as a result even the same girl his fucking little friend. And, I guess the story is a bit forced, especially when approaching at the end of the chapter. Oh god, why does it feel so painful when the ship you choose loses.

Though the main heroine is not beautiful and I guess it's also a bit annoying. Why does not the author want to choose Shirai to date MC? What in every manga story plot if there is a childhood friend then the ending should also be with that childhood friend? I do not think so, not all the characters of childhood friends are always good + pretty, because it's better to choose MC partner.

Please, I can not read this manga, I hope the author understands what I say, although not knowing orally but he knows inwardly ... And if I look at the reviews of other people too do not like this same manga. So I guess I picked something I considered quite right.

PS: I like the same art. But yes it is, less like the plot of the story.

Story: 7
The story is not bad. However, it's not a story that you can consider as something that will stand out. Throughout the story uses the cliche: Childhood friend x MC x Popular Women while adding a supernatural element to make it different.
Some of the playful scenes of Makura were hilarious while Yuki's teasing scenes were spicy at first but they died down too fast. There is comedy in it but a comedy that does not standout that much.
The pacing is slow, the portrayal gave off a sad feel and the ending was sudden but it was still enjoyable.

Art: 7
The art is good but not outstanding. The lines are drawn clearly and you can't find any confusing pages to read. Personally I love Hotaru's character design.

Character: 7
Both Keisuke and Yuki can be considered as "run of the mill" characters. Makura can be considered as above average but not outstanding. In any case, giving consideration that IT IS a shounen/ecchi manga, there were no characters that can be considered overly annoying.

Enjoyment: 7
The series started off nice but the as the story progressed it gradually went down with a few plot twists. It had potential to be better if only the supernatural aspect was utilized more. With all that said it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Overall: 7
It's not that bad and it's not that good. I suggest reading this as entry level to Supernatural Romance manga, a "pacifier manga" while waiting for your main manga releases or as something to just read for a few hours.
If you enjoy short but not one-shot mangas or anthologies then you'll definitely enjoy this.

Comments:
I really would have loved it if it were given an extra 24 chapters!