天使だったらよかった

TENSHI DATTARA YOKATTA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
3
RELEASE
June 13, 2022
CHAPTERS
13

DESCRIPTION

Kako, a first-year high school girl, has been friends with Taisei and Yuna since elementary school, and she wished they could always be "the three best friends" forever.
But the fragile and precariously balanced relationship crumbled when Taisei got injured, and Taisei and Yuna became a couple during his recovery.
And then, a mysterious boy who met Taisei while he was in the hospital appeared...

(Source: Betsuma, translated)

Note: Includes 1 extra chapter.

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

RoseFaerie
90/100
The lie she told was the straw that broke the camel's back. She just didn't know it yet.
What happens when you try and hold together bonds that are already broken? This is a series about relationships, both friendships and couples, how they form, and how they break apart. The struggle to break what's already been broken. The complicated emotions that come when the people you love don't seem to love you back. The relationships in this manga are messy, and that's why I love it so much. It's messy, but it never felt poorly executed to me.

We have a tight-knit group of friends, Kako, Taisei, and Yuna, a trio that has been together since elementary school. However, they aren't quite as tightly-knit as Kako thought. When Taisei got into an accident, Kako, who liked him, visited him regularly when he was unconcious. However, during his recovery, Yuna leads Taisei to believe that she was the one who stayed by his side while he was in the hospital. The two begin dating, and Kako meets a mysterious boy who knows what was really going on at the hospital.

Unlike other short series, I think the pace and the amount covered fits the length. I actually found myself comparing it to Sora wo Kakeru Yodaka. The two series are both three volumes long and they cover heavier topics with the same amount of lead characters. However, unlike Sora wo Kakeru Yodaka, this one never felt like it bit off more than it could chew. I felt like all the themes that it wanted to cover were handled successfully, and it explored all the characters and motivations well, even if Uina did seem a bit messy.

Kako, I suppose, is just a normal girl. She's quiet and girly, and she's nice to everyone. I could see her labeled as a bland self-insert type, but she does have distinct character flaws, like her lack of self-awareness, which resulted in Uina's betrayal. She didn't recognize how Uina was hurt and felt left out or that she was worried that Kako was only friends with her out of pity. They've been friends since childhood and she hasn't once noticed the signs that her friend is hurting. She exists in her own little bubble and isn't aware of how her feelings for Taisei pushed her best friend away. However, she isn't anywhere near a bad person or someone contemptible. She's the type of character you can root for. She tries to protect the ones she loves by taking on everything by herself, and I'm proud of how she handled Uina in the end. Sometimes it's best to step away from the people who hurt you and cut them out completely.

Uina, on the other hand, is a mess. She seems to have a lot of issues, and she does many horrible things. Uina clearly has a lot of abandonment issues. She was isolated at school, and Kako made her feel left out a lot throughout their friendship, and Uina doubted that they were even friends. She wants to recreate their childhood bond but in the way she wants it. In a way she won't be left out or ignored. She's obsessed with both Taisei and Kako, wanting to control them both. She starts off wanting Taisei because Kako likes him, but soon that evolves into her trying to recreate a version of the friendship where Kako takes her place as the third-wheel. It's difficult to grasp what she's doing and her motivations all the time, since I don't think she even always knows herself. So much of her behavior is coming from a very negative emotional place, and it feels like she's just trying to exert control over others. She's a super complicated character, who's often contradictory in the sense that people often are, instead of how Koushiro from Sora wo Kakeru Yodaka had such confusing actions where you don't even know which part of him is real. Yuna may be a two-faced bully, but she has a lot of raw, genuine emotions so you know where she stands, even if she makes spontaneous emotionally charged decisions at times. She's a horrible person, but she's easily the most fascinating out of all of the characters.

The two male characters unfortunately were not as complicated as our female characters. The more complex of the two is Ayato, the boy who Kako meets and offers to help her get revenge on Uina. He's also obsessive, just in a different way. He never tries to control Kako, but he tries to insert himself in her life. He was also isolated as a child, due to unfortunate circumstances, and he's trying to escape his family legacy and his past. Kako was able to touch his heart through her natural kindness, offering him light when there was none. She showed him love when no one else would. Fortunately, his relationship with Kako does not end up as one-sided, since they both are able to rely on each other. Taisei on the other hand is pretty bland. He has some traits like being easily swayed and attached to the past friendships he had with the two girls, but he felt more like a plot-device, since he took the backseat to the other three characters. He's the nice, easy to sway guy.

The art is very appealing. It's got the strong classic shoujo vibes, and for some reason it reminds me of a combination of the Heroine For Hire and It Takes More Than a Pretty Face to Fall in Love artstyles, except it's blobbier than either of those. The color pages are super nice to look at.

This felt like such a polished series. Even though it was short, it felt like everything it wanted to cover was covered. I just wished Taisei got more time to shine and that we had gotten to see more of the character's friendship before Uina told the lie. I wanted to see them interact and see if there were signs that something was amiss.

Either way, this was super enjoyable. If anyone likes messy friendship drama with bullying and messed-up characters, this story is for you. I was so invested, and it felt so complete.
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