The story of someone who fell in love with the mangaka? Usually I will eat this thing up in a heartbeat but this one was just an okay read for me. I felt that their romance was a bit too cliche (i mean), and the story got a bit too draggy. Not one in my lane I feel.
3🌟

The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch Volume 1 was an interesting read, but I don't see myself picking up the next book in the series. I hope this book will find its readers!

Wow.
Japan really continues to have some... interesting... ideas on what is acceptable in relationships between men and women. According to this manga, what should you do if you are in love with your long time friend? OBVIOUSLY the answer is to constantly berate them, call them names, be physically violent towards them and for some reason, "work" for them without pay just so you can be near them?
Yipes.
I didn't like this one. Yoshida is not likeable, and neither is the object of his affections.

This book is pretty non-memorable, and I honestly skimmed more than read it. The art was pretty good, but the story wasn't for me.

Lately, it seems like a particular trope in manga keeps making its way onto my desk. In this trope, we get to read about manga artists creating their work (in manga). Yet there's something inherently appealing about this, so I'm not complaining! Next up for me is The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch Vol. 1.

Yoshida is one of those perfect guys that people dream about. They either want to be him or be with him. Either way, the idea of him makes people happy. He has a regular business job, is good-looking (more than, really), and he's kind.

He's also not available, at least not emotionally. You see, Yoshida has his eyes set on Sena Shimakaze. Even though she's utterly oblivious to his feelings, so instead he's relegated himself to helping her in every venture, including the creation of her manga.

Okay, this was fun. The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch Vol. 1 makes new twists on typical romantic plots, making them fun again! If you love quirky romance stories, then you'll probably like this one.

I was surprised to learn that the main perspective of The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch Vol. 1 is not Yoshida or Sena. Instead, it's a new third character, and I mean new. He just signed on to learn under Sena's wing, only...she's a lot more chaotic than he expected.

On the bright side, our leading protagonist is quick to jump on the ship, vocalizing everything that readers would love to say. There's a certain ironic sense of humor in that fact, which I can't help but appreciate.

Full disclosure: Volume two was recently released (in relation to when I sat down to write this review), and I nabbed it. I'm adding this to the list of series I'm staying subscribed to. It's worth it!

I love a long-titled manga as much as the next person, but just giving your manga a long title doesn’t make it good. There is a concept introduced in the first story segment of this volume that is interesting. The gist is that an extremely attractive and hard-working salaryman moonlights as an assistant to a mangaka author that is his childhood friend. Why? Well read that exceedingly long title and you will understand.

The story goes on to introduce Rin, a teenage boy that’s beginning an internship with his distant relative the mangaka author. The team is up against a deadline and in the middle of a death march when Rin shows up. The mood is terrible, they’re quick to snap at him even though he’s inexperienced and a digital artist. That is until The Chief shows up. The Chief is Yoshida, and he reorganizes the group. Sending them off to a nap and working one on one with Rin while bribing Sena our mangaka, into finishing her pages for the team to work on them.

Manga has been increasingly willing to peel back the layers of how the industry works and that seems to be one of the goals with Yoshida the Catch. It loves to take a moment and explain some aspect of the industry and pretend that it’s relevant to the love story we’re reading. The uninteresting part is the love story which is completely juvenal and unrealistic. The same gag plays out over and over in that something romantic or sexual comes up between our two characters and is ruined by our two characters. Suddenly we never leave the studio room, and it seems as if we’ll never see this balance between work and manga that’s introduced on the early pages of the story.

No instead we’ll meet the team as one by one they try to get Chief and the Boss to fall in love unsuccessfully. Our supporting cast is reduced to one-dimensional characters in an instant. None of them care about the work they’re doing or who they are outside of the contents of getting these two other characters hooked up. It becomes a chore to read by the second story arc and the rinse and repeat formula wears out instantly.

The artwork is quite nice. It actually looks digital since it doesn’t have a lot of extra linework going on. The linework is detailed and all the characters keep a high level of detail to them throughout the story. The flip side is that it’s all very boring and generic looking. Only one character remotely stands out and the rest are just kind of there. I couldn’t tell two of them apart sometimes and had to check what they were wearing.

Overall, it’s just not a very believable story which is saying something for manga. It’s dull but leaves itself nowhere to go because it’s chosen to stay in the studio with our crew. I couldn’t care less about them coming up on another important deadline, I’m assuming that’s the weekly norm. The love story takes a back seat to the manga business instantly. That and we abandon our title character after introducing his job. At the very least we could have done with some pages showing him staring at the clock wondering how quickly he can get back to see his love and work on the manga. Instead, it feels like the love story and job are dropped as quickly as possible in the favor for more behind the scenes manga industry stories that aren’t very interesting. Bringing it back to the title, it’s great, but misleading in that all of that is dropped or downgraded in an instant.

