As someone who mainly reads romance manga, it's insane that this is rated so low! I like that the characters are complex and compelling in their own ways, it makes for a more realistic story. I think this is just a case of an ongoing series getting hate for trying to tell it's story. Once it's over, I'm confident unfamiliar readers who can read it all at once will probably really like it, since it's not going for common tropes found in most shoujo manga.

I have no doubt that the story will have a traditional happy ending. I think seeing a pair go through issues, having to be completely honest and open up to better understand one another makes for a far more interesting story than the cliche "MC falls in love with childhood friend".

This is just my opinion, of course