What would you do if you woke up to the person you idolize most in the world in bed with you? That’s what this whole series is about! There’s two one-sided relationships happening: he falls for her first, and hard (romantically), she falls for him at first sight, fast and hard (as a fan).
Check out my review of Shiokaze to Ryuu no Sumika here!
Before we start the review, let’s look at some info about this volume
I rate this as an intermediate series. To see my reasonings for my rankings, please click here!
What’s the Japanese title?
推しがとなりで寝てまして
Who wrote this manga?
This manga was written by Aoi Yoru, and Amano Meko
How many volumes are out?
There are currently 3 volumes out in Japanese.
You can check out this series for yourself below.
What happens in volume one? *mild spoilers*
After Uika is turned down by her childhood crush before even being able to properly confess her feelings, she is absolutely devastated. So devastated, she decides to move schools in order to not have to see him anymore. Even years later, she gets flustered when boys who resemble this childhood crush so much as stand near her.
She’s been doing her best to forget about him — she’s made friends, studied hard, and even found an oshi to obsess over.
Note: an oshi is kind of like a stan. Someone you are a fan of, and want to support
This oshi, Ori, is one of her classmates at her new school. Not just Uika, but most of the girls at their school obsess over him, only from a distance. Uika cites his pale skin, fluffy hair, and indifferent attitude as reasons for his popularity. Ori either doesn’t know the extent of his popularity, or doesn’t care, as he typically doesn’t interact with any of these girls.
At the young age of 17, Uika’s mom makes the decision to leave her alone for a few months while she travels to another country for work. Worried about leaving her daughter all alone, she ends up entrusting Uika to one of her coworkers. This coworker insists that Uika will feel right at home there, and that she even has a boy living there who is the same age as Uika.
After her mom leaves for her trip, Uika makes her way to the coworker’s house. Her new roommate isn’t home, so she ultimately ends up going to bed. Upon waking up, she notices that she’s no longer alone in her bed — Ori is sleeping right next to her. He jokes around with her for a bit, but she’s insistent that she could never dare sleep beside her oshi. She goes on to tell him that she puts him on such a high pedestal that she feels shame just breathing the same air as him at school. He brushes off her weird comments and goes to make her breakfast.
Afraid of ruining Ori’s reputation, Uika makes a grand effort to avoid him at school. Even when he comes to drop off her lunch bag, she puts on a show to make it seem like he picked up her garbage for her, not that he was delivering food to her. Eventually a rumour that the two of them are dating begins making its way around the school, and while Ori really doesn’t seem fazed at all, Uika begins panicking. She, again, puts on a big show to insist that she is nowhere near Ori’s level, and that the two of them are strangers.
Ori begins to slowly get a bit annoyed at Uika constantly putting him on a pedestal, and calling him things like her oshi and a prince. He decides to try and show his feelings for her (if it wasn’t already blindingly obvious by his climbing into bed with her earlier in the story) by asking her out on a date. Uika misinterprets this as him wanting to get practice for when he wants to go out on a real date with the girl that he actually likes. He goes on to confess to her, which again, she assumes is just practice.
My thoughts about this volume
Honestly, I’m not all that sure how I felt about this volume. While I thought the premise itself was very cute, I wasn’t in love with the execution. I think that my main problem was that our FL felt much too young/immature for me to be able to relate to.
I’m not saying that I don’t recommend this series, as it really is cute! There are a few scenes here and there that I did really enjoy, just they typically were followed with scenes that I really did not enjoy.
I found Uika to be a rather frustrating character to follow. At times, I could kind of understand where she was coming from – dating one of the most popular boys in the school could lead to a lot of drama for her. But, I quickly got annoyed with her rationales.
I also quickly grew frustrated with her treating Ori as anything besides a normal person. Just because someone is good-looking, that doesn’t make them better than anyone else. I really hated watching her basically tell him that he is indeed better than her because he has perfect skin. I really, really hope she grows out of this soon, but I don’t think she will.
I did, however, enjoy Ori’s backstory! I was actually quite a bit surprised when we did get it, as I assumed he was going to be a rather shallow character (similar to Uika — sorry girl). It really put his quiet demeanor into perspective, and we got to learn exactly why he likes Uika. And it’s not a shallow reason! Honestly though, I kind of hope he can find someone who likes him for him, and let go of Uika. He clearly likes her for her personality, and she clearly likes him for his looks. Even when he shows genuine kindness to her, she thinks “why isn’t he his usual aloof self? Is my oshi broken?” Like… girl.
I downloaded this volume for free off Amazon Kindle, and I’m not sure if I want to continue reading it or not. I may pick it up if there’s another promotion, but I don’t see myself seeking out the continuation.
What I liked most about this volume
❤️ Ori’s backstory. I wasn’t expecting it, but I loved reading it! It helped me to really understand why he’s so antisocial at school.
🧡 Uika’s friends being so supportive – as they all think of Ori as their oshi, I was really worried that they would drop Uika when they found out the two of them were living together (as I feel like this is a somewhat common trope). I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn’t the case.
💛 Uika’s mom not just suddenly disappearing. Because her mom is described as being basically the perfect single parent, I’m glad there was actual logic behind her leaving her daughter alone for months at a time.
💚 The scene where Ori just climbs into Uika’s bed her first night there was just really funny for me… until she ruined it by calling him her oshi to his face.
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