Did you read The Promised Neverland and think “I wish this had more yuri?” If so, I Want To Love You Till Your Dying Day, Volume 1 might just be the series for you. Newly available in English from Kodansha USA; “Love blossoms amid bloodshed in a new enthralling dystopian yuri manga.” This series began in the printed Comic Yuri Hime magazine in 2018 but has subsequently switched to an online serialisation via the Yuri Hime Pixiv site. 8 volumes are currently available in Japan, Kodansha are aiming to release the first 5 volumes in English by October this year.

Content warnings: gore, child soldiers including deaths of.

Set in a mysterious orphanage where children born with magical talent are trained as weapons to be used by the military in a war against an unknown enemy, thoroughly average student Sheena wakes up to find her roommate has been killed in battle the previous day. Any short lived excitement about having a room to herself is almost immediately snuffed out when a strange new student arrives. “Mimi” is rumoured to be a secret weapon, immortal and under the supervision of the mysterious school nurse. Now however, she has been assigned to Sheena’s class and is her new roommate. Gone are the days of blending into the background as this curious new student has latched on to Sheena and captured the attention of most of the school as well.

This is very much a volume of exposition. Lots of threads are dangled, but I am interested enough to stick around and see where this is going. Unfortunately, Mimi does precisely nothing for me. I’m not a fan of the naive loli murder machine schoolgirl trope, and she is mentioned to be 10 years old at one point which is just a little on the ick side for me. Sheena is much more interesting to me, and at this point I’m more invested in her since she seems like she might actually die at some point. She clearly struggles with using magic and fighting, and to me that just makes her more real and human than the overpowered 10 year old who can just kill everything in her path with little resistance and a smile on her face. I’m also very interested to learn more about Ari and Seiran, 2 side characters who are implied to be a couple.

Overall, there’s more to like than dislike here. The magic adds a bit of a fantasy twist to the scifi story and hopefully all the threads in this volume will gradually come together as the series progresses. I will be reading the next volume to find out.

Ratings:

Art – 6.5 Perfectly adequate Yuri Hime house style.
Story – 6.5. At the moment, I’m more interested in the scifi than the yuri.
Characters – 5. Mimi is currently the least likeable character for me. I hope her backstory will make her more interesting when it’s revealed later on. And I wish she was older.
Yuri – 2. Some clandestine hand holding between side characters and kisses disguised as CPR/magical revival.
Service – 3. The mystery nurse with gravity defying breasts is as much as we get. Thankfully no Made in Abyss vibes here.

Overall – 6 but with potential.