Manga: Love and Lies 4

Love and Lies Vol 4
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

The system of governmentally-arranged marriage is supposed to make everyone's life easier, but it's not working for Yukari Nejima. His class is staging a production of Romeo and Juliet for the school festival--and the girl he loves, Misaki, is playing Romeo! Opposite her as Juliet is Yukari's best friend, the perpetually-misunderstood Yusuke. With Yukari working backstage and his governmentally-assigned partner Lilina in the audience, the class play is going to have more star-cross'd lovers than anyone bargained for! 

Yukari asks for advice from the shady government dude (Yajima) from before who could prove to be an interesting character, judging from the snapshot of his backstory that we got, I'm actually hoping to see more of him. I don't think he's entirely down with the notices. Anyways, Yukari opts to follow his feelings, which are kinda complicated right now because he's caught feelings for Lilina methinks. 

Interestingly Yusuke's dad makes an appearance and we finally get to know Yusuke a bit more, which I've been waiting for. The more volumes I read, the more and more certain I am that my suspicions about Yusuke are correct, it's just whether or not the manga is actually going to address that. It'll add an interesting development to the love triangle...square...thing. Whatever you want to call it, it's certainly deepening. 

Some new faces appear and things might finally be getting interesting as I feel things have been quite slow for the past volume or so, and it appears someone may have messed with the government notices, which is yet another interesting development that this volume hits us with! It's added a nice mystery element that's caught my curiosity. 

Manga: Love and Lies Vol 3

Love and Lies Vol 3
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy Courtesy of the publisher! 

Yukari is dull. He doesn't even stand out enough to be bullied ? he's just a generally lower-middle-class kid. He's in love with Misaki, the most popular girl in school. There's just one problem: He's 15, one year away from receiving his government-assigned marriage partner. He normally wouldn't have the courage to defy the law, but his sickly classmate Ririna still believes in love, and won't stop goading him into confessing his feelings!

Sanada has a new friend in Arisa this volume, which is probably good seeing as she appears to have caught feelings or is starting to, anyway, for Yukari. She definitely needs someone to talk things out with! Agent Yajima provides us with an interesting tidbit after the worlds most awkward sex ed talk, whether or not it's true. The scene with the talk and what he implies really shows how screwed up the whole system is. 

The love triangle is definitely developing as feelings have started to grow and change and various characters are starting to decide what they want. We still don't have answers about the mystery with Nisaka and Takasaki though and I'm getting quite impatient. I do feel like it's being dragged out a bit too much now, especially as I'm still waiting for things to really kick off with this series! 

Manga: Love And Lies 2

Love and Lies Volume 2

Rating: 4/5

Buy or Borrow: Buy

Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Yukari is dull. He doesn't even stand out enough to be bullied - he's just a generally lower-middle-class kid. He's in love with Misaki, the most popular girl in school. There's just one problem: He's 15, one year away from receiving his government-assigned marriage partner. He normally wouldn't have the courage to defy the law, but his sickly classmate Ririna still believes in love, and won't stop goading him into confessing his feelings!

Okay so the synopsis for this volume on GoodReads and everywhere matches the one for the first volume so I'll tell you a liiiitttleee bit about the plot so you have an idea of how it's all progressing! 

This volume is once again, quite slow, and our group is heading off camping! It's all the parents idea, and Lilina invites Misaki, prompting Nejima to invite his friend Nisaka with them. Lilina is still trying to push Nejima towards Misaki but Nisaka gives her some food for thought as well as giving us some more insight in to how the world of this manga is run and what the potential consequences and treatment are for those who disobey. 

I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like we're being queer baited when it comes to Nisaka, I mean, things are alluded to about him and his feelings and I don't know whether I'm reading it wrong or right. There's also clearly something going on with he and Misaka, and I was hoping we'd get some answers about it in this volume, but it might have to be next volume. We only get some half heard, shady conversations which kind of disappointed me a bit. 

The good thing about this volume is that it provides us some more insight in to the characters. Nejima may be an idiot at times, but he's kind of harmless and it was nice to learn some more about him seeing as he's the main character and I was kind of iffy about him in the first volume. Lilina I actually really like. I find her quite relatable at points, and she speaks a lot of sense regarding how the world works. I actually really like her and I get where she's coming from. It was nice to see some more of her and the different sides of her in this volume. Misaki...I find her really shady I'm not going to lie. I feel like the mystery with her is getting a wee bit too dragged out by now, because we still don't know what her deal is. I'm not really getting a good vibe from her though. Sometimes I wonder if this is going to do a 180 and change my entire perspective. 

