A Way To Your Heart
| Original review author: | LMae |
| Webcomic name: | A Way To Your Heart |
| Author: | Emily Muto |
| Start Date: | 2002 |
| End Date: | February 6, 2021. The author claims she intends to resume this webcomic |
| Genre: | Romance, drama |
| Defining Flaw: | Dry, predicable plot and characters who are evil for no good reason |
Rating Summary
| Art: | 
Shockingly good for manga, and the addition of color helps. Disappointingly though the characters suffer from sameface syndrome. |
| Storyline: |
The author tries, but the story is all too predictable. |
| Characters: |
Some characters suddenly become bad guys for no credible reason. |
| Miscellaneous Details: |
The author attempts to make the story less predictable, but fails. |
| Overall: |
This could have been a contender with more facial variety and a better storyline. |
Background:
4 years ago, I saw a reward listed on BWW forum for the poor sap who reviews this comic. This peaked my interest and I decided to check it out. I had to find out what crime this web comic committed for someone to put up a wanted ad for it. I later discerned that A Way to Your Heart was a dead average comic and had difficulty writing a review for it. So here is my revise attempt from all those years ago.
Story and Plot:
This shoujo manga is about a self conscious girl named Yumi, who transfers into a prep school. Our protagonist is a kind-hearted klutz and in typical shoujo fashion, she crashes into the boy of her dreams. She profusely apologizes but soon regrets it when Mr. Sexy dumps her textbooks onto her head and decks a fan before making an exit.
As suddenly as she arrives, her hopes for a brighter future shatters. Yumi soon discovers that the school hosts a Kei band named Orochi and she plowed into the band's emotionally unstable lead singer, Miyabi. Despite his nasty behavior everyone puts up with it and asks Yumi to do the same. Yumi meets and falls for Orochi's drummer Toshio. He invites her to go to their concert and tells her to ignore Miyabi's threats. Yumi shows up in full kei makeup, but no one recognizes her, and of course Miyabi falls for her alter ego. Then Miyabi finds out that mystery girl is Yumi and rebounds with his band manager's spoiled daughter Yayoi. The rest of the story is about the main character being bullied and attacked by a potential school stabber, while trying to form new friendships with those around her. A Way To Your Heart is Beauty and the Beast except with teenage melodrama and boys with ridiculous hair.
Art review:
As for the art, it is decent for your run of the mill shoujo manga. The lack of backgrounds and over reliance on stock pattern is something that I am use to in this genre. Yet, I was disappointed that the majority of the characters shared the same facial features no matter their age, race, or gender. This got very confusing and awkward at times. Over the years the artist improved her work quite a bit. Her inks became more cleaner and confident. Recently, the artist renders her webcomic in color and converted the panels into a Webtoon format.
Writing Review:
A Way to Your Heart is boring. Or that is what I wrote 5 years ago. After re reading this webcomic, I find the story entertaining in a cheap drama way. The author tries to build suspense and throw in misdirection but the plot is very predictable. I already knew how the story was going to end a few chapters into the webcomic. What kept me going was my rage and fascination for the antagonist. Miyabi just decks people left and right without any consequence. He should be in jail for assault and theft. Or at the very least his manager should be forced to pay out hush money to all the people he assaults in this comic. But no, pardon poor Miyabi, he is just a talented guy going through a hard time. Never mind that this twat steals a family heirloom from Yumi, after she says hello to him. I kept reading to find out if our bland heroine will eventually stand up for herself. And she actually did. Told him off one day, and she continued to call him out whenever he mess up without fear. This was very satisfying to read. Later she even learns martial arts after Miyabi's ex girlfriend, Yayoi choked her out. We will get to that. That being said I do like the growth of the main character and the antagonist.
The author made a decent attempt at writing them, but the antagonist's reason for his intense hatred for our female lead was dumb. He hates bland girl because she reminds him of his dearly departed mother. Now one would think by how this guy flies into a blind rage whenever he sees this girl, his mother must have been a monster. Too bad this isn't the case. He loves his mom and she was a lovely woman who died too soon. So why does Oedipus here wants to beat up a girl who is closest living incarnation to his dead mom? He is afraid that Yumi is going to replace her? Your mother was a well-known and beloved singer, get out of here! Even other characters in the plot do not understand it. The author has trouble with character motivation. A couple of love interests becomes evil for plot convenience and this gets annoying. Miyabi and rebound girl are together? No we can't have that. The author could have Miyabi break her up with her, normally. They had nothing in common and Miyabi admitted for using her for sex. Or she could have Yayoi's "overprotective" father step in sooner and ship her off back to Ukraine after he found out about them having sex, despite her fragile medical condition. Except the author made Yayoi overly clingy and vindictive towards Yumi. It got to a point, where Yayoi has a seizure after seeing Yumi standing next to Miyabi at a concert. Then Yayoi decides she needs to chock a b*tch and gets deported back to Ukraine after trying to kill Yumi in a girl's bathroom. However this is not enough, so for good measure the author kills off Yayoi to make sure the ship is dead. Apparently, Yayoi got knocked up by Miyabi and decided to have his child, even after being told she will die from complications. RIP knock off Misa Misa, your death was for a good cause.
Meanwhile, Yumi is dating Toshio and they are happy together. Nope. Not anymore. What kills me is that Tosho was the second band member she met, and he was the first to apologize for Miyabi's behavior. Through out the story Yumi and Toshio had a solid relationship. The guy forgave her when she thought he raped her while she was knocked out on cough medicine.
In truth, she actually started her period and Yayoi who was asked to change her clothes intentionally did not leave her a note out of jealousy.
Then when Miyabi warms up to Yumi, Toshio becomes an overprotected and aggressive boyfriend. What is strange for all the times in this story Miyabi got physical with him and Yumi, Toshio never punched him out. He only pulled him aside and asked him to stop.
But now when the conflict between Yumi and Miyabi is mostly resolved, Toshio decides to start wailing on him after a goodbye kiss. Forcing, Yumi with her newly form martial art skills to take her fiancee out. She ends their relationship because of his temper. Toshio realizes he messed up and Yumi no longer needs him to protect her anymore. So he hooks up with some woman with an abusive ex husband. Said ex husband almost stabs them in the park but guess who comes to their rescue. Yumi-chan takes a knife to the back for him. They almost kiss but Yumi still loves Miyabi.
She and Miyabi marries and Yumi mothers another woman's child. What a story.
Conclusion:
Overall, A Way to Your Heart is a painfully average webcomic. It is filled with trivial drama but everything is so predictable that it gets tiring to read at times.
Links:
- Official webcomic site.
- Tapas - if you prefer to read it there.
- Kindle - if you like ebooks.
- Artist interview - for more info on the artist.
- Artist's DeviantArt account. No updates since 2015.
