Taiyou no Ie

Short Review Spanish & English.
~First Review here, so bear with me with my mistakes and my redaction.

We don't know what awaits us in the future, in a moment we can be there all together and in an instant you realize you're alone.
What is next?

This short story is about the daily lives of two characters that have the same pain from a different weapon.
Welcome to the life of Nakamura Hiro, a young man who lost his parents in an early age having two younger brothers and then we have Motomiya Mao, a little adolescent who grow up with her father's indifference and her mother's absence.

For some reason these two start living together with a peculiar friendship relation, accompanying each other, things that leads to certain feelings which they often try to escape. What I like the most of this manga is its ability to create the plot without having to add unnecessary things to make it longer, you don't feel it rushed either, each chapter feels complete and leaves you satisfied, also having a good pacing between them.
Characters are unique, besides being a short manga you really feel the development of each character in a real way. Their attitude, way of be, behavior, etc. Each one of this aspects develops so pleasantly on all characters making them have an unique protagonism, not leaving them as a simple background character that only its there for noise.

Character design is pretty good, I really liked the clothes of the characters and their expressions too.

Overall, is a manga that delivers you a good romance with a heartwarming story about family and friends.

Español

No sabemos qué nos depara el futuro, en un momento podremos estar ahí todos juntos y al otro instante te das cuenta de que estás solo.
¿Qué viene después?

Esta pequeña historia relata el día a día de dos personajes que sufren la misma herida de un arma diferente.

Bienvenidos a la vida de Nakamura Hiro, un joven que perdió a sus padres a una temprana edad teniendo a dos hermanos menores y luego tenemos a Motomiya Mao, una pequeña adolescente que creció con la indiferencia de su padre y la ausencia de su madre.
Por causes del destino estos dos empiezan a vivir juntos con una peculiar relación de amistad, acompañándose mutuamente, cosa que obviamente traerá los sentimientos de los cuáles muchas veces tratan de escapar. Lo que más gusta de este manga es su capacidad de crear la historia sin necesidad de desviar o alargar el argumento, tampoco lo sientes apresurado, cada capítulo se siente completo y te deja satisfecho, teniendo buen manejo de las cosas entre ellos.

Los personajes son únicos, a pesar de ser un manga corto sientes el desarrollo de cada uno de una manera real. Sus actitudes, manera de ser, comportamiento, etc. Cada uno de estos aspectos se desarrolla placenteramente en todos los personajes dándole un protagonismo único, no dejándolos como un simple personaje secundario sin emociones o que solo existe para fastidiar.
El diseño de los personajes es muy bueno, me agradó bastante el vestuario de los personajes al igual que sus distintas expresiones.

En resumen, es un manga que te entrega un buen romance con una cálida historia sobre familia y amigos.

*This review is spoiler free*

Taiyou no Ie is a really sweet romance manga, and its my favourite strictly romance/shoujo manga. I think a lot of this comes down to the characters and the story, while the art is just consistent throughout.

That isn't to say the art is bad. Taiyou no Ie has very clean art with very fine lines; nothing is bold or powerful and this consistent fluffiness is very fitting with the overall theme of the manga. This particularity of the art is also used to great effect to emphasize moments of sadness and give them far greater weight. Theses moments simply don't fit the art style, and this juxtaposition really helps with making readers feel genuine empathy for the characters. This whole fluffiness would also not be possible were it not for the great (and very liberal) use of screentones and panel specific shade shifts (like washed out greys or deep grey gradients). Another quality of the art is the use of the overall background shade to reflect the depth of the emotions present, or sometimes to localize a specific emotion like sadness to one character by through darker shades/gradients.

The strongest part of Taiyou no Ie is really the story, but my hands are tied in this review because I don't want to spoil any of it. Simply put, Taiyou no Ie is a story about someone finding their place in life and within their family. It is overall very sweet, but it isn't some diabetic shoujo romance where everything falls into place nicely and quickly. The story allows for genuinely interesting interactions between characters and the highlight of the story for me is the intricacy of the relationships between characters and how fragile they can seem. It feels real, and the story is the enabling factor for genuily engaging character interactions and dynamic relationship.

On the subject of the characters, Taiyou no Ie does this weird thing where you just like all of them. There isn't a situation in the story where you feel like characters have acted irrationally or even in opposition to what they believe and want. I was able to understand where they were all coming from, and that goes back to me feeling genuine empathy for characters while reading the manga. To me, it didn't feel like they where specifically serving the story, or that some were one-dimentional, static foils that only existed to make the main characters stand out. They all had their own problems and to me at least, none of them felt like 'missed opportunities' or 'wasted potential'; at the end of it, I was contempt and happy for all of them.

