Love Agency had a difficult road to walk as the followup to the legendary romcom Kaguya from the esteemed author Aka Akasaka. It made a rough first impression with a convoluted premise and jokes that didnt quite land. At the time I kept up with it for a few chapters before dropping it disappointed that one of my favorite mangaka seemed to be phoning it in. I was wrong. Once it finished and I got around to binging it I found myself unable to stop reading it. Love Agency is a hilarious and heartfelt romantic comedy and while its not at the heights of its predecessor its a worthwhile series in its own right. 220https://i.ur.com/BFCToBr.png Comparisons to Kaguya will be constant throughout this review and its not just because Love Agency stands within Kaguyas shadow the context permeating how 99 of people will approach Love Agency. Love Agencys approach to love and romcom writing is thematically in response to Kaguya. Kaguya was a cerebral series full of chapters built around some psychological principle or otherwise analytical way of looking at relationships. Love Agency does the same thing but through the premise of love coaching and its through the framing of it as coaching that Aka says something about analytical looks at love. Our two protagonists Mari and Seki like each other but are held back from confessing by their personal flaws or hangups. Rather than overthink and manipulate they each hire the services from the titular Love Agency getting an assistant that will coach them through an earpiece on how to get the other to fall in love with them all the way down to exactly what to say in conversation. Maris assistant is Kon a beautiful girl who seems to be experienced in love yet lives as a shutin. Sekis assistant is Pon a large and seeminglyconfident man whose understanding of relationships comes more from books and study. Kon and Pon which are their nicknames are not just coworkers but rivals yet they dont know the other is coaching the same relationship. The structure of the first several chapters is that Mari and Seki interact but both are being fed lines by Kon and Pon constructing false personas meant to appeal perfectly to the other. The problem with this structure is that its unwieldy its asking you to follow four internal threads that dont quite fit in a single conversation much less in a manga chapter. Because of this the characters also dont get enough time at first to stand out which has the domino effect of making it feel like the manga cares more about its gimmicky premise than it does the characters. Rest assured this is not the case. But compare that to Kaguya: It asked you to follow two internal threads not four during each conversation. The third major character explicitly was not written with an internal thread and started out as a device to cause drama in the main two before being fleshed out further. The fourth main character wasnt introduced until a while later. The premise was much easier to latch onto. But the thing thats easy to forget is that Kaguyas first several chapters arent very good. Like lets be real. I have a lot of nostalgia for them but it took Aka a bit to cook. At the time I assumed this was because Aka was still growing as a writer. But with Love Agency as a second data point in how he writes romcoms I think the answer is something else: It takes some time to experiment with characters before you figure out what dynamics have the most potential. Both Kaguya and Love Agency start by playing their premises straight but grow into something more character driven. In Kaguyas case it still stuck with the concept of manipulation games to try and force the other to confess for a long time. It was a better structure dont get me wrong and one that an author could get a lot out of. In Love Agencys case it quickly moves on from chapters where both Kon and Pon are coaching Mari and Seki in the same conversation and we have to follow that because it turned out that simply didnt work very well. That does not however mean that Love Agency wastes or abandons its premise to write more generic slice of life interactions like some other romcoms I can think of. Because not only do Mari and Seki not know the other is being coached but Kon and Pon dont know their rival is coaching the other member of that duo. So what happens when Seki and Kon start talking? What happens when Mari and Pon develop a relationships? Do Kon and Pon have feelings for people and how does that play into things? Does who each character likes change? The web grows wider and wider involving side characters as well. It starts playing with chapters where one character talks about their crush and another character makes the wrong assumption about who that crush is on perhaps they even assume its on themself. Written by Aka chapters like that can be gutwrenchingly hilarious and were what made me admit I was really enjoying this manga. It builds to emotionally satisfying reveals where a secret coming out also allows one characters view about love to influence another. One of the best parts of Kaguya and Akas character writing is the detailed relationships. Take any pair of