1st Line: " 'Oh ... it's Yoshida-san, from the planning department!' "

Review: Yoshida is a young, very handsome business executive by day, very intelligent and successful in his job, his all-business aloofness adding to his mystique that sees so many women in his office crushing on him. Cool, sophisticated, Yoshida has his you-know-what together ... untiil after work, when he heads over to a tiny office where a crew of artists struggle with weekly deadlines to put out the latest issue of their manga, under the direction of the manga's creator and writer, the beautiful and super-focused workaholic Sena Shimakaze. Here, Yoshida - know as Chief - tries to hold the crew and weekly publication together even as he internally struggles with his own love for Sena; they've known each other since school, and he's been completely in love with her nearly all that time. Here, Yoshida's cool, together side frazzles and frays as he works hard to help Sena's manga - a publishing business he helped her to start - a success, while still unable to reveal his true feelings for her after all this time. Even the small office staff is Team Chief, recognizing his devotion and love for their boss and trying to hep bring them together but the problem is that Sensei (Sena) is so wrapped up in her work and business (plus, honestly, she's a scatterbrain), in all these years she is still not only a grown woman clueless to things like dating and finding a partner - but in all this time, she's never even once realized how incredibly ga-ga Yoshida is for her, which makes his orderly, together life anything but. Volume 1 sets up the situation and characters nicely, both humor and emotions sometimes over-the-top as you can expect with manga, and at times Sena is so darn dense as to what is going on around her - even when her entire staff is all but shoving the hapless, helpless Yoshida in her face - that you could all but smack her, but the humor is charming here, and poor Yoshida's struggle to make the love of his life see the light - and him - make for the pulling of a few heartstrings until Volume 2 comes along. 3.5/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch follows strict businessman Yoshida, who is loved by all at his job. Secretly, however, he moonlights as a volunteer manga assistant in order to impress the mangaka, Shimakaze. The reason for this is that he loves Shimakaze, but his feelings are routinely ignored thanks to her naiveté. What follows is a comedy of errors as the team of assistants try to get the duo together, with disastrous results.

I really like a cute romance, and the “will they/won’t they” trope is a personal favorite. I also appreciate older relationships in manga, and having the dynamic between both characters is a refreshing one. While it feels like Shimakaze’s neglect is grating, I feel like it just comes with the job of a mangaka. It’s also helpful that the rest of the team is supportive of their relationship, and their efforts are relatable. The pacing could be a bit snappier, but I’m fine with the antics that happen in this volume.

What also makes this manga stand out is how it’s a good look at the manga industry too. Ever since Bakuman, I’ve been looking at more behind-the-scenes coverage of how manga series run. The fact that a cute romance manga can also be informative is a treat.

The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch is entertaining, but overall not my cup of tea. The story depicts a guy who has it all going for him. He's good-looking and has his life together, and he just happens to be hopelessly in love with his friend who is kind of a hot mess. If you're into "opposites attract" and comedies, then this one is probably worth giving a try. Overall, though I wasn't able to get into it. The characters seem a little one-note and I just didn't find the premise good enough to continue. It's not bad, but it's not for me.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this volume from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

What a delightful surprise it was to read volume one! The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch adds an adorable spin to an otherwise common trope in manga--the mangaka and the assistant romance. Though in this story the main characters actually take a back seat to the side characters in terms of story telling.

We're initially introduced to Yoshida-san from a narrator's perspective as the cool and aloof salaryman of a big company, who is described as rather handsome and punctual yet no one knows what he does when he leaves the office. Switch scenes and we're then placed in the point of view of 15-year-old newbie assistant Rin Hanamori, a digital artist who aims to be a mangaka in his own right when he grows up. From there the storytelling is maintained primarily through the other three assistants--Maki Naruko, Takeshi Mobu, Ryoya Masachika--while our handsome hero, Hibiki Yoshida, who everyone looks up to, a part-time assistant acting as the Chief.

It's then from the assistant's point of view we learn of the chief's longstanding crush on Sena Shimakaze, the shounen author of a popular manga. Throughout the rest of the volume we get to see the hijinks that ensue when the hardworking-but-quirky Sena works on her manga under the guidance of Yoshida and on the flip, how his perceived aloofness is actually just him hiding his feelings for her (but that our perceptive assistants can read like book).

Couple of notes that stood out to me while reading:
- I loved that the editors kept the Japanese sound effects and only added small translations
- The minor details about analog tones versus digital tones
- 'Ryochika's' consistently unchanging expression in every panel he appears
- Classic jokes such as the '3' of Sena's eyes to distinguish that she can't see when she takes off her glasses

I'm really curious to see how their love story plays out throw the lens of the supporting cast, it's not something I have encountered often in shoujo romance. The seriousness was light-hearted enough for the first volume but I look forward to how the series will progress in keeping the balance. All in all, this was quite enjoyable and I will be recommending it to friends in search of new romantic titles!

