Karuho Shiina’s Kimi ni Todoke began in Bessatsu Margaret in 2007 and finished on 25 December 2015 at chapter 156, collected in 16 volumes. Sawako Kuronuma is treated as a horror-film figure because of her dark hair and stiff expression, and her classmates avoid meeting her eyes.
Shota Kazehaya is the one person who treats her as an ordinary classmate. What keeps the book being read is that it refuses to hurry what happens next. Clearing up a misunderstanding takes volumes, and making friends and admitting to a feeling are drawn as two separate climbs. It also pays attention to where Sawako’s habit of speaking about herself apologetically came from, and how that habit pushes people away.
Because the story is really about a person who cannot get her words out learning to say them, the small conversations hold longer than the confessions. Sixteen volumes, complete, with animated and live-action adaptations.
