Suzuki Yufuko’s Ai ni Airashi Itoshi Anata (愛に愛らし愛しいあなた) was not at all what I expected it to be. No, scratch that. It was exactly everything I expected it to be…only it turned out to be kind of charming. ^_^

Takimoto Mako is a senior in high school. He mother is an actress and often away, or hungover, and her father is a famous manga artist and is also often away. Mako is…average. She knows it, in fact she clings to her identity as an average girl with surprising fierceness.

One day at a cafe, the rumors of the “goddess” of the cafe, swirl around and a beautiful woman enters. Everyone is watching the goddess, but only Mako sees that she has her phone recording Mako and her friends’ conversation. Mako confronts her and suddenly finds herself outside on the street, where the goddess is offering her money.

Sonoda Aino is a young adult who is longing a bit for her school years. The people in her company are nice, but she find them crushingly dull and longs for the free chatter of high school girls. It’s a little creepy, but harmless and she begs Mako to not tell anyone. She’ll do anything, if Mako won’t get her in trouble.

Mako does have a problem that Aino can solve…so Aino stands in for absent parents at a meeting with Mako’s teacher. It all goes well and they both relax a bit. Mako is adamant that Aino shouldn’t record conversations,  (’cause that’s bad, duh) but the two of them become friends.

It’s kind of accidental that Mako starts to think of Aino differently, but her friends notice, and not all of them are happy for her. When her best friend’s jealousy causes Mako to doubt Aino’s affection, she breaks up with the older woman. It takes a confession by that same best friend to inspire Mako to make it right…and a confession from a completely different party to give her the whole picture. Mako and Aino make up.

The epilogue is wholesome. Four years later, Mako is graduating college, Aino is celebrating her last year in her 20s and they will, we can expect, live happily every after.

So yeah, it’s exactly what the cover looks like. And with that the premise, it really could have been horribly creepy. That was certainly what I expected yet, somehow, it just…wasn’t. It was instead kind of sweet. This was a Wings comics, and perhaps Wings Yuri has now developed a house style –  sweet Yuri with just a little real-world, but not too much. Real without being gritty.  In any case, the art is very teen-magazine-ish. I kinda liked it for this story.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Pretty things are pretty, cute things are cute
Story – 8 Better than the sum of its parts, for sure
Characters – 8
Service – 1 on principle only
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

I’d like more “real without being gritty” Yuri in my life, please, thank you.