By Gwyn J.

Almost every Friday, I tend to go to the bookstore to pick up a new manga series. I found an interesting series called I Want To End This Love Game. I can say this is one of the better Shoujo manga that has been released lately. The characters are Yukiya Asagi and Miku Sakura and they have been playing a “Love Game” with each other since 6th grade. Now they are in high school, and the game continues on where they try to make each other fluster and admit defeat.

Their behavior reminds me of the characters in Takane and Hana, but not as harsh, as Takane is. The characters are completely different- they both make fun of each while they are flirting with one another. Yukiya has always been a nerdy introvert and hadn’t really spoken to girls besides his best friend, Miku. Miku is extremely flirty with Yukiya, which causes some hilarious moments such as Yukiya’s reactions.

They both are stubborn, and won’t admit that they actually have feelings for one another. Yukiya goes to the level of reading Miku’s favorite romance manga to get ideas on how to get Miku flustered. He has his second button unbuttoned, and he does a wall slam move on her.

Miku on the other hand, tries to make him flustered by doing such things as shortening her uniform skirt, or arriving at his house before going to school in her uniform. Which catches Yukiya by surprise because he was going to start the school year as a brand new Yukiya.

Just like Tsubaki-Chou, the series has a great beginning, and pretty much jumps into the storyline- some have slow starts but this one hits it head on. As mentioned, Miku and Yukiya obviously do have feelings for one another but the good thing about the story so far, is that it keeps you wondering just how long it’ll take before one of them surrenders. It seems Miku is close to it when Yukiya takes her out to a fancy restaurant and an amusement park.

The evening ends when Yukiya gives her a tiara and calls her his princess. He tells her he is the only one to give her a tiara and also says for her not to give her firsts to anyone else. Miku says that isn’t part of the rules, but Yukiya reaches over and hugs her, catching Miku by surprise yet again. The scene changes to Yukiya resting his head on Miku’s lap, and it turns out that Yukiya is sleep-deprived and had spent all night looking up websites on how to impress on a date. Miku asks him if it was from gaming all night, and he says yes, not letting her know what the real reason was.

Yukiya throughout the story, seems to doubt himself, and doesn’t think he’s good enough for Miku, so he puts in all the effort by looking up websites and also reading his sister’s romance manga.

If you are into Shoujo romance manga series, this is definitely one to pick up. It’s a relatively newly released series, the first volume was out in February and the second volume was released this past May.