A shut in leaves her house for the first time in three years, determined to make her first friend. This school happens to have a peculiar rule: everyone has a person they must share their school experience with, a “sharemate”, if you will. Her sharemate just so happens to be the most ideal friend-candidate imaginable, but can you really trust first appearances?
Author
This series is written by Aomi Rui. X
This is the author of Yamada’s Class Diary!
Genre & Tropes
High school romance, comedy.
Info about this series (ongoing)
This is a brand new series, with one chapter currently published.
TL;DR rating
This chapter took me through a whole rollercoaster, and I enjoyed every second of it! I can’t wait for chapter two to come out!
You can check out this series for yourself below!
What’s this series about? (chapter one spoilers)
Nobana has always had difficulties making friends. When she was younger, her social anxiety prevented her from taking the first step, and her classmates misunderstood her as being someone who preferred being alone. Eventually her loneliness caught up with her and she spent three years locked away in her bedroom.
Now a high schooler in a new school, she’s determined to make friends. Her new school has a system that benefits the more socially awkward, a “sharemate” system. To explain the system: two students are paired up and expected to share their high school lives together. Nobana’s pair, Alice, is a picture perfect student—the exact kind of person she could easily be friends with. He’s kind to her, and even helps her feel better about her more awkward personality traits.
Things couldn’t be going more smoothly for her high school debut. She makes up her mind right away to become the kind of person Alice will be proud to be partnered with. She even goes above and beyond in first day of school activities to show her earnesty. After the day ends, Alice warns Nobana to be careful on her way home—there’s a sketchy part of town close by that should she end up in, she would surely get mixed up in trouble.
Surprise surprise, Nobana ends up in this part of town almost immediately. Just as she beings trying to get her bearings so that she can make a safe escape, she sees a familiar face—Alice. Only, he’s dressed and acting a lot differently than he had while they were at school.
It turns out Alice actually has a rather twisted personality, and he only pretends to be the perfect student. He’s only in high school because it’s easy for him, the second it becomes troublesome he’s out of there, he explains to Nobana.
Nobana, recalling her earlier interactions with him at school, refuses to accept this strange attitude he’s taken all of a sudden. She decides to once again show him her earnesty, and proves to him that she can and will be a partner that makes him proud.
From there, the two of them develop a bond—the type that can only be formed over shared secrets. Will the two of them safely make it through high school?
My thoughts on this volume (Spoilers!)
I was actually a little hesitant to read this one as I wasn’t the biggest fan of this author’s previous series, Yamada’s Class Diary. I disliked how she depicted the female lead of that series to be overly socially awkward to the point of being comical. I was afraid that was just her style of writing female characters, however, I think she found the perfect balance here in Ai wo Chikau niwa Hayasugiru.
While Nobana is indeed socially awkward, she feels real. The things that she’s awkward about and the internal struggles she faces are both very relatable! Her awkwardness isn’t forced to the point of comedy, rather, it adds flavour to her character. It explains why she’s so excited about the sharemate system, and why she’s so eager to prove to Alice that she can be a good friend. I was able to really understand her as a character because of this!
When it comes to the male lead, Alice really threw me through a loop. I wasn’t expecting that twist to happen, and then I wasn’t expecting for it to end the way it did! It almost felt as though there were two twists.
At first I actually really enjoyed his character—a very kind, sweet person, who seemed to genuinely have an interest in Nobana. I thought she really deserved a kind friend, and was so happy to see that in Alice!
When the twist happened, I was a little scared he would be stuck with that twisted personality. I found it to be a little bit too much, as it really was a complete 180 from his prior school-self.
When the second twist, or end of the first twist? happened, he hit the perfect balance of kind honours student and carefree boy. I think he’ll be just crazy enough to keep Nobana on her toes while still having a good time, and just kind enough to be a genuinely good friend to her. I’m very glad to say that I’m already enjoying him as a male lead.
Maddies Manga 
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