Anata e no Crescendo

I read Anata e no Crescendo in one night because I was bored and looking for a short, stress-free, and cliche shoujo manga to get through quickly. Well, it did live up to my expectations, which were not too high in the first place.

Story: 6/10
The plot of this manga is pretty simple. Girl has childhood crush, girl reunites with said childhood crush, girl meets other guy, drama ensues, then voila, happily ever after. The only interesting element was the music theme, and since I do play the piano, I found it nice. There's nothing unique about it though, no other story line other than the main characters'. Which, if this is the kind of manga you are looking for, then it's perfectly fine. Just don't expect an amazing, thoughtful shoujo story to come out of 3 chapters. (The other three are all side stories, which weren't exactly masterpieces either.)

Art: 6/10
The artwork is alright, I guess. I didn't like how humongous the eyes tended to be, and the style tends to be somewhat inconsistent. I actually preferred the art in the three side stories; it seemed to improve in those.

Character: 5/10
This is probably the weakest part of the manga. The main female protagonist is a very stereotypical dramatic shoujo lead. She makes terrible life decisions, and you're bound to dislike her a little. She's rather annoying, and you honestly wonder why those guys are even interested in a girl like her. Speaking of guys, the two male protagonists aren't that fleshed out to begin with. Basically, very cliche male leads you would find in every mediocre shoujo manga. Overall, the characters are neither interesting nor complicated. In just a few short chapters, you can't expect to have perfectly developed characters. They were there to advance the simple shoujo romance plot, nothing more.

Enjoyment: 7/10
Strangely, the enjoyment score is the highest for me. Like I said in the intro, I was specifically looking for a quick, cliche-shoujo read. I got what I was looking for, so I'm happy. But objectively, Anata e no Crescendo is not very good. If you are looking for the next shoujo masterpiece, then this is not it. But if you, like me, are just looking for something light-hearted and fun to fill up your list, then by all means, read this manga.

Overall: 6/10
It's good if you like this kind of stuff. (I do.) It's terrible if you don't. Overall...mediocre.