Anime/Manga May Review: Watashi Ni Xx Shinasai!

Before I get into the review, I'll explain a little bit about the plot of the manga:

The manga is about a girl called Yukina who, unbeknownst of her classsmates, is a popular internet novelist going by the nickname "Yupina". What her classmates do know her for is her icy cold glare. She has therefor never been popular outside of her internet persona.

As a novelist she often writes about friendship, however, her rates have dropped exponentially as of late and she therefor needs to find a way to bring them back up. She realizes incorporating romance to her stories will do the trick. There is one problem though... Yukina has never experienced love in her life.

While she's contemplating her choices, she stumbles upon super popular and handsome students counsel president Shigure who drops his notebook. While he's destined to become a doctor like his father and therefor known to be friendly and charming, his notebook shows the gruesome fact he has been manipulating girls to confess to him so he can refuse them. His real personality is actually quite twisted and Yukina confronts him with this information but also devises a plan for her own benefit. She will blackmail Shigure into teaching her about love so she can write her novel.


When I started rereading this manga, I was half-searching for that feeling of nostalgia and half for remembering the actual plot before recommending it to other people. I've always wanted to get people to read it since I really did think it was a fun manga when I was younger. The art is good, it has "solid" romance. It was a "cute" story about an author trying to learn what love is for her book.

... but oh boi was younger me naive. Only now while rereading do I realize how problematic the premise of this story is. Girl blackmails boy into showing her what love is. If it didn't sound bad yet, would knowing that she basically forces him to hold her hand or do the famous anime "wall slam" chapters later? It becomes worse and worse from there. Sure there are feelings involved but... it's a big yikes and also immediately a warning if you are still willing to pick this one up after my review.

You see, because the story is still really fun. Despite that it follows on of the most popular romance formula's, the characters are interesting and they're flawed. While their "relationship" starts as a facade, you watch them as they slowly turn into different people over time and either grow out of some of their flaws or learn to accept them. The way their relationship grows is captivating as the most unlikely couple turns out to be quite a good match for each other. I can also really appreciate that while the characters fit the roles of their archetypes, they're not just that and there's definitely a twist to it. It's not like "oh She's just like this character from this manga/anime". Most of them are very unique to their own personalities. I say most of them because there are characters that are definitely a miss.

YOU SEE. I hate love triangles. I hate them with a passion. Still I try to review things trying to keep that personal opinion out of it because love triangles can be written really well and they're part of most romance drama's. Lots of people enjoy them so what I think of it doesn't really matter. In the case of Watashi ni xx shinasai though? Definitely a miss. It's one of the strongest cons I would give to this manga along with how predictable the story progresses. It's immediately the reason why the love triangle didn't work out in this case. The story progresses quite a bit before Yukina's cousin is eventually introduced somewhere around or past the middle. He has an interesting personality and is quite fun but the moment he is introduced to the triangle that is Yukina and Shigure, he becomes shallow and Yukina is the only thing he thinks about. It's a waste of his character and the whole "who will Yukina choose?" Has become so predictable at this point that the whole love triangle shit doesn't work out at all. The two main characters were already pretty much to the point of dating without it being official (one of my favourite troupes btw) and adding another character to that just for drama purposes really didn't do the story any good. All I did was facepalming while reading it and waiting for the moment Yukina finally told him off. Don't get me wrong, love triangles arr usually quite predictable but you'll have to read it to understand how misplaced it was in this kind of story.

If you can get past the initial fact that it's actually quite a problematic topic, that you'll come across a misplaced love triangle and that the story is quite predictable with maybe a few plottwists then it's likable enough to give it a read. Especially since it only has about 76 chapters.

I'd give it a 7/10.