Em Evergreen is a lonely lesbian with a manga addiction. Find her at linktr.ee/em.evergreen.

Just Friends is a one volume Yuri manga by Spanish mangaka Ana Oncina. Originally published by Planeta Cómic in Spain in 2021, the English edition comes to us courtesy of Tokyopop, with translations by Nanette Cooper-McGuinness. Just Friends was awarded a silver medal at the Japanese Ministry of the Exterior’s International Manga Awards in 2023.

Just Friends has the form of a manga, with right-to-left paneling and Japanese-language sound effects, but the lower-line-count art style hints at its overseas origin. It’s an opportunity to read a different type of Yuri, one that plays with the tropes of a culturally distinct adolescence – no sailor uniforms, student council officers, or onigiri are in evidence. Instead our story is set at sleep-away camp, where our teenage characters wear graphic tees and eat pizza and baloney sandwiches.

Our protagonist, the introverted Erika, is reluctantly packed off to said camp without any close friends. On the bus there, she meets her polar opposite Emi, who takes an immediate interest in Erika and declares them “inseparable” before they even arrive. The story of their whirlwind relationship that summer is framed by more brief flash-forwards into their future, where we see them meet again as thirty-somethings. As with any good real-life sleep-away camp, the setting gives Erika the chance to step outside her comfort zone, figure out some things about herself, and perhaps explore that most new and exciting phenomenon to a teen – romance.

To some young adult readers, especially queer ones raised in a similar context, the story will at times be almost painfully relatable. The realistic depictions of social anxiety, bullying, awkwardness, and underage-drinking-fueled misadventures might resonate a bit too strongly for comfort, but you’ll likely chuckle more than cry. Erika and her peers don’t have the communication or conflict resolution skills of adults, but their conflicts aren’t the focus. This is a romance at its core, with a side of navigating heteronormative expectations while figuring out who you are.

Just Friends is very much not a Yuri without lesbians. Its mix of LGBTQ issues and romance is distinguished from recent standouts like Shio Usui’s Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon or Sakaomi Yuzaki’s She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat by its strong focus on the drama of adolescence. In that respect, it calls to mind Yuhki Kamatani’s Our Dreams at Dusk, though it’s lighter in tone and less ambitious in scope. Just don’t go into Just Friends expecting a neat and tidy ending, or a sweet story of first love. It’s too grounded in the complexities of real-world romantic relationships, teenage and adult, to give us that. Like all good one volume manga, it leaves you wanting more.

Art – 5, effective if not awe-inspiring
Story – 8, a nostalgic, bittersweet romance
Characters – 6, more realistic than memorable
Service – 3, sex isn’t ignored, but the teens aren’t leered at or sexualized
Yuri – 10, Houston, we have lesbians (and/or bisexuals)
Overall – 7