4/5✨

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!!

This slice of life romance manga tells us the story of Mizuha, who we meet firstly in her older self just before she starts to remember her youth years. Her four childhood friends called Airu, Shin, Shuugo and Kizuki will be introduced more deeply while the story goes on.

It’s a refreshing teen story with a sweet childhood friends to lovers trope and very likeable characters shown with beautiful illustrations. It has quite funny and beautiful moments between the friend group itself and Mizuha with her love interests; moments which will make your heart flutter for the boys and their determination to make Mizuha like them. Mizuha herself is an interesting protagonist. She’s the only girl in the friend group but she doesn’t desire to receive special treatment for it. Mizuha is a genuine person who wants the best for everyone and doesn’t hesitate to encourage people around her to be the best version of themselves and not let their dreams slip away. We are not given much information about the boys but I’m sure their personalities will be throughout the story.

In conclusion, I would totally recommend this story mostly to teenagers and sweet & innocent romance fans. It’s so easy to read and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next part and meet a little more these characters.

In manga the first thing I look at are the drawings and I really like those of this author. The plot is interesting and I'm curious to see how it will develop in the next volumes!
Recommended for those who love the genre.

I really liked this romance (meet sports) manga ! It's a bit like the best of both world to marry romance and sports that way. The drawing were just gorgeous, the story simple yet effective and I really liked the guy group dynamics. The main character isn't very assertive, but still not too naive either. I'll really be looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

When Mizuha confesses her feelings to a classmate on her 17th birthday, they aren't reciprocated. Later, she finds out her childhood friend has a crush on her when he wishes she were his girlfriend. Mizuha toys with the idea of what it would mean to date one of her best friends, while still holding on to feelings for her crush. Cute shojo manga.

Thank you for the ARC copy!! OMG I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS MANGA SO MUCH AND CANNOT WAIT FOR VOLUME 2!!! She better end up with Kizuki officially and Saito better back off 🤺
This volume was absolutely cute and made me smile and laugh a lot and I really enjoyed the dynamic between all the characters!
I also love how this had swimming involved and I love how she loves to draw!! The romance in terms of who the ML was obvious but I really loved it!!

Once again, thank you for the ARC!

Such a nice and cheerful read. I can not wait for the second volume!
Sadly I could not remember any names, but I liked the plot and the drawing style. The plot is quite simple and nothing u did not see before. There is this girl who has a group of friends and they are all very close since childhood. One of her friends decides to confess his feelings to her and from here the story starts being even more cute.
Thank you for the arc!

This series has a couple of things going for it. For one, it's current. It's set in 2020 and mentions the pandemic. Big events that might normally have been chapters are getting canceled, and the students have to cope with that. The main draw will probably be the romance, though.

I'll be interested what happens in later volumes, because the general setup reminds me of a reverse-harem with a group of childhood friends. One guy has already confessed to the only lady in the group. This changing relationship with one childhood friend could have carried the series, so, step up, other guys! Let me know why you're a character in this series! Are you all in love with her? Are some of you in love with each other? I have to know!

ARC Copy...I thought the guy's advances were abit on the forceful side but someone the rest of the courtship turn out to be and innocent plus feeling what the awkward female friend is thinking as she is coming of age is interesting.

I can't wait to continue reading this in volume 2! The story was well written and continued to keep my attention throughout. The artwork was very well drawn also. Having the story set during the pandemic was interesting to read also.

This is a pretty solid first volume for a manga about high school love.

I did wish that the characters were more fleshed out. Especially the side characters. We are supposed to believe that our main female character has been best friends with a group of 4 boys since childhood, but we don't get to know the ones that seemingly don't have a crush on her.

I also felt that even though the characters were in their 2nd year (or junior year in the States) of high school, the situations that they got into (and the positions they would end up in) were very mature and suggestive. I was a bit uncomfortable because I'm an adult reading about teenagers that ended up in suggestive positions.

I would be curious about where more of the story is going to go, especially since it appears we might get a more complicated plot soon.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Gracias Netgalley por el envío de una copia avanzada a cambio de una reseña honesta.

Los enemies to lovers son sexys y adictivos... Pero los friends to lovers te tocan el alma y te hacen sentir muy identificada si alguna vez te enamoraste de un amigo/a.