Taiyou no Ie struck a very specific cord with me, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it through. What kept me going on a sort of binge trance that made me complete the manga in less than week had to be the themes it explores and what kind of relationships it played around with. It just clicked with me.

What is this manga about?
In a few words "Taiyou no le" goes on the family values in the first place, particularly concerning different types and components of love (almost love-ABC: ~ affair, altruism, attraction, calf ~, ~ for children, ~ confession, conjugal ~,cupboard ~, domestication, empathy, fatherly ~, filial ~, first ~, ~ for friends, haunted ~, honesty, inspiring ~, marital ~, ~ message, misunderstanding, motherly ~, mutual ~, one-way ~, secretly ~, sisterly ~, sympathy, trust, undemonstrative ~, etc, including even devotion of dog to her family members).
Someone can find here something very important that can help to overcome teenage trust issues and some common domestic problems. Among similar mangas this one is less complicated and three-hankie, mainly due to absurd jokes and embarrassing situations, But this is enough indeed!

Story - 8
Is quite plain, and that's the clue to it's cuteness. In the reality XXI century is full of divorced people and abandoned children, some of them willfully escape to other families, spending time with friends and their parents, who may partly substitute the real ones. More than that I myself know more broken families, than traditional and full ones. Some of my friends were just like Mao till they've grown up and separated from their parents completely. The story line is mostly perfect for the "slice of life" genre, except for romantic line.
Some may find extra love-triangles, which may seem unnecessary. For me though it's understandable. What I dislike is reasoning. I know that love is a complicated thing and you can't love person for something, that could be listed. There should have been though some must-have small moments, some jokes that only two understand, something special and intimate, that real partners should share. I couldn't find anything like this in any pairing.

Art - 6
For me it was not the strongest point of this manga. Though the style is good enough to simplify reading and understanding, it's still schematic and plain. Nothing special, as for me. Facial expressions and body poses are not thoroughly drawn.

Character - 7
The most of the characterization is rather thin even considering included side-stories. The only well-produced are Motomiyas: Mio and - surprisingly - her father Kaitou. Even the other main character, Hiro Nakamura, is obscure. His reactions to some occurrences seem strange to me. And still it was quite simple to put myself at the place of Mao, so mangaka really have achieved the main aim, I think.

Enjoyment - 8
I had fun reading this manga and also reconsidered something in my own life. Some little imperfections didn't spoil the pleasure.

Overall - 7
Comparing to other works on the subject "Taiyou no le" can't be considered a masterpiece. It is also not a haunting work, but valuable, so I hope that this review will help myself some years later to remember, what this work is.

Hiro: 'You're the sun to me'- but sometimes the sun doesn't shine on everyone is the harsh reality Taamo shows us. House of the sun shows the complexities of a relationship, questions what love is and its justness, asked what it is to be selfish, and made me not be able to think about anything else at the time.

To put it simply House of the Sun showed everything wrong and everything right with love. The experience I had was an irreplaceable one, every stop of the way I felt as if the manga was leading me into one fatal collision after another, but I cared too much for Mao and Hiro to jump out of the way.

The very beginning of the manga was set up beautifully and made me sympathise with the main characters, the pace was if anything very slow and realistic. Although in most cases a slow pace can be sometimes daunting for a romance novel, Taamo was able to use the pace to show the complexities and the thought processes of all the characters. This led to me having a connection to the characters and made me forget about the real world as I was only be able to focus on the manga hoping everything would turn out okay.

Overall I have given this manga a 10, why? simply put because it made me cry.

Taiyou no le, also known as house of sun is an extraordinary series that I never seem to get tired of.

I've reread it almost ten times by now, and it always makes me cry either tears of happiness or tears filled with grief.

Imagine: If you had no place to belong to, you feel like no one cares about you.
Pretty horrible and devastating, right? Exactly what taiyou no le makes you feel. This manga is very beautiful anf filled with many heart-warming moments. It's more than just romance, it's a girl learning to make amends and bringing back two families together after 8 long, sad years.

Mao motomiya is a teenage girl who writes out what her life is like on her phone, and publishes it for people to view and read online. She is facing neglect from her parents, who, after splitting have not spoken to each other for years after her mom cheats on her dad.

The rest is an emotional roller coaster, actually making you feel as if you are Mao. This is a beautiful story, and I encourage you to read, this truly is an amazing piece of art.

*Review contains spoilers*

Story 9/10
I was pleasantly surprised at how nice and cute this manga was. The story does have some cliche, common plots in Shoujo, such as an age gap between main leads (which thank God wasn't made an issue at all!), highschoolers' love life, people being extremely shy about their emotions and making advancements towards the person they are interested in, main female lead being a crybaby and naive, attempted love triangles (which fortunately didn't take off)...However, the manga deals with very real and complex emotions, which is in what most of the time and focus is invested on, making you forget about the cliches and being able to be invested in the story.

