Review

Otogi, who is scheming and determined, has decided to create a persona for herself as the perfect, beautiful girl: always polite and kind, always gorgeous. She’s called the “heartthrob angel”, for the way boys fall in love with her at first sight. But then she meets Toki. He’s also new at school, beautiful and kind, and everyone’s besotted with him. A chance encounter reveals that he, like her, is a lot tougher and rougher under the surface than he appears. Could Otogi be starting to catch feelings?

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I don’t read a lot of manga, but what I have read, I’ve enjoyed (e.g. Spy x Family and Library Wars). So I thought I’d try this one because I liked the cute cover, and it was available to read straight away on NetGalley, which I’m trying out.

I loved Coco Uzuki’s charming art style, especially all the expressive eyes and beautiful swirly hair, and the premise of two ‘perfect’ students who are really hiding tougher inner selves is intriguing.

However, I think a lot of questions were left unanswered, even considering that this is just the first volume of a series. For example, why are Otogi and Toki so determined to hide behind their perfect personas? Even if we can’t know that yet for Toki, I think that, as the narrative is from Otogi’s perspective, we could benefit from some earlier hints about her motivation. I’d also like to know more about Otogi so I can feel invested in her—without that, it’s hard to care about her romantic choices. Also, I didn’t find the ‘tough’ inner selves of either character particularly tough, steely or ruthless, which would have given the narrative more punch.

Thanks to Kodansha Comics for the early release review copy via NetGalley.

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Uzuki, C. (2025). Fall in love, you false angels, vol(1). Kodansha.

Images are used on this blog post under the “Fair dealing for criticism or review” provision of the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968.