You know after that last chapter I thought things'd take a darker turn but it would appear we're in for some fluff

last edited at Jul 21, 2025 9:27AM

Oh, for once, the twist that complicated things and caused drama was completely understandable. Very good.

Haruyo cut her hair short

A younger onee-sama? GASP strap in boys and girls cos shit is bouta get real

wow, this is art..

but really when the girl showed up I was excited and shy, like my cheeks were getting red like I was meeting the one I liked for the first time. this manga was really able to replicate that feeling of love.

oh and I love her friend group by the way

last edited at Jul 21, 2025 10:26AM

I've been reading too much yuri tragedy, super happy to be wrong about the direction this story was going.

Did she cut her hair short so that Kasumi would never suspect she was onee-sama because she couldn't have worn braids? ;0;
The reality of them only being a year apart is funny to an outside view because they're making such a big deal about it. But it is a big deal to them, both for their age, and the specific fantasy they were playing out through text.
Also, have been thinking it since chapter 4, but Kasumi's inner monologue is painfully real. The amount of self hatred and depreciation swirling in her, and now I'm sure she feels she has to be the onee-sama on principal now, even though the thought of someone above her gently guiding and reassuring her was what was getting her through the days...
Thank you for the additional insights @BLAMEY and for the translations of course! I've been really enjoying this one and am glad to know this is almost a prologue and there's more to come. I especially liked your visual analysis of the confession. The visuals of this manga are soooo strong, I been loving the title cards especially these last two and their sense of a paper-craft style that emphasizes the lonely fantasy of their relationship so far

where is height gap tag

This chapter was seriously amazing, the art is so good and the mangaka uses it for pure visual storytelling in a way that's rare these days. Haruyo's explanation for hurting Kasumi being not some over-wrought tragic backstory but just being a dumb insecure 14-year-old makes this manga feel so much more real and concrete. I'm so excited to see where the story goes from here because there's a lot of juicy stuff that has already been set up.

In particular, I think it's notable that the gap between the two isn't just that Kasumi is a year older, but that Kasumi has been forcibly aged and matured by traumatic life experience that's completely foreign to Haruyo (well, so I suspect at least, she certainly seems to be a sheltered rich girl). They are extremely different people, and I'm really curious to see how they'll go about bridging those gaps now that they no longer have the framework of class s and the distance of letters to hide behind.

where is height gap tag

They’ve only been standing next to each other for like two panels. Give it a minute.

This is extremely strong first volume. I haven't read anything like this for awhile. The story is so simple but it's wrought with emotions which pulls me into the world. And the visual design is so skillful I felt like watching a stage play unfolding the whole time I read this.

That does explain a lot.

So who pins who down?

Surprisingly, I'm hyped.

To anyone considering using the Korean translations and Google Lens to read this series, don't. The nuances are entirely lost. noighd does excellent work quickly. Huge thanks for picking up this series!

After a re-read of the whole story so far, it strikes me that the series is rather ambiguous as to how dark it is, or is likely to become. The very first thing we learn about Kasumi is that she puts a lot of pressure on herself to achieve academically, but we later learn that the pressure seems to be mainly self-imposed rather than coming from her parents. (I take it her grade slip of “5/192” means that she’s fifth in a class of 192, which to me, and to her dad, seems pretty high, but she calls it “barely high enough.” But we don’t know exactly “high enough” for what—the implication is that it’s about losing her scholarship, but if fifth in the class is barely good enough, that sounds like incredibly high academic standards for her second-choice school.)

She also indulges in a good bit of generalized negative self-talk: she says she’s only good for studying, and calls herself “pathetic,” and “selfish,” says she doesn’t want things to be “tainted” with her “ugliness,” and considers herself a “heartless” person. We know all that’s not true, and it’s not too far off from the standard angst of a 15-year-old high schooler, but that kind of thing is repeated so often and insisted upon so intensely that it definitely seems to amount to more than just average teenage low self-esteem.

And then there’s the dead friend. We don’t know anything about that situation except what the parents mention, and that girl was “only” a cram-school classmate rather than someone she had gone to school with for a long time. And unless I missed something, Kasumi herself doesn’t make any reference to her at all. But the cut from the reveal about the suicide to the panel of Kasumi looking at her uniform hanging on a blank background was pretty chilling, as were the hanging brooch intro panel and the “Let’s end this” closer to Chapter 4.

On the other hand, Kasumi has got a solid group of friends (Momo in particular looks like a steady rock so far), a loving and supportive family, and the interactions with her pen-pal “onee-sama” are mostly pretty cute and actually low-stakes if it weren’t for the emotional investment Kasumi puts into them.

Tl;dr: This has too much dark subtext to be entirely fluff, but overall it feels too fluffy to end up in any kind of extremely dark place.

last edited at Jul 21, 2025 3:21PM

Loving this mangaka's style, both visual and storytelling. It's been a bit since I got this hyped for a manga in this kind of classic yuri world setting. I followed them on Bluesky and all. I hope it does well on sales and such.

She cut her hair TT

I think this has a different tone than My Younger Senpai. But yet it also features a younger senpai, so maybe it will ultimately shift into the same direction and tone via sheer linguistic convergence.

On a more serious note I am liking the yearning and the expectations =/= reality writing, it is really good so far,

Really loving the broad range of emotional expression in the art. Good mix of angst and hope so far.

And unless I missed something, Kasumi herself doesn’t make any reference to her at all.

I feel like even if she doesn't mention her directly a lot of her thought processes and the emotional charge of some of the monologues is driven by the loss of that person.

https://imgur.com/a/aGUmwJx

And unless I missed something, Kasumi herself doesn’t make any reference to her at all.

I feel like even if she doesn't mention her directly a lot of her thought processes and the emotional charge of some of the monologues is driven by the loss of that person.

https://imgur.com/a/aGUmwJx

Oh, absolutely, and that’s a great visual/textual example. But without that scene where the parents spell things out, we would have no idea that there was any such thing on Kasumi’s mind.

Great twist, they finally meet! Also, Kasumi is short, somehow I didn't realize how short she is until this chapter.

This did not go the direction I was fearing it would, and for that I'm grateful. Also the reveal is so perfectly awkward and cute, its so them