Kono Koi wo Hoshi ni wa Negawanai
There Is No Love Wishing Upon a Star.

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This yuri manga is incredible. No fan service, slow build up, and the amount of detail in this series is INSANE. During dialogue you’ll often see reminders or references to past chapters like a teddy bear or bandages on a hand. The people who rate this show lowly are not looking for a quality series but a series that gets into the yuri quickly and sloppily. This manga is an accurate depiction of what a lesbian experience is like. Unrequited love, comfort, non-sexual intimacy. Lewdness is so overexemplified in manga and anime nowadays that people forget that there are smaller acts of intimacy and romance ... that exist. This series is that series.

Additionally, Shinoa’s Godly art is the only one that has thus far depicted such beautiful angst and softness. Everything happens and the characters don’t quite understand it themselves.

'There is no wishing upon a star' is a title that begins to make sense the more and more you read. The manga is melancholic and the pacing is delicate, but the characters feel alive and the tension between them is too much not to get hooked into. Writing this, I'm caught up to what's translated and I'll be following it until it is completed. If you are wondering whether or not you should read it, the short answer is: Please read it, and if you like drama, complicated relationships, realistic feeling writing or beautiful art, you'll want to read it even more so.

Without revealing ... anything much about the story, the premise is a love triangle between Fuyuki, Eri and Kyou, three childhood friends who have been together their whole life, but are seeming clueless about what each other are feeling. I usually don't really like love triangles because they are usually added to boring romances just to add some sort of conflict. This manga is not that whatsoever. The author really seems to understand the web of influence that relationships exist within, and the way that new and existing relationships change the people who are in them and by proxy those surrounding them. It's a drama about unrequited love and how impactful it can be for everyone involved, and about the bitter reality most gay/lesbian people at some point face when pursuing love. Everything that happens seems to affect the environment surrounding them, and there is are a lot of intricacies and lots of attention to detail put into this manga, which is what makes it feel so grounded and genuine. That wouldn't be the case were it not for the characters though, which are incredible. There's not much to say without revealing spoilers, but almost every character is written well, and even when you don't like how things worked out or something happened you weren't expecting, you can understand and empathize with why everybody did and said what they did. You won't be sitting there wondering how x thing ended up x way because you can follow the mess of motivations, circumstances, mistakes and emotions to understand it all.

There's not a lot to complain about with this manga. The two most difficult to pull off elements are pacing and complex relationships, and both stand out as especially good. I think there are a few events and side characters in the story that could have been written a lot better and felt a little awkward. I also wish the way the author explained character details was a little less direct. Flashbacks were necessary, but there was a lot of opportunity for story telling through allusion, though, it's more of a missed opportunity than a flaw. The biggest flaw in my eyes is that Kyou and Kisaki are not developed nearly as much as they should be. They are characters crucial to the plot, but they seem underdeveloped compared to Fuyuki and Eri. This is a shame because they are characters that you want to understand and learn more about, but the narrative never seems to get to it.
And, this is entirely personal, but the big emotional moments didn't seem to hit as hard as I would think. But, I think because the manga is so melancholic and reserved, it maybe wasn't supposed to.

I don't think the story is perfect, but regardless it is very far above most romance manga that try to go for a story of this tone and I really enjoyed reading it. It's beautifully written and drawn, elegant in it's execution, the characters feel genuine and empathetic, it's easy and exciting to read and the art is so obviously incredible it isn't even necessary to discuss it. If for anything else, the art is incredible and it's worth reading just for that. If you are looking for a mature feeling yuri romance drama and want something different from the numerous highschool romcoms, this is among the best you can read.