Este manga nos cuenta la historia de un grupo de 5 amigos: 4 chicos y 1 chica que crecieron juntos pero que uno de ellos siempre estuvo enamorado de nuestra protagonista.

La historia se va desarrollando con rapidez pero no resulta ser abrumadora, ya que se comprende el contexto y la amistad cercana que tienen nuestros protagonistas. Sentí emoción al ver cómo se relacionan entre ellos y la manera en la que la amistad se va convirtiendo en algo más.

¡Espero ansiosa leer el vol. 2!

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

The art for this manga is absolutely beautiful. The story is a pretty average teen romance with a futuristic twist. The inclusion of the pandemic was an interesting way to mark the year. I’ll be interested in seeing what the author says about the not so distant future in regards to the pandemic.

Okay, this isn't my normal read, it's my 17 yr old daughter's but I was intrigued by how these read. I was lucky to get a copy on NetGalley and have to admit I enjoyed this quick manga read. I read it with my daughter as I wasn't sure of reading directions!

I asked my Manga/light novel addict daughter what she thought and she really liked it and went straight to Amazon to look for a paperback copy and book 2!

These were her thoughts on the book - A really interesting start to a new series. The story captures the emotions of the characters well. It is Entertaining. I would recommend to readers of college/romance manga.

*I received a copy of Anyway, I'm Falling in Love with You free in exchange for an honest review*

The book begins with Mizuha having a really bad birthday, which prompts her to remember a similarly bad birthday ten years ago, when she was a second year high school student.

Mizuha grew up with four best friends, all guys, who grow up to be very attractive. On her birthday, she confesses to her crush, an upper class man who harshly rejects her. When she arrives home, she sees that her childhood friends have thrown her a surprise party and she realizes how much she appreciates them. That is until one of them, the youngest, Kizuki, kisses her out of nowhere and confesses!

Aside from the romance going on, the manga takes place during the pandemic and captures some of the feelings children and young adults felt when everything was being cancelled. No extracurriculars, competitions, not even graduations. I wonder if, as the story continues, it will show growing feelings of isolation and possible depression that many have experienced.

There's some serious Ouran Host Club vibes going on with the main female protagonist being surrounded by attractive guys. I will say that it did get a little confusing because the four guys have similar looks besides their hair, unlike Ouran where each male character had distinctive features. Hopefully, as the series progresses and the characters are fleshed out it will be easier to differentiate between them.

I really look forward to where the series goes!

* I received an e-arc from kondansha comics via NetGalley*

This was a very cute romance! It's about Mizuha, whose 17th birthday hadn't gone as planned. she told her crush she liked him, and he denied her, but then her childhood friend Kizuki asks her out.

I really enjoyed their relationship. Kizuki is a very cute character, and I'm interested in how their relationship will progress. The art style is also stunning. I will pick up the next volume! Definitely recommend

I start saying that the art work is amazing and I love the color and the sea reminder in the cover!

This shoujo is a concentrate of everything that a shoujo could have: childhood friends, handsome guys, love confession , rejection and cliffhanger!

This shoujo has nothing new. The difference from other shoujo is that here the author talks about the pandemic but is introduced in a way that doesn't reflect the reality: some school events are cancelled because of the virus, that's it.
However I like it, is an easy reading and super cute story. The final made me curious about the second volume!

Arc was given by Kodansha & NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Content/Trigger Warnings: Mentions of a pandemic, astraphobia (fear of thunderstorms), trauma, loss of a parent, grief



Remember when I said I spend a lot of time in romance manga? Yeah, this is one of those times and I’m so excited for the next volume to come out! Look, look… I love a book who loves to kick the door in with a controversy! And this manga, this freaking manga, delivered with the goods, my friends. Truly, this manga gave me the burst of serotonin that I have been craving lately.

The year is 2030, Mizuha is celebrating another bad birthday when she suddenly remembers another bad birthday ten year prior to this one. Though being surrounded by all of her childhood friends at the time, this was probably one of her toughest birthday thus far. Not only has her crush turned her down and said some mean things to her, but no one of her childhood friends is trying to change their friend group by confessing his love to Mizuha. All of this causes a mixture of feelings with her along with trying to deal with celebrating yet another birthday without her mother.

