I am deeply surprised with Hanazono-san Twins. Based on the cover, tags, and premise, I had a relatively solid idea of what I was getting into. Everything this manga is is built on well-worn clichés that have plagued romance manga for decades. It is, after all, a classic love triangle with two girls with different personalities and looks perusing a mutual childhood friend. There are random hijinks with each girl being given various advantages over the other chapter-to-chapter. The breasts are in fact large. However, it manages to present these classic ideas in a fun enough way to leave me both engaged and interested to read more.

Starting out, the artwork is really solid. The author and artist Kitajima manages to nail some strong expressions with really decent character designs. It also gets points for being a love story about a big breasted gyaru and having little to no ecchi aside from a couple bathing scenes. In general the artwork sells the experience, especially in the recent chapters 24 and 25 which have a few great visual gags.

Hanazono Twins does something I never thought possible, making a wimpy virgin high schooler actually entertaining as a love interest. I’m not going to argue that he is all that fantastically written, after all I still don’t remember his name, but I think he has legitimate chemistry with both of the girls. Some of the bits where he interacts with the gyaru are especially charming, specifically when the adorkable bits die down and they can freely interact. In addition, I think this guy strikes a decent balance of wimpy and charismatic. A lot of series in this genre tend to make the main guy too unpopular and scummy. This makes the moments where the protagonist is suddenly super thoughtful and charismatic feel completely out of nowhere. Our protagonist in this manga manages to maintain a good enough balance that I find it relatively believable that the twins would like him, even if the gyaru’s reasoning is as cliché as it comes. Thankfully, a decent bit of the other characters are also likeable. The twins are kind of generic, but they work decently enough. The gyaru’s friends are all pretty entertaining, especially the one with short dark hair.

I think another thing that makes the love triangle work is the starting position the characters are all in. It is relatively by the books with one of the sisters being in a better position to grow than the other, while the other sister is the specific love interest that the protagonist initially wants. However, it is executed in a very specific way that makes the scales feel much more interesting. This is partially because our protagonist does not feel nearly as wishy-washy as other characters from other manga do in his position.

My only major complaint about this manga is in its side plots. I can feel my engagement drop the moment the story focuses on some random new side character for a few chapters. These stories aren’t necessarily bad, but they don’t feel entirely relevant and detract from the momentum of the manga. This isn’t a major complaint, but it is something worth voicing.

I deeply hope this manga is not axed. If it is given enough time I can see it being a really good complete package once it is done. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys standard romance manga and would like to read another. This manga has a lot of potential and is a surprisingly entertaining read.