Only ☆You~Anata to Watashi no Futari Bocchi Keikaku  (オンリー☆ユー ~あなたと私の二人ぼっち計画~) starts off with a cute-ish premise. What if, the Student Council President decides, girls who are loners are paired up together and this way they won’t be alone?

Okay, this is not the worst premise in the world.

The Student Council has rings made up. Girls inducted into the “Only You” Project are paired off with matched rings. The rings will give them a shock if they get further than 5 meters away from each other and can’t be removed. Oh and they can’t leave the school premises either.

Okay, this is the worst premise in the world.

I mean, in two pages, we go from, kind of sweet, sort of dorky, to coercion and torture and forced confinement? What the…?

From there, the story devolves into mismatched communication styles resolved by screamed confessions and running after one another tearfully.

Of course, friendship is never the point of these pairings. The rings are the dead giveaway. The President isn’t helping girls not be alone, she’s matchmaking.

The couples all get together in the end. I’m sure you’re all as surprised as I was.

mekimeki’s art is competent and moe, as one might expect. The girls are emotionally tortured over things that are never resolved, except that now that they have someone who loves them, it’s all okay. As one might expect.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 5 Predictable, sometimes getting a little too close to creepy
Characters – I remember one character’s name. Of about 8 characters
Service – 3 Not nearly as bad as I feared
Yuri – 2 Yes, but no

Overall – 5

If the lesson “being with someone, no matter how incompatible, is better than being alone,” resonates with you, this book is definitely your jam.