Maddies Manga

After moving seats, Tsumugi discovers a shocking secret about her classmate! Will she be able to help him keep his secret? This is a fun rom-com manga series, perfect for Japanese students!

Author

This series is written by Kashiba. X

They are a rather unique author, I recommend checking out their website!

Genre & Tropes

High school romance, comedy, shorts.

Info about this series (ongoing)

There are currently two volumes published, with volume three releasing Feb 26th.

TL;DR rating

I found this to be very cute! Even though each chapter is very short, they accomplish what they’re trying to do. This would be a good series for Japanese learners to check out.

You can check out volume one of this series for yourself below!

What’s this series about? (Spoilers for chapters 1~4!)

After their seats were rearranged, Tsumugi finds herself seated beside her notoriously quiet classmate, Urui. She doesn’t mind much, as this seat is the long desired window seat. Plus, it’s rather nice to be in a quieter spot in the class, right? There’s less to worry about, and more room for concentration!

When her quiet new seatmate puts his hair behind his ear, she makes a startling realization—he has an uncountable number of ear piercings. While he doesn’t vocalize it, he hopes that she can help him keep his secret.

From here, their relationship of having a shared secret begins. The gap in his personality has her instantly curious about him—though he’s seemingly a studious, quiet student, the piercings prove that he’s a rulebreaker. Her interest in him clearly has sparked something in him, and he beings pursuing a teasing relationship with her.

My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)

Normally when I do a mini manga review, I only sample the first chapter. This series is rather unique in that each chapter is only about four pages, so I didn’t feel like I understood it enough to review it after just one chapter. So, I read everything that was available for free on Pixiv—the first four chapters.

Even though each chapter is incredibly short, I found myself very interested in both characters almost immediately. I found the shortness of each chapter actually worked in its favour, as every scene was able to have an impact. The audience is never hand-fed information, rather, we’re thrown in the middle of scenes and expected to piece together what’s happening. I really love it when manga treat their readers like they’re able to pick up on context clues! Even though this is an incredibly straightforward story, I still enjoyed the method of storytelling the author opted to use.

I found the comedy to be subtle enough that I was able to thoroughly enjoy it. It wasn’t a gag-type comedy, rather the comedy came in the form of Urui teasing Tsumugi, as well as funny scenarios they found themselves in.

I am excited to read on, as I feel like the story will only open up and get better from here!