Koharu no Hibi has an interesting concept on the surface- a guy hooks up with a seemingly-sweet girl who turns out to be a creepy Stalker with a Crush. However, the series ultimately squanders this concept through its Fatal Flaw of indecision- it cannot decide whether to play Koharu's stalking and related behaviors as realistically creepy, or cute and romantic. Several times, Koharu will do something creepy and it's clearly framed as such at first, only for the manga to turn it into a gag and forget it happened so it can go back to framing Koharu as some sort of ideal romance heroine. This despite her doing things like having a Stalker Shrine or gluing her hand with male lead Akira's.
For example, in Chapters 18 and 19, Koharu sexually assaults Akira's childhood friend Maki, by kissing her so she can 'steal back' Akira's first kiss, driving Miki to tears, and they all basically forgive her for itin the next chapter and the rest of the story forgets it ever happened so it can have Koharu marry Akira and raise their daughter to be just like her. Way to go, story- you finally had the chance to do something interesting, and you throw it away, in the process brushing off a crime as heinous as sexual assault and making poor Miki fall victim to the “Childhood Friend always loses” curse despite the story itself pointing out that Miki actually loves Akira as a person while Koharu is merely Loving a Shadow. And this makes it impossible for me to consider the ending a happy one despite it being portrayed as such.
In short: you can do a cute Slice of Life romance that romanticizes a stalker, OR a psychological thriller that treats the stalker as a dead serious villain (see Momokuri and Ijousha No Ai for those respective concepts done right), but not both at the same time without causing some serious tonal dissonance.
Manga A lot of potential, ruined by indecision
Koharu no Hibi has an interesting concept on the surface- a guy hooks up with a seemingly-sweet girl who turns out to be a creepy Stalker with a Crush. However, the series ultimately squanders this concept through its Fatal Flaw of indecision- it cannot decide whether to play Koharu's stalking and related behaviors as realistically creepy, or cute and romantic. Several times, Koharu will do something creepy and it's clearly framed as such at first, only for the manga to turn it into a gag and forget it happened so it can go back to framing Koharu as some sort of ideal romance heroine. This despite her doing things like having a Stalker Shrine or gluing her hand with male lead Akira's.
For example, in Chapters 18 and 19, Koharu sexually assaults Akira's childhood friend Maki, by kissing her so she can 'steal back' Akira's first kiss, driving Miki to tears, and they all basically forgive her for it in the next chapter and the rest of the story forgets it ever happened so it can have Koharu marry Akira and raise their daughter to be just like her. Way to go, story- you finally had the chance to do something interesting, and you throw it away, in the process brushing off a crime as heinous as sexual assault and making poor Miki fall victim to the “Childhood Friend always loses” curse despite the story itself pointing out that Miki actually loves Akira as a person while Koharu is merely Loving a Shadow. And this makes it impossible for me to consider the ending a happy one despite it being portrayed as such.
In short: you can do a cute Slice of Life romance that romanticizes a stalker, OR a psychological thriller that treats the stalker as a dead serious villain (see Momokuri and Ijousha No Ai for those respective concepts done right), but not both at the same time without causing some serious tonal dissonance.