Finally we have Nisaka. I like Nisaka. He's kind of a bit shady but he doesn't give me a weird vibe like Misaki. I do wonder about him, and I do feel like if I'm not reading it wrong then we're being baited, but I could be wrong. I'm so curious about him and his past and what the deal is with him and Misaki. 

Love and Lies Volume 2 continues the slow but steady pace and this volume focuses more on the characters and getting to know them better and see the relationships between them all. After Nisaka talking to Lilina and laying out the potential consequences, I feel like the tide may be turning when it comes to Nejima and Lilina and this love triangle thingy might be developing properly...or maybe it's a love square. This volume is a little bit extra at points, but I'm mostly intrigued by Nisaka and I'm curious to find out what the deal is, although I am hoping the pace picks up a bit more! 

Manga: Love and Lies

Love and Lies
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Love is forbidden. When you turn 16, the government will assign your marriage partner.- This dystopian manga about teen love and defiance is a sexy, funny, and dramatic new hit! 
Yukari is dull. He doesn't even stand out enough to be bullied - he's just a generally lower-middle-class kid. He's in love with Misaki, the most popular girl in school. There's just one problem: He's 15, one year away from receiving his government-assigned marriage partner. He normally wouldn't have the courage to defy the law, but his sickly classmate Ririna still believes in love, and won't stop goading him into confessing his feelings!

I've been intrigued by this ever since I saw it was getting adapted in to an anime, so I jumped at the chance to check out the manga. I'm not sure what to make of it to be honest, I feel like it's setting up a harem type thing, which I'm not really here for, and the set up between our main character and the girl he likes doesn't seem all that strong just from the one volume, and there's one other thing that I'll get to in a bit, buuuttt I'm intrigued enough to keep reading this series. 

Okay, so the world has an interesting, if a little strange set up. Sixteen seems like kind of a young age to have this whole arranged marriage government thing going on but then again it's not like it's never been unheard of before. 

Love and Lies is funny from the start, and it has its cute moments. I can relate to both Lilina and Yukari. I like their interactions and how they chat openly with each other, and how Lilina has offered to help him in her own blunt way. I really do love how blunt she is. Bless her. Lilina wants to know what it's like to fall in love and she has trouble interacting with other girls so she's often left out and alone. Yukari is kind of hapless to be honest. I wanted to smack him once or twice. He's not very confident and he's kind of nerdy and it's kind of a sods law thing with him. As for Takasaki....I can understand her wanting to protect herself from getting hurt, but she's definitely lying about something and I feel like there's more to it than that. I'm actually really suspicious of her, and I can't decide if she's just messing with him or not, like possibly she's trying to make someone else jealous and that someone would be Nisaka from what I can see. 

I spent so long in this volume trying to work out what Nisaka is up to. Then there was the plot twist at the end involving him and I really didn't see it coming. I was actually really stoked about it at the time, and I was all ready to ship him and Yukari but my issue with the whole thing is first of all the harem aspect. Second of all, I feel like they're just baiting us with Nisaka, if he really does have feelings for Yukari. The more I thought about it, the more I realised this manga is most likely not going to go down that route, so the baiting is probably going to bug me more and more as the volumes go on. But I guess we'll see. 

I have two ships already from this first volume, and I'm so torn. I know ones going to sink and I'm actually really gutted about it. I think you can guess which ship I'm talking about. 

Love and Lies is really fast paced, and I breezed through this volume. The arts quite good and kind of cute, and the concept is interesting. The romance hooked me in, as did the general cuteness and drama, not to mention the humour! I'm totally with Lilina on most things and I ship her with Yukari more than the intended girl...which may or may not be a problem. I have a feeling I know which way this is going to go, but I'm not sure if I'm just being overly suspicious and unfair to the other girl. We'll see. The only problem I foresee for this manga is the situation with Nisaka. It would be really awesome to have a gay character, and for it not to be just a baiting situation but I don't have very high hopes. 

Either way Love and Lies is a quick, fun, and cute manga, that's definitely got a feel good vibe and should at least make you chuckle a little bit! I'm definitely interested in this enough to give it another volume to see where it goes!