main characters in Kaguya: They have a unique dynamic when alone together that doesnt come out in a larger group. What they can be open about and what they cant depends upon that specific relationship. In Kaguya this was used to bring the characters to life and write fun chapters. But Love Agency feels like it took that same quality of relationship writing and made it core to the story. The stakes depend upon each unique dynamic between the main cast and whether other characters learn that those dynamics exist. Its the main thing you read the series for and the premise allows for it perfectly of course Kon and Pon cant let the paramours of their clients know theyre involved. Of course Mari and Seki struggle with what sides of themselves they can show to others when theyve constructed such false personas. The art sells these situations for the most part. Personally Im sad that Aka has given up on drawing manga and only writes it. Because perhaps his most underrated skill was his fantastic comedic paneling. Aka perfectly understands how to use paneltopanel pacing through panel size and shape and count to deliver jokes. Jokes are all about delivery after all. 5mm Nishizawa is not quite up to that task at least at first. There are points where something is meant to be communicated but the paneling fails to put the focus on the information the reader needs to be conscious of and thus it becomes confusing. But either I got used to their style or they improved at executing it because these situations stopped bothering me as it went on. There are punchline panels that felt like they could have been done by Aka which I consider the highest of praise for a comedy. Stylistically Aka relies heavily on narration as usual. I am firmly of the belief that Aka knows how to narrate without it being tellinginsteadofshowing but the line is definitely a bit fuzzy and sometimes its not done as well as it could be. At its best it helps him create the tone of overthetop reality that he goes for but there are a few moments where it does feel like a crutch to get some characterization across. Yet quick and straightforward characterization does ultimately fit its identity as a comedy series that wants to make sure character traits are clear to everyone such that the comedy that plays with them will land. The main appeal to the characters is the relationships and the absurd situations. The characters are more interesting than the first few chapters give them credit for Sekis funniest bits come in later and Kon and Pon are actual fleshedout characters. But in general they arent going to stick with you emotionally for years. Theyre just extremely good vehicles for absurd situations that make for funny chapters. If the series was longer it might have been able to do more with them. I dont think it needed to be a 200+ chapter behemoth like Kaguya but it did need another volume or two. Some characters are explored enough. One character gets a backstory that could have dug deeper yet the manga ends before it had the time to explore it and is forced to skip past it. Another character never gets a backstory or deeper look at all and it feels like wasted potential. There are also a number of side characters who feel like they could have been straight out of Kaguya and I really wanted to see more with. Yet we dont even get a note of what happened to them as an epilogue. Despite the rushed ending this is a series I enjoyed almost all of my time with. It didnt let me take a break from binging it and gave me enough laughs that I have to call it an 8/10. Maybe Ill lower that to a 7 after sitting on it if the incompleteness of the characters bothers me more but almost every moment I had with it was positive. I enjoyed my journey with the characters. Because it didnt just rest on the laurels of its premise milking absurd drama of who knows what about who loves who. By the end of the story I came to care about all of the characters as genuine friends the connections they built were truly the treasure they found along the way. Love Agency is a response to Kaguya in its core thesis. As said near the start of the review Kaguya was a cerebral series that looked at love in analytical ways. There was nothing wrong with this it was well aware that the logical angle was used as an emotional defense mechanism by its characters. But it was still a series that reveled in its analysis. And thats what Love Agency pokes fun at. By breaking the two halves of the premise into two seeminglydistinct sides the clients and the consultants it says something about the difference between romance as logic and romance as feeling. After all in spite of their genuinelyinsightful expertise Kon is a shutin and Pon hasnt experienced a relationship himself. Are emotional logicians the best people to listen to when it comes to love? Its like Aka is poking fun at his own writing style. Poking fun at the idea of understanding love from a distance. Embracing it because it is fun to write that way while also reminding us that theres something more. I was worried Love Agency would be a lazy followup to Kaguya. Instead it was the perfect one.