Truly, the blessing that is this manga because it gives us all the fluff we could want. If you want fluffy goodness then you’re going to love this manga. The author really said give them all the sweetness. One of my favorite themes and tropes within books always has to do with childhood friends. I think my favorite part is how supportive they all are to one another. Always looking out for each other and doing little acts of kindness to help. Not only do we get childhood friendships, but the childhood friendships are built around a reverse harem theme. There’s also the childhood friend to lover trope slowly coming into play, as well. Though everything is such a slow burn and I think that’s the best part. The slow burn hooks you only to pull you into a love triangle. It gave me butterflies on how everything was going to play out.

Of course I have to talk about this single parent household theme. I think one of the most commonly, overlooked themes in books in the single parent household theme. Maybe I’m just a sucker for single parent households because I, myself, am from a single parent household. However, single father households, in my opinion, are so uncommon and deserve to be recognized. I believe with my whole chest that single father households deserve the spotlight because often times we see the single mother household, but rarely ever see the father side of things. The author really captured what it’s like to have that single parent household and even though they’re only glimpses, it warms my heart to see this theme in another manga I enjoyed.

I think my only issue with this manga was how short it was. Now look, I know some of us can read a manga like it’s no one’s business, but this just felt shorter to me. It felt like there could have been more details packed in or even an extra 40-50 pages into this manga. Normally, I spend about an hour reading a manga book, but I flew through this book in thirty minutes. It made being invested in the characters really hard especially when it came to the childhood friend group. It would have been nice to see more of that or get a feel for how everyone views Mizuha, not just her crush or the guy from her childhood friends.

Overall, I think this is a really light-hearted read despite the content warnings. As I already mentioned, I flew through this manga and I wish there were more pages because I have no doubt I would have been more in love with this book, enjoyed it even more. If you’re a manga reader or you’re looking for something that’s fluffy and sweet then I definitely recommend picking this manga book up!

Thank-you NetGalley and Kodansha for the chance to review this manga.

I am incredibly invested in this now!
That cliffhanger!

I won't say this is something completely new because I find it that often quality wins over originality.
Things have been done before and they will continue to be made.
This is a perfect example of that, this is a cute story that we as Shojo readers have seen in the past but it's the execution that really sold me on this.
Incorporating COVID in the writing was very clever because it helps us relate to out lead Mizuha.
You have a very big cast of characters and I'm excited to see more of them in volume 2.
But a definite standout is Kizuki! I absolutely loved him.
The art in this manga is stunning which isn't a surprise because Haruka Mitsui's work is always a joy to look at.

Disclaimer: I received this manga from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This manga was super cute with plenty of romance tropes. Love triangle, friends to lovers, sports romance, reverse harem? All of the above! The timeline covers 10 years of Mizuha's life with her four male friends and includes a pandemic in the 2020 timeline. The ending has a little cliffhanger that will draw readers to read volume 2.

I loooved the art style. It was really cute and probably my favorite part of the manga. The characters were very well drawn and easy to distinguish, which is difficult to pull off with 4 boys who are the same age wearing school boy uniforms.

The story itself was just lacking for me. It felt repetitive after a while with the "you don't see me as a man/I'll make her like me" thing. I wish the characters were expanded on a little bit more, and maybe that will happen in the second volume, but I would rather the overarching story be told more slowly with better development than to be rushed through and followed up on in later volumes.

I finished this, the art is fine…. I didn’t really take to this. The opening is strong, it’s 2030 and our main character flashes back to 2020 in her memories to understand what happened to her. There is a “virus” going around which is causing sports competitions at the school to be cancelled. I thought this would be good, thinking it was a reflection of our times with Covid and seeing how this would be incorporated in the story. Beyond the virus being used a plot device for sports activities to be cancelled there isn’t more to it. I’m not sure if this gets elaborated in the next volume but I don’t plan on reading it to find out.

While I don’t mind tropes in these types of stories I am so fed up with the “guy keeps going and going until girl is forced to fall in love” approach. There was a lot of potential here to make a familiar story interesting but my main takeaway from reading it is Mizuha’s friend overstepping boundaries until she goes ok then.