Kisu Yori mo Hayaku (Faster Than a Kiss) by Meca Tanaka
Published by Hakusensha from July 5, 2007 to October 5, 2012
Genre: Romance, Shojo
12 Volumes/book series
Format: eBook
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (MAL 8/10)
Find on Goodreads
Get it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ct4F8N

Losing their parents, Fumiko and her brother hop from one relative to another. Getting tired of all those movings, she finally decides to quit school and work to support her brother on her own. As they sat on a park bench, her teacher appears in front of her and agrees to her demanding of marrying and supporting both her and her brother!! Is he serious or just playing around…!?

Review

After reading this manga, I was debating to myself on what rating I should give it. You see, when I was just in the middle part of this story, I already concluded that I will be giving it a 3.5 star rating, but man!!!! I love love love the ending. It was far from what I imagined and that’s really a relief. After the scene with sensei’s father, I thought everything will be cliché, but man! I didn’t anticipate the ending. It’s absolutely a perfect HEA, and you know how I’m such a sucker for that hehe. I’m just so happy with how everything turned out. I’m super happy that I shed a tear. It’s just… It seems like I was there in this story and felt what sensei and Fumino felt at that moment.

Kisu Yorimo Hayaku or also known as Faster than a Kiss in English is a story of Fumino, a highschool student who after getting tired of moving from relatives to another, decided to run away together with her younger brother, Teppei. While in the park, her sensei (teacher) approached them and asked what is she’s doing. She got pissed so she told him to marry her so he can take good care of her and her brother. Out of tension between their confrontation, sensei said yes. And that is the start of their “secret” married life.

Unlike book reviews, I don’t mind sharing some spoilers when I’m reviewing a manga, so get ready haha.

So what made me shed a tear? It was on the part when Fumino was walking down the aisle towards sensei. My! That was just so heartwarming. No words spoken, it’s just the two of them looking so lovingly to each other. If this manga would have made it into an anime, I’m pretty sure I’ll be watching that scene over and over again. It’s just so rewarding that after what they’ve been through, the happy moments and hardships they’ve shared, they are finally getting married. It’s just… It’s just so beautiful. And speaking of beautiful, their first kiss indeed was so beautiful. Awww.. and thinking about it, I guess I’m going to start re-evaluating my feelings about the rain lol haha. Wanna know why? Well, that’s something you should find out for yourself 😉

The idea of a student falling in love with her teacher is something that isn’t new to me. I’ve read and watched movies with that same idea before so I am really excited to find out how the author will remedy that and made me interested in this story to the extent of finishing it. And my! I sure did enjoy this one. 

Some may find it gross but hey hey hey, the professor is just 24 years old so it’s fine. Plus with a handsome face like that, I wouldn’t be having any second thoughts. Plus, he looks so hot with or without glasses, but I think I’ll go for a glasses look for sensei. Why’s that? Well, he looks so dang hot without his glasses so to avoid any women gawking at him, it’s better if he wears his glasses or I could kill someone haha.

I always love highschool romances so it wasn’t really a surprise that I enjoyed this one. Faster Than a Kiss wasn’t really in my radar until I stumbled to this one. It’s only 12 volumes and it’s already completed so I decided to check out the sypnosis and I like the idea, plus, the characters look so good together so why not? It’s the shortest in my manga TBR so I decided to read it first. You see, I don’t usually read the manga without watching the anime first but seeing that it doesn’t have one, I guess I’ll have to check this out myself eh?

I have to say that Faster Than a Kiss is not your typical student falling in love with her sensei story. It didn’t just cover romance but it has so much more. You see, it’s just 12 volumes but it’s composed of so many chapters. I thought I know what’s going to happen or I know how it’ll end but I was surprised with all the scenes the author added to this story. I love that it also includes friendship, about family especially about relationships between siblings and also about not just love triangles but I guess that’s 5? Well, you see, Fumino is quite a Rapunzel in this story haha.

