Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher VIZ Media for a  free digital ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. 
I ended up DNFing this manga at 34% through because although the art was lovely, the story was really falling flat for me. It centered around a very basic love triangle where the guy was childhood best friends with the main character and they maybe harbor "secret" feelings for each other and the popular gyaru girl that everyone calls "Body-Ko" to objectify her. The will-they-won't-they slow burn that I think this story was trying to achieve between the guy and the girl was so repetitive and I didn't care at all for their friendship or relationship. I think their characters and relationship wasn't developed enough for me to be invested in them, and they just were bad friends to each other in general. I did like the fashion school setting because Ai Yazawa is great at drawing outfits, so that was a plus. 
The misogyny and objectification of women in this book was just too icky for me, from like every single character. The way the women changed themselves physically to appeal to the guy weirded me out, and him acting like being a "nice guy" who doesn't like girls wearing makeup makes him the ideal man. Also, just weird comments about how "boys shouldn't have piercings anyway!," like okay... 
Ai Yazawa also isn't beating the cultural appropriation allegations with depictions of TWO non-Black characters in this manga wearing Black hairstyles (Mariko's brother wearing locs and Mikako wearing an afro in the color pages in the back of the book). Past iffy behaviors include, but surely aren't limited to, Hachi's sister in Nana and occasionally depicting Junko's design in racist caricatured ways in the anime and manga. 
Overall, the attitudes and depictions of sexuality and gender feel so cisheteronormative, and I just expected more. I was not the audience for this.