Created by: Kei Hamuro
Chapters: 19
That’s right, people! Your eyes are not deceiving you. Manga Musings is BACK!
Um… kinda.
Like most people all over the world, I too have been feeling a general sense of demotivation and have been procrastinating endlessly for the past few months (Well, the procrastination was always there, the lack of motivation is new). I had been going through a terrible anime/manga slump and thus, for a long long time, I was on the lookout for a manga to rekindle my love for the medium.
After months of fruitless toil, I finally chanced upon this lovely little story of four high school girls just hanging out and being nice to each other!
THE PREMISE:
Koharu, Minori and Nanaya are delighted to find that they are all in the same class. Mafuyu, a new transfer student and the prettiest girl in the class runs into Koharu at a vending machine and the two realize that they were the best of friends when they were little. Wholesome goodness ensues.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT:
Our Wonderful Days is the manga equivalent of a sleepover with your favorite people in the world, when you stay up chatting way past your usual bedtime about the most mundane of things, being comforted by the fact that you share a simple life together. It’s warm, fuzzy and fleeting because of its short length which makes reading every new chapter feel almost therapeutic.
While the genre tags list this as Shoujo-Ai, the story is primarily a slice in the lives of these four high school girls just going about their lives in an unremarkable yet fulfilling manner. In fact, I’d argue that its story-beats are closer to Iyashikei than Yuri. Though the final few chapters do lean more towards the latter.
But the fact that Our Wonderful Days prioritizes character interactions and everyday moments instead of progressing its romance is what makes the story stand out from its contemporaries of the genre. Its languid pace does come at the cost of plot progression but makes for a much more digestible read.
The characters are all likeable. From our central quartet to their school teachers, everyone is just a good person and has a personality and quirks of their own (the art teacher being a personal favorite). Although if I had to pick an overall favorite character, it’d probably be Minori because she’s kind and a great cook and takes care of everyone! WHAT MORE CAN YOU ASK OF FROM A PERSON?!
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T READ IT:
-> You hate Slice-of-Life.
-> You hate it when two girls are holding hands and hugging each other.
-> You hate it when two girls are ONLY holding hands and hugging each other.
-> You hate being happy.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Our Wonderful Days sets itself the target to be a heartwarming story about friendship and finding great joys in tiny moments of everyday life and it succeeds in achieving that target with ease. It’s one of the easiest recommendations for a manga I have ever given.
And lastly, thanks to Firechick, who was the one to recommend me this wholesome gem! 🙂
RATING: 9.2 / 10
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With that, we conclude this week’s coverage. Just wanted to give a quick heads-up that I won’t be going back to weekly posts just yet. For the coming weeks, I would be using Manga Musings as an outlet to talk about the manga that excite me and ones I’d like more people to read.
So, for the time being, there won’t be any polls but do feel free to leave the titles of any manga you think needs more attention down in the comments below and I will be give it a read and talk about it if it interests me!
As always, thank you for reading and I hope to see ya again soon! ^^
Dawww, no need to thank me. I was just happy to recommend you something nice is all. And I know the feeling of being super demotivated and being in a slump. From 2016-2019, I didn’t watch as much anime as I used to, and nothing I watched really wowed me. Plus, having graduated from college and having too much free time kind of got me all screwy to the point where I only watched one episode of anime every month. And yes, this manga is great!
Although you did make an error: You wrote Shounen-Ai instead of Shoujo-Ai.
Hehe. Fixed it. 😁
I got around to reading this.
And my conclusion was that it was an amusing at points, easy, go at my own pace read, that filled a gap of a few hours and provided a good distraction and change of pace from bigger things to watch/read.