Evergreen is a story about two very different people. One is the manga club president at their high school in Japan, and the other is the school beauty. The club president, Yoshimatsu Hotaka, has suffered his whole life with a congenital heart defect. This has prevented him from participating in sports and caused upheavals in his personal life. The school beauty is Awaya Niki, for whom Hotaka holds a torch as he watches her from the club room window that overlooks the pool facilities.
Hotaka can't take part in physical activities due to his health problems. That is fine as obviously you don't want him to risk his life. The coach has a problem with this though. Not that he wants him to take phys ed classes, but that he thinks that Hotaka hiding is not healthy for him in other ways. So he wants Hotaka to take one swim class to pass his course.
Hotaka agrees, but then is horrified when Niki shows up and sees his skinny, sickly form, and even his scar from the surgery that occurred years before the story begins. When his crush goes out of her way to help him, he is shocked and feel so put-out, he treats her badly.
This leads to some really bad thoughts for our protagonist. Thankfully, some other issues and revelations intervene that may bring together these two. They may just have more in common than he thinks...
This was a sweet, but hard manga to read. I kept being afraid the author would have something bad happen to Hotaka. I mean, logically, I know that it isn't that genre, but I understand that in Toradora there is some sad tearjerker stuff before the good ending at the end.
Also hard to read is the Japanese cultural views towards honor, blame, status, and so on, with families. I might be jumping to conclusions, because such hurt when someone dies is not unheard of, but the way that Hotaka's mother and her family act towards the dead father and his family is reminiscent of how folks act sometimes on such health issues. Especially towards those unable to "contribute" to society.
Of course, this is changing, as the school authorities show in-story by being so nice. While there are some jerkass young people, most are typical high school bullies and cliquish bull-shit. The students seem to be, by and large, nice to Hotaka. So this isn't a huge part of the story, except for, if it is that behind this, with some of the older generation.
The characters around our two protagonists are hilarious in their interplay. I can really say that if a possible romance occurs, it will be wonderfully interesting as well.
The artwork was gorgeous. It wasn't the surreal, water-coloresque style of, say, Sailor Moon, but it was still wonderfully vivid and compelling. Kinda like that of Dragonar Academy, for instance.
Wonderful stuff with some good themes on kindness and understanding. I haven't explored all of the possible (if I'm not reading too much into things) themes, really.
Highly Recommended.