The oneshot was cute. The beginning of the serialization was cute. Not that much substance to it but it seemed like a nice slice-of-life rom-com about a guy who moved to a new town and had new experiences.
In the beginning I didn't mind the love rivals. Although it's a bit annoying, such tropes can often help the main characters characters come to terms with their feelings for each other.
Around chapter 30, I was already starting to lose interest in this series. Relationship progress between the two main characters was virtually 0, and it was beginning to feel like your generic cookie-cutter harem manga. I have no idea if the harem tag has always been there, but the series certainly lost its charm once the author leaned heavily on it. Still, I kept reading because at this point I was kind of invested in seeing how this all ended.
Ch. 30 spoilers:
I think everyone was hoping Fuyuki's announcement that she was "moving away to study abroad" was a good opportunity for Shiki to come out and tell her his feelings. Instead it turns out to be some contrived bullshit misunderstanding, Fuyuki is actually only going on a trip for two weeks, and it's painfully obvious that it's just a way for the author to have Shiki get closer with the other girls while she's away.
I was hoping this could just be written off as a poorly used trope by the author, but my god, the arc that comes up at chapter 44 is ridiculous. The author tried to pull a Loss.jpg-tier plot twist, attempting to add family drama for no reason, and failed just as (un)gracefully.
Ch.44-51 spoilers:
Now suddenly Shiki is the one leaving Hokkaido because his mother collapsed. Ok, let's see where this goes? Surprise, it goes absolutely nowhere! It turns out Shiki's mom is a manipulative, abusive POS who doesn't want him to stay in Hokkaido because she can't control him from there. She also wants to force him to marry one of the love rivals. How does Shiki get out of this, you ask? Fuyuki comes to visit Shiki's mom and through the forces of Deus Ex Machina convinces her to let him stay in Hokkaido. Oh, and the mom is moving to Hokkaido now too. Shiki is ok with this. I repeat, he's completely fine with his abusive mother coming to live with him. This arc was utter garbage and a complete failure on the part of the author in my opinion (and that of many others as far as I can tell).
As a final nitpick, I personally think the art quality has significantly dropped as well when compared to the beginning of the series. The faces now give me uncanny valley vibes when they didn't before.
I would love nothing more than to stop reading but with this latest chapter (60) it looks like the author is finally going to progress the main relationship, and I'm curious to see if he can pull it off or if it will just be deflection and interruptions as always. If there's no significant change within the next few chapters, I will be throwing this onto my unfinished list with reckless abandon.
Why did I write this much about a series I have nothing but disdain for at this point? So I can warn others about how the story quality has gone down the gutter. I rated it a 4 due to the wasted potential it could have had, but if not for the decent beginning and good character design it would have been much lower.
Update: Dropped at chapter 63 because the plot is dragging on to such a painful degree that I can't take it anymore. Maybe I'll skim the remaining chapters when it's finally done.