The characters in this book may look familiar to readers of Shizuki Fujisawa's other series to get an English release (<i>Hatsu*Haru</i>), but otherwise you'd never know that these books came from the same pen. Where <i>Hatsu*Haru</i> was a heartfelt high school romance, <i>The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch</i> is much more of a comedy, following the pining of gorgeous salaryman Yoshida as he yearns for the one woman who has zero idea that he's got a thing for her...and who has all the self-awareness of your average brick and the social skills to match. In fact, a brick being hurled through glass may actually be better equipped to handle social norms than she is.

Naturally, that's where the humor comes in - she's a comically laid-back manga creator and he's a hyper-competent assistant when he's not in the office at his day job, constantly cleaning up her many messes. Her other assistants are quite grateful to Yoshida, but is she? That remains to be seen. Most of this volume is a combination of her making unreasonable demands that she has no idea aren't a great thing to do while he does damage control...and they walk in on each other in the bathroom. It's not classy humor, but it also doesn't need to be.

Probably the most interesting piece of the book is the way that it's told. We see the central relationship solely from the outside, with different assistants doing the narration. That means that we have to take their word for the fact that Yoshida is in love or that the object of his affection is oblivious to it. That means that we could very well come to the end and find out that this entire thing has been manufactured by interested observers, and while I doubt that's where it'll go, the possibility is kind of tantalizing. In any event, this may not have the heart of <i>Hatsu*Haru</i> (at least, not yet), but it's every bit as readable with the added bonus of feeling very much like watching someone attempt to walk upright on ice in terrible shoes - you know what <i>might</i> happen, but not what <i>will.</i>.

A fun story with some good character development, cool characters can feel cliche in certain scenes but it's really good.

Very goofy. Feel very bad considering how clueless she is. She had absolutely no reaction to seeing him ~exposed~ so this one sided pining will be going on for quite a while. He is so good to her and the jury is still out yet on whether or not she deserves it. Will continue reading.

My thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha for an eARC copy of this book to read and review,

Meh, this was only ok to me. It seemed rather OTT with the manga writer character being the way she was and it felt slightly like it could have been a wish-fulfillment fantasy on the part of the person who was writing the actual manga, so slightly meta?

It was definitely in what I would consider the sub-genre of "zany" manga, as in this would be a stretch if it happened in real life and I don't know if real people act like this all of the time? But I don't know everybody in the world, so I could be the weirdo who doesn't act like this, who knows?

2.5 rounded up to 3, middle of the pack worth a read at least once, stars. The art was good and the MC H was really sweet and the characters were almost all adults in a working situation, which I appreciated.

This book was pretty good. It wasn't my favorite manga. It seemed to be a typical shojo romance manga. Which is fine. I actually don't mind when themes repeat but this one just fell a little flat for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha for allowing me to read the ARC of this manga!

To start off, this manga focuses on the viewpoint of a mangaka's relative who has started working under her as an assistant. He immediately notices something about a part time assistant that is also working with her. He is totally in love with the mangaka! Turns out they are friends and he enjoys her so much that after his full-time job he comes to work to work as an assistant for her.

The plot of this is cute and I think any manga depicting a mangaka is pretty funny because it shows usually realistically what they do and how the deal. I liked that part of it a lot. I mostly did not enjoy the main character (the mangaka). Nothing against her, she just had a personality that seemed too flaky and a little dumb. I'm very particular and I don't like when characters are exceptionally dimwitted.

Overall it was okay!

Thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for giving me an online ARC of this book exchange for an honest review.

This manga was sure a pretty quick read, it wasn't hard to understand or read it was a really great comic overall. Kodansha Comics never fail to amaze me with their new authors and their mangas, moreover, the drawing style is just so pretty it has some detail, but not too much. The plot and genre was mostly romance, but it also had some humor and jokes.

What was a little bit confusing and new to me, was the POV, it was from a fifteen year old highschool student, whose a part time worker and assistant to Shimakaze. It's like an outsider POV of the main romance story, which I hope is gonna work out.

I think reading other volumes would be pretty interesting, to see how the romance and all folds out.

I really enjoyed it! Cute and fun and surprising. The characters really stand out and are so cute! I loved it!

This manga is so cute and hilarious! Yoshida is a handsome businessman who is head over heels for his mangaka childhood BFF, Sena, and helps her out as a part-timer working on her manga. She is ABSOLUTELY clueless, obviously. I love the rom-com moments in this comic, which is told partially through the viewpoint of the new part-timer on the team as he gets to know their wacky dynamic. This is a super fun manga, and I can't wait for volume 2!

2.5 stars

The Transcendent One-Sided Love of Yoshida the Catch is a lighthearted rom-com. Yoshida's had a one sided crush on his friend since high school. There isn't a whole lot of interaction between the two. Most of their time together is spent on him helping his crush with her job. The pacing was a bit clunky with it first introducing Yoshida and then the next chapter starting off with a random side character's pov. It's refreshing to see the male mc pining over the female mc for a change. Hopefully the pacing will pick up in the next volume and there will be more structure to the plot.