[Thanks to Netgalley and Kodansha for an advance copy of this manga in exchange for an unbiased review.]

[No thanks to the other user here, Samriddhi S, who brazenly copied half my review, changed some words, and acted like it was theirs.]

A boy goes to a school to find a girl whose music program he used to enjoy before she disappeared on him. In so doing, he encounters a quartet of cute girls who are all pursuing vocal careers. A mystery is afoot!

While pretty much cut from the most basic of cloth - the shy one, the tsundere, the ditzy one, the forward one - the girls in this story are at least easy to pick out from a visual perspective and they are certainly attractive for the target audience.

And that’s, unfortunately, where my compliments for this series will grind to a halt.

I don’t hate harem stories; I loved the mystery aspect of <i>Quintessential Quintuplets</i>, which feels most like this one, and it had some good moments. <i>Tying the Knot With An Amagami Sister</i> is inconsistent but has just killed some of its story arcs. I even enjoyed portions of <i>We Never Learn</i>.

For as much as we complain about the boring potato self-insert males that dominate these stories, they’re a thousand times more tolerable than Yamabuki, who starts obnoxious and remains obnoxious.

He busts in talking about how great he is and how much money he makes and basically just strong arms the girls into letting him realize their hopes and dreams because he thinks they suck.

Oh, it’s framed differently, but you can tell that the angle here is how completely not capable these poor girls would be without this superhero swooping in to save the day. Except he’s a jerk.

It takes a lot of gumption to make your females the most interesting characters and then give all your agency to the uncharismatic bozo who will bounce off them in various romantic entanglements until the big reveal.

And the vague reality of this series makes exactly no sense. This mystery girl ran a broadcast, but they talked? It didn’t appear to be a phone-in show, so what the heck was it? How did they ever share words? It’s just pure nonsense and a mystery that has no reason to be ongoing except it will make the series last longer.

Also, I absolutely refuse to believe that any high school in Japan has outfits like that for its female students. This is just adolescent male fantasy that’s as erudite as a watercress salad and about as filling.

2.5 stars - a very generous half star because the girls deserve better. But I wouldn’t ever tune in for a second volume of this without a major tune up.

Furin High School has finally become co-ed, merging the Furin Girls and Boys high schools into one. Arisu Yamabuki finds this to be a boon in his favor since he is looking for a specific voice from the girls of his school. In middle school, every night he listened to a radio show podcast ran by a girl that called herself “Apollo”. However, three years ago she stopped broadcasting and deleted all her shows off the internet entirely, leaving behind not a trace. Yamabuki must find this voice within the crowds so that he may finally reveal something to her.

#ThxNetGalley #MasakuniIgarashi #TuneIntotheMidnightHeart

I enjoyed the art style and the main story was pretty interesting and kept me interested. I had a hard time liking the main character and could do with how sexualized some of the characters were. It was a okay read, I might keep going. Thank you for the early copy.

A boy's quest to find a mysterious girl whose music program he once enjoyed leads him to a new school, where he encounters a quartet of aspiring vocalists. As he delves deeper, a mystery unfolds.

While the girls' character archetypes - the shy one, the tsundere, the airheaded one, and the forward one - may be familiar and visually distinct, they unfortunately feel like tropes rather than fully fleshed-out characters. Their appeal is largely superficial, catering to the target audience's expectations.

Regrettably, this is where my praise for the series ends. Despite its promising premise, the execution falls short, relying on overly familiar character molds rather than meaningful development.