Is Lovely Complex Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Overview

Lovely Complex — published in English as "Love Com" — is a shojo romantic comedy by Aya Nakahara. Risa Koizumi is a girl who's much taller than average; Atsushi Otani is a guy who's much shorter. Their class treats them as a comedy duo, they bicker constantly, and of course they slowly fall for each other. That's the whole hook, and the book knows it. What makes Lovely Complex stand out isn't the premise but how funny and warm it manages to be while running that premise into the ground.

What it does well

The comedy is the headline, and it actually works. Nakahara has real timing, and the constant back-and-forth between Risa and Otani — much of it in fast Osaka dialect — gives the book a rhythm most romance comics never find. It's the rare shojo that will make you laugh out loud rather than just smile.

Risa carries all of it. She's loud, dramatic, and wears every feeling on her face, and the book is smart to keep her as the narrator. You're inside her head for her crushes, her jealousy, and her dumb schemes, and she's likeable enough that you stay invested through a very long story. Otani is a good foil — dense, proud, and slowly won over — and the two of them have genuine chemistry, which matters a lot when the central question is "will they or won't they" stretched across the whole series.

That chemistry is why the long run mostly works. A romcom built on one couple lives or dies on whether you want to spend time with them, and here you do. Even when the plot recycles a setup, the leads make it watchable.

Where it falls short

The art is the obvious weak point. It's rough and simple, especially in the early volumes, and it never grows into anything you'd read the book for. If clean, detailed shojo art matters to you, this isn't it.

The premise is also thin by design, and you feel it over a long series. The story leans on the same engine — a misunderstanding, a fight, a reconciliation — more than once, and a few stretches sag because of it. This is comfort-food comedy, and when the jokes aren't landing, there isn't a lot of plot underneath to fall back on.

Verdict

Judge Lovely Complex as a romantic comedy and it's one of the best the genre has — fast, funny, and anchored by a couple you actually enjoy. Judge it on art or plot complexity and it comes up short. If you want a shojo that makes you laugh and roots hard for its leads, the rough edges are easy to forgive. It's a great pick when you want something light that still has a real heart.