Rockin’ After School — Starting with a Kiss Review

This may shock you guys, but I actually read manga that wasn’t smutty this morning. chuup

I’m not sure if it’s done or not. Manga Renta doesn’t really mark when a series ends and it’s about the normal length for a short series, and it ends with a confession, so you know, shoujo manga ending. winkheart4

But hey, I love music and I love music stories. I don’t know why, it seems so odd to like stories based around music when you can’t hear any music, but I do.

“Rock music? For a girl like me who’s only known classical music? Before I realize it, the cool music and the don’t-take-no-for-an-answer guy start to take control of me… There’s no way I can be without all this now.” Although she was born into a family of classical musicians, Kazune had no talent for it. Still, she remains an avid lover of music. One day after school she is sitting in the music room playing the piano and singing, when a voice suddenly says to her, “You really are lousy at the piano.” She turns and sees that it’s her classmate, Shiihara, with whom she’s barely ever exchanged words. He surprises Kazune, though, when he says, “The singing was good.” He tells her that her voice was meant for rock music and then kisses her, saying he’ll show her the way.

 

So as you can see, love triangle. Sort of.

The main character is Kazune Aoki, a daughter of two famous classical pianists. Sadly, she inherited none of their talent. She attends a music academy on their name and dime, however, she struggles through performing well.

After nearly failing her midterms, she goes home and finds out her family adopted their nephew, Kanata, and now he’s her brother. Kanata is talented at the piano, so he’s going to take on the family legacy from her.

He also acts rather… well… wutwut He’s one of those nice guys with a sadistic streak archetypes. Though this is shoujo, so his sadistic streak is mostly being controlling. I’ll get more into it in a bit.

One day after school she’s practicing piano and singing along. She fumbles through the piano parts and wakes up Shiihara (the black-haired guy in the image). He tells her she sucks at piano (haaaaa) but her singing voice is perfect for rock. She gets confused by his punk rock looks (this is shoujo manga, so basically piercings and long hair) and thinks he wants to charge her for advice (add dumb to the list) so he decides to take payment… by kissing her.ohmy

Guess who sees him kiss her? Yeeaaapppp. Kazune is not happy about the stolen kiss and leaves, but not before Shiihara hands her a slip of paper. When she gets home, Kanata accuses her of playing around and not taking piano seriously. He tries to push her down on the couch and get a kiss for himself (WTF) but she pushes him away and tells him to GTFO and stay out of her room. Good for you, Kazune.

Later that night, she can’t sleep and decides to check out the slip of paper Shiihara handed to her. It’s a ticket to a live house. Kanata and her walk to school the next day and she sees Shiihara by the shoe locker. She starts to talk to him but Kanata acts jealous and drags her away under the guise of going to the school’s office to help him with transfer student stuff. Shiihara tells her not to forget about after school and goes along his way. Once they’re around the corner, Kanata goes jealous boyfriend on her and asks allll sorts of questions and gets all accusatory.

Blechhhhhh But after school she goes to the live house and sees Shiihara on guitar performing and it completely rocks her world.

Okay, I’m a sucker for things like that. barrassed

Shiihara likes to tease her and it’s really cute to read. In any case, he tells her to call him by his name, Nao. He calls her Waon, an alternate reading of her name. After school she has singing lessons with him. At first she struggles, not because of the singing itself. For most of her life she was held to the standards of her parents and her memories are tarnished with teachers putting her down and giving up on her. She believes Nao will do the same to her, but in the end decides to enjoy it while she can.

In chapter three he takes her to an amusement park, but not for the normal reasons a guy takes a girl to a place like that. It’s pretty funny and cute. After that, though, we get more of jealous Kanata trying to do things without consent. She shuts it down, though, thankfully.

Chapter four brings the princely element to the fold, we get the main guy buying her an outfit and giving her a makeover.

(That wasn’t even the cutest scene in this)

As with every manga about change, we have to have this scene! hahaha And after another scene or two, the good vibes are yet again broken up by… Kanata.

holy I am kinda getting ticked off how every cute moment is cock-blocked by Kanata’s shenanigans.

Anyway, he and Nao have a talk and Nao keeps it real. Later Kanata confesses his love to Kazune. Whoooooa boy. Well, it’s actually handled really well.

It’s just the Nao/Kazune confession scene I feel is a bit rushed. nervous Don’t get me wrong, I still liked it, but since it happened in the same chapter as the Kanata confession, it didn’t have as many pages devoted to it as I would like.

 

The confession though

 

👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit

heart1heart1heart1

Rockin’ After School — Starting With A Kiss is available from Manga Renta at 1 ticket/1 dollar per chapter.

holllywhat My heart scale is defined as follows – 5 hearts = a story everyone will fall in love with, regardless of preferences; 4 hearts = a well-done story that people who love the concept will adore, and people who don’t may end up liking it; 3 hearts = if you like this type of story or this type of hero, then you will enjoy this, but those who do not like either of those things will probably not; 2 hearts = it had potential, it squandered it; 1 heart = just a waste of time from the get-go; 0 hearts = why was this made?

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