Wakaba-san Chi no Aoi Koi

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This is quite the romance manga! Currently on chapter 8, it has been a really sweet and fascinating journey. The manga has a very unique premise in that it features 4 different female protagonists, who happen to be sisters of different ages, each facing their first ever romance interest. Each sister has a divergent yet captivating personality that enrich their respective relationship with variety, as well as providing an intertwining family bond wholesome enough to put a smile on anyone's face.

The only shortcoming I noticed in this manga is that one of the pairings feels a bit contrived and clichéd, reminiscent of the formulaic relationships ... often seen in other generic romance manga. While not necessarily bad, it falls short when compared to the level of complexities and depth of the remaining 3 which have far more engrossing scenarios.

Nonetheless, the presence of one standard pairing hardly diminishes the overall enjoyment I had with the manga, especially when 3 superb ones are there waiting at every corner. It's also refreshing to see a romance manga that has multiple focused relationships without resorting to the infamous "triangles". Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this manga due to its innovative premise and the remarkable display of interactions between its characters.

Such an amazing hidden gem!
At first I was skeptical, as it looked like generic roms that won't progress, just being a slice of life for each pair, but boy was I wrong!
The first few chapters are pretty much just introduction, but later on the romance of each pair progresses a lot and uniquely so! Even intertwining some unrelated characters with each other for even more fluff and wholesomeness.

Highely recommend this to anyone seeking pure fluff wholesome romance with A LOT of progress! Giving the sisters and boys more depth to their characters, developing their relationships, combining unexpected and amazing characters interactions, and just giving diabetes ... to your heart!

This is not the usual slice of life where nothing happens and each chapter feels the same. After the first 10~ or so chapters (which were fine and cute on their own), every new chapter feels like you got hit in the face with a huge ball of sugar and clouds, looking forward to every new panel.

The art is really clean and immensely cute, fits this manga perfectly and adding to the fluff so much. Especially with all the cute and cool character designs.

With later chapters having the couples interact with each other, it starts to feel like an MCU of romance. Especially with how we get the POV of all 4 sisters, and all 4 boys as well. This makes their interactions only more and more enjoyable.

On quality it's around 8/10 as it's a simple story, but the joy I got from reading it is 20/10!

If you enjoy romance even slightly, go give it a read! You won't regret it!

The ocean of romance manga is a BIG ecosystem, and in order to survive you have to distinguish yourself. Most attempt this by hinging their entire narrative on a singular clever, silly, or sometimes outright ridiculous (its cousin adjective — stupid) premise; this works great for a few chapters, maybe a volume, but soon the spark dies and you move on to the next flash-in-the-pan work that ultimately puts in the minimum amount of effort needed to keep your heart fluttering. Even worse are the romance manga that actually lead with an interesting premise, but rapidly fall onto tropes that artificially keep the protagonist and ... their love interest at a frigid arm's length.

On both counts, not so with Wakaba-san Chi no Aoi Koi! It first makes the ambitious decision to present a story from four different perspectives, keeping the narrative fresh and moving at a nice pace, and second, all four of the protagonists' romantic feelings are reciprocated!

Crazy, I know. But that's what makes this manga so much fun: instead of stressing out over whether or not someone is going to get their heart broken, you spend your time enjoying the sights, smiling at the awkward fumblings and the nervous smiles, and warming up by the fire of innocent young love. This is all complimented beautifully with high quality illustrations that thankfully, resist the temptation to go full-on chibi and instead opt for a more mature, graceful style.

Based on such a glowing review so far, why the 7/10? The answer is simple: the writing. It's not terrible, but it's not great either. The four sisters are sweet, kind, and endearing, but they are all admittedly a bit of a one-note instrument, and the author frequently struggles with having any of the potential couples hold a conversation for more than a few lines before a dramatic close-up ends with both parties blushing furiously and their words hopelessly jumbled. The innocent love aspect is fun and certainly worth sticking around for, but the best romance manga are those that actually have people open up and become vulnerable, and whose fears exist alongside their dreams.

Wakaba-san Chi no Aoi Koi has attempted some version of this at small scale — a chapter or two at most — but its primal instinct is to bolt from any conflict that must last long enough to actually create real stakes. This reason is exactly why I praised the manga as fun and relaxing earlier, but also why I do not rate it any higher: the author's strategy is safe and can achieve a good score, but not a great one; those almost always require a story that take risks, and this one doesn't (the one exception I'd name — that is, of a story about falling in love that makes it clear from the beginning there is no risk of failure — is Ponyo. But that's a pretty high bar to meet).

TLDR: A cute, engaging four-perspective romcom that doesn't drag out the "do they really like each other?" aspect and instead dives straight into the funny, silly, and adorable antics of two people falling in love and trying to gauge how fast the other is falling with them. That said, the manga plays it very safe and delivers an enjoyable narrative that won't blow you away, but certainly puts a smile on your face. 7/10