Drama lovers have no inkling what perseverance and determination a manga lover needs to have to endure an addiction to a long-running serial. It’s thirty plus years now for oldies like Glass no Kamen, and most recently I’ve been reading 7 Seeds and I doubt it will end anytime in the next decade. So it’s always a relief when any live manga ends and I can finally put one aside as completed. I wrote about Tanaka Meca‘s Faster than a Kiss last year here (キスよりも早く or Kisu Yori mo Hayaku), a frothy little shoujo manga in the vein of some truly great predecessors in the teacher-student romance genre. Turns out being the new kid on the block wasn’t actually a bad thing, as FtaK easily became my favorite of this story subject matter.
While my first instinct is to disapprove of teacher-student romances, FtaK was so well done that it took away any icky factor and instead was all about the growth and maturation of the student Fumino foremost while the romance took a backseat. FtaK finished this month at chapter 57, and while the ending was a bit of a letdown in some ways, ultimately it ended with the same lovely beat as the story has sustained during its entire run. Those who don’t want to be spoiled don’t read on, otherwise I’ll share my thoughts on the final arc and ending of this story. This manga is quite popular and has been scanlated into English so those of you wanting to read it can easily find it online. Continue reading