I think Hiro and Mao's pairing was realistic and believable because they were friends since kids, but most importantly, they were a constant source of support for each other. I also think they were able to understand each other at a deeper level than other people could because they were each going through similar things, although their circumstances were different. I want to point out that I HATE love triangles, specially when they happen between people that are supposed to be very closed with each other (siblings, BFF's, etc)...but in this manga's case, it wasn't a pain because 1) the love triangles didn't end up happening...Mao and Hiro were very clear and stern in wanting each other, and 2) it would be understandable that both Daiki and Hiro liked Mao (Hiro because he always looked after her, taking care of her and Mao always being a support for him...they also remained together through it all since kids. And Daiki because him and Mao were the same age and spent a lot of time together both at home and a school). They both had legitimate reasons to be interested in her, but I was glad to see Daiki quickly realized the bond between Hiro and Mao and graciously stepped back.

I would have liked to see Mao's and her dad's relationship being more developed than it was. I know he resented her when she left because he was projecting the feelings for her mother onto Mao, but I am not sure why he was negligent towards her before she left. In the same manner, I feel the resolution of their conflict, which was such a big piece of the manga, was reached too quickly when there was even more things that should have been discussed/said.

Art 7/10
Well...at first the drawings looked a bit chibi/childish to me. Most of the characters looked a lot younger than they were because of the drawings. By the end of the story the drawings didn't bother me as much as it did at the beginning though.

Characters 8/10
None of them are too memorable, but I liked all characters and enjoyed each for different reasons.
Hiro: I don't understand how he was able to withstand staying at that home, by himself, being so young, when his parents died. I respect him for it and for working so hard on making his family as whole as it could be again. To be completely honest, even if his reasons were admirable, I got a bit exasperated with him making Mao wait before he told her his feelings. However, it wasn't too annoying because he did make moves towards her, though small at times. I also really liked how he always thought about what would be better for Mao, regardless of his own wishes. Another thing I really liked was how he was willing to stand Mao's cooking and messy "cleaning" just to make her feel useful and part of something.
Mao: I liked that although she was a crybaby and shy and naive, she managed to get her feelings across, ask questions when she wasn't clear and get things done. I also liked that she was honest about her feelings and didn't even try to get herself with Oda or Daiki to try to forget Hiro...she was consistent and and true to her feelings throughout the whole manga.
Daiki: I found Daiki very funny and mature for his age. There was a point where I was kind of rooting for him, or at least wouldn't have been that annoyed if Mao ended up giving him a try (because Hiro was honestly stalling for no reason when even Mao's dad gave him his blessing for a relationship with her). However, I did feel he was a bit pushy at times, which made him also somewhat creepy. I want to point out I liked him even more when he had his job warrior uniform. I think he looked really cool in it and different from his usual self and that the warrior outfit/style suited his personality better.
I thought Chihiro was really funny too, always thinking about getting physical with the boys, but specially her reaction to Mao telling her Daiki liked her.

Enjoyment 8/10
I read the whole thing in about 2 days. I am not going to say it was addictive, but I did prefer to continue reading than doing anything else. And now I will miss this story.There were no cringe worthy moments and I was sure glad that we got to see Mao and Hiro bonding and being affectionate towards each other.

Overall 7/10
I feel kind of bad because in each category I rated this manga higher than 7 (the overall for me). This is definitely a manga I would recommend reading and I was pleasantly surprised by it. The story was very straightforward and I did enjoy reading it. But I guess the reason I am giving it a 7 is because there wasn't that excitement of something major happening or the element of surprise in the developments. I felt the story remained a flat line (which isn't bad because there were no low/dull/boring moments...but likewise there was no moment were my adrenaline was high because of desperately wanting to know what would happen next). I want to note that I found this manga through MAL's list of "top 10 shoujo manga that haven't been made anime". It was number 5 I believe, but I actually think it should be higher on that list.

Enjoyment:10
Taiyou No Ie joined my top of favorites! For me, a story is only good when it causes emotions like excitement, anxiety and /or sadness and Taiyou No Ie has it all!

It's impossible not to like the story: It's simple, the relationship between Mao and Hiro is well developed and explored, it has several couples and love triangles but it's approached in a light and beautiful way without extending too much.
I really liked the author's approach to the theme of "family" - I felt so nostalgic when I saw the nakamura family all together *. * it was too beautiful.
Also, It's incredible to see the contrast of the author between the personality of her characters - who are very honest/plainspoken and daring (I love how Mao and Chihiro are quite sassy sometimes) and the warm and beautiful way the story is told.

