Machi de Uwasa no Tengu no Ko

sardonic: Kuragehime's great, isn't it? But what about Nodame Cantabile? Or Kimi wa Pet? Also topnotch josei series . . . also kind of unusual by josei standards.

What a great manga! I hope DOTR can bring us more chapters :-)

Translations from the first groups who did this totally put me off with this series...
But it's gotten better now with the new group.

This and Kuragehime are probably my favourite josei series.

It's got a very relaxed pace and an almost slice-of-life feel with a light supernatural side to it. The artwork is simple and feels a little old-school, but being a josei, it's nowhere near as flowery as any shoujo. There's a colourful cast of characters that get a healthy share of the limelight and each have their own side relationships. The supporting cast, however, never wrenches the spotlight away from the two main characters, Akihime and Shun.

Akihime is pretty much a normal high school girl, save for the fact that she's the daughter of a tengu and has super strength. She's easy to understand, pretty likable, and is not annoying or over-the-top. On the other hand, her childhood friend and the male lead, Shun, who doesn't ever seem to smile, is blunt and can come off as a little rude, but he is in no way a terrible guy; he helps Akihime when she needs him, no matter the situation, and really, is actually a pretty good guy. He's nowhere near Jerkass-level in terms of personality. Shun is easily my favourite character and also the one I find most intriguing. He's hard to read (this is more prevalent in later volumes) -- we don't ever know exactly what he's thinking and the only clues or guesses we have to his thoughts are through Akihime's POV, which, even then, may not be completely accurate.

As for the romance, it's very slow, but more realistic. Akihime's smitten with Takeru in the beginning, but it's fairly obvious that her main love interest is Shun. However, the development between the two leads is so slow and gradual that Their relationship is one of the highlights of this manga.

tl;dr:
It's a good series with likable characters and slow but believable romantic development between the two main characters.

Some misc. info:
- Machi de Uwasa no Tengu no Ko won the Shogakukan manga award in the shoujo category in 2009 (it's still a josei series, though)
- In Japan, Volume 9 was released in April; the series is still being serialized in Flowers, a monthly josei magazine.

I agree with "Purple Library Guy", it has a nice cozy feeling to it.

This is interesting. It's got the supernatural element, but it's kind of easy-going--the style is almost more like a slice-of-life sort of thing (not quite--it does a lot of the shoujo girl-in-love plot bits, but sort of gently). The combination works rather well IMO.