The reason I was torn between 3.5 and 4 star rating was because this manga had some confusing chapters. I’m not saying that the illustrations are bad, but there were some scenes and parts that were confusing that it made me spend a long time examining the pages to understand the scenes and the action it’s trying to portray. But I think that’s only a total of 2-3 chapters, all other chapters were great.

The conflict, well, there’s so many conflicts in this story, but I’m so glad that the author didn’t add some really annoying ones. Well, unless you count the part about sensei’s father, because that was downright annoying, but so far it didn’t stretch far, because we finally got to see Fumino and sensei’s wedding, ayeeii. But even without the wedding, with cute Teppei around, they already look like one cute family. And my, Fumino and Teppei cosplaying while welcoming sensei when he comes home was always quite cute, haha.

Although there’s no annoying conflicts, I have to say that there’s this annoying character that I really want to kill myself. And who would that be? Well, it’s sensei’s younger brother Shouma. My! He was really a pain in the ass. He’s hot and he’s cold and is a downright jerk. If there are different classes of jerks, he’ll be in class A. I understand about his feelings towards Fumino but going to deal with his action of getting behind sensei and Fumino was so frustrating and irritating to watch/read. He’s just lucky that sensei didn’t lose his cool and was able to handle it maturely (most of the time, haha).

For Fumino’s character, she was introduced as this badass chick who beat up guys who are doing bad to her classmates, but when she’s finally living with sensei, she somewhat loses her groove and is always in a situation where sensei always rescues her. Don’t get me wrong, I like her character but saving the damsel in distress we’re just too much. But on the other hand, she sure loves her younger brother so much. I love how she’ll do anything just for him and that really softens my heart. And ofcourse, I adore her kindness even to those that don’t  deserve it, her cool, her courage and her guts. My! This girl is really something. And you know what else? I love how she fights so hard for sensei. She’s the kind of girl that knows what she wants and fights for it, and that’s the kind of attitude I like for a heroine.

Sensei on the other hand is definitely a prince charming material. He’s so nice, so good looking and everything you need for a guy is with him. He’s just too perfect which makes his character unrealistic. But even with that perfect attitude and appearance, I have to say that it didn’t stop me from liking him genuinely. I did not fall-in-love-with-him-and-wanting-to-become-the-heroine way but I really love his character. Beyond that perfect appearance, his distorted past makes up for it thus making his character relatable. What he’s been through and how he was able to get past it makes me so proud of him. Despite what he’s been through, I’m happy that he was able to become what he is now and finally found the woman who will love him and makes him happy.

There’s still some issue about his father and his relationship with sensei from way back before that wasn’t introduced to us completely but I guess the part where he bought Fumino’s wedding dress is enough to compensate for it haha sucker.

Most POV of the manga were taken from the main character either the girl or the guy and from a third party, but for this one, I guess it’s safe to say that it was mostly from Fumino unless you’ll include some individual parts like the one from Shouma who was struggling about his feelings towards Fumino. I always love to hear about sensei so it was great that he had 1 chapter that was taken from his POV. It was short, yes but at least it was on the part where he talks about his feelings toward Fumino.

Both of the main characters confess their feelings in the early volume so I thought after that all would be going to be predictable but the twist and turn surprised me. 

This is the second shojo manga that I’ve read but differently not my first shojo anime so I have a lot of shojo anime to compare with, but so far, I find this one enjoyable. It didn’t just make me fall in love but it made me laugh my heart out.

And oops, I almost forgot. Aside from the romance and a little bit of comedy, I was eyeing Fumino’s younger brother, Teppei. My! I guess he’s one of the cutest characters I’ve encountered so far.

Challenges

• 2017 New To Me
• 2017 Mount TBR Reading
• 2017 eBooks Reading
• 2017 You Read How Many Books?
• 2017 Review Writing

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BOOK SHELF: SHOJO

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