Art: 9
At first I found the drawing of the eyes strange but Mao is so adorable that I overcame this quickly. Mao has several different looks and hairstyles and the design is very beautiful. I love the scenes on the couch too <3

This is Vince's Don't Give a Fu*k Review:
I say what i want when I want how I want so get over it. Let's be real you just want to know if this is a good read or not: It is.

This story really grabs at your feels and does a great job making you want everyone to have a happy ending. There was a great deal of character growth all around I felt and I wasn't dissatisfied with any character really. I laughed a lot in this manga and I won't lie i teared up here and there. In the end this is a very touching story of a lonely girl, a lonely boy and a lonely family separated feeling their voids and it touched my heart in all places. I'm hit the spoilers that hit my soul so to the van!

Spoilers GET TO THE VAN:

Ok so, Mao for me was a favorite character, I loved her personality and I loved the idea for her as a main character. I felt she fit the role well, I don't feel she was generic like a lot of girl characters in these types of works. Her relationship with Hiro was very interesting and it definitely built up as the story went on and it was something I enjoyed watching grow. Mao as a character going from a character that ran away from her problems to a girl who stood up and took them head on, you can't really ask for better character growth.

Hiro was a funny character, I felt he was a tad dense but he was a good character overall. I love his love for his family and wanting to bring them back together. That was one of the main feel trains that hit me especially when Hina agreed to come home.

Daiki was a very great character. He was very funny and for a short time I found myself rooting for him to get with Mao. This writer did a great job in the love triangle for the middle of the story. I wasn't too fond of it being these two, being Hiro and Daiki but it sure added tension.

Hina was a character I wish I got to see more of but her being the last to come home didn't give her much time to have spotlight sadly.

Chihiro and Oda were another HUGE feel train. I was actually more into them than I was Hiro and Mao for a good while in the manga. I was super happy when they got together. Their characters themselves were great characters as well. But the only problem I had was I wish I got to see more of them. Double date that shit bro.

Mao's dad, obviously he suppose to be hated but this guy did a complete 180 and you gotta give him some credit man. That was the final straw for me and I knew I was gonna need some tissues and some feel train passes for the next few days. He went from dead beat to actual father and thats something anyone in Mao's position can pray for.

I did call out Mao was Sotomi who was Kyuukai and I did know he was going to read her book in like chapter 3 it was obvious but obvious isn't bad at all. Sometimes it adds more tension and I didn't see many flaws in this writing nor did I see much problems if anything I learned more about writing and storytelling reading this story.

Overall, I can't fu*king wait for this to be an anime. That is all

I don't disrespect anyone who had a different opinion. We all have our genres, and the titles we love. I don't have a degree in English or Literature nor do I have any published work. I'm just a guy that likes anime who just wants to speak his mind. I hoped this helped

What makes this manga so special from other shoujou mangas, is also what makes it loveable and worth reading : its realistic characters.
It's a story about a high schooler who felt like she didn't belong anywhere anymore, so she lives with her childhood friend who's 7 years older than her. Together, each one work hard and struggles to re live the ties of their own family, while they both have a hard past.
The romance between the two was excuted well; it wasn't rushed nor too slow, just the perfect pace to make it seem realistic at its best.
The characters didn't make irrational and unlogical decisions, actually all of their decisions were well thought and had a reason behind them.
Overall, i enjoyed this manga to the point where I finished it in one day. A very cute, fluffy read.

I'm not sure if anyone will read this but for the last few years, i've always silently enjoyed reading romance stories. There was never really a reason like being lonely or bored, i was simply in love with the concept of love. For even longer than that though i have not been able to cry. I think a lot of people have never noticed what a massive stress reliever crying can be and once i lost the ability, there where a lot of things i realised about my life. When my aunt died, i was extremely upset about losing her. I was mortified however that i couldn't cry over losing one of the nicest people in my life. After that is when i became conscious of it and since then, i haven't cried. Sure, my eyes can water when they stay open too long but it is not the same and just like that, i lost my biggest natural stress reliever.

This story made a single tear fall from both my eyes. This may not seem like much to the people who are able to cry but to me it was close to a miracle. I loved this story. I created an account for this site just to comment on this story. There are so many subtle undertones in this story that really makes it shine. Tragic past, hope, salvation, love, confusion and helplessness. To me, that is the perfect plot line for an overly cliche and overly dramatic story but this work that is portrayed realistically and enjoyably made it something that could move me to tears which is something I have been hoping to happen for far too long.

When i was able to feel the tears rolling down my cheeks, i sat there till they dried, doing nothing. That feeling... the feeling that so many people are use to as a natural part of life... was probably the most amazing thing that has happened to me in years. I just want anyone who happens upon this review to realise how amazing this story was to me and by extension, i hope to you too. I know i ranted and said more than necessary but... please give this story a chance and enjoy it hole-heartedly for it is truly an amazing story.