A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow

“I’m okay. I’ll be all right by myself.” - Konatsu Amano Loneliness, what is it even about? How does it feel to be special to someone? Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru contains those answers. The story starts off calm and fresh, beginning with Konatsu alone moving to Nagahama, a seaside town located in the Ehime prefecture. Transferring to Nanahama High School, Konatsu meets Koyuki, a 2nd-year student and a president of the Aquarium club, then their life begins to change forever. The story is mainly about the junior-senior relationship between Konatsu and Koyuki. Having them together makes the story great, separating one of them apart makes the storyfeel incomplete. The story goes on not being too rushed and not being too dragging, simply at the perfect pace. The storytelling is surprisingly beautiful. Along the way, as the relationship between Konatsu and Koyuki develops, many cute and worthwhile moments arise. The story is able to express the characters’ emotions to the fullest, joy, happiness, loneliness, sadness, and pain, all seem real and effective. I love how the manga contains a hidden meaning. It was right there at the beginning of the story and continued influencing the story towards to conclusion. I also love how Konatsu compares the salamander to Koyuki, as well as the manga itself representing it as loneliness. The overall story might not be that outstanding, but the storytelling is something remarkably beautiful and worth mentioning. As for the characters, I love how the characters like Konatsu and Koyuki are designed to be imperfect, both being incomplete and having their flaws. Koyuki is portrayed as a character who looks perfect from the outside, being hard to approach, trying her best to hide her flaws and weaknesses, but somehow, Konatsu is the only one to who Koyuki showing those things. As they spend time with each other, they get to know each other more. Another worth mentioning character is Kaede Hirose, Konatsu’s classmate. From the outside, she is energetic and cheerful, yet something is lurking within her mind. Kaede adds a dimension to the story, making the manga more complete. As for the art, it is simply gorgeous, rendering characters cute and charming. Not to mention that the cover is pretty much appealing. The moment I saw the cover, I became interested in the manga. The only complaint is that the art started to get a bit rough in the 7th volume and clearly noticeable in the 9th volume, anyhow, it is filled with much more details and the volume cover is incredibly beautiful. Lastly, since the story is set in Nagahama, Ehime, this manga has done a great job portraying this element. Many places are being referenced from real-world places, take the Nanahama High School being referenced from the Ehime Prefectural Nagahama High School for example. Also, by reading this manga in the Japanese language, you can experience the Iyo dialect, a dialect spoken in the Ehime prefecture, feeling strange yet attractively unique, although it is a little difficult to understand. Furthermore, as the story is set in the seaside town, a calm oceanic vibe is being given, which truly represents the beauty of Ehime itself. Overall, Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru gave me a great reading experience. I love every moment between Konatsu and Koyuki which I find cute. I consider the first 4 volumes amazing, following by the 5th and 6th volumes which might feel a bit lackluster, but the 7th volume has an astonishing moment and has made a comeback, then the story progresses toward the ending in the 8th and 9th volume, reaching a sweet and satisfying conclusion. This manga has become something special to me. I am looking forward if this manga receives an anime adaptation. Hope you enjoy it!

Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru is a tender story about growing up and accepting oneself, both the good and the bad. As a romance, it relies more on implied feelings but as a human drama it is quite open in its primary theme, that being loneliness and how it affects people differently. I believe it is successful in displaying realistic characters with relatable problems and improves in quality as it goes along. I recommend this manga. Story: 8/10 The story isn't very attention-grabbing at the start with slower pacing of events and no big moments, but like the characters it improves steadily as it goes on, becominga genuine page-turner later on. It thankfully keeps most melodrama out of it, only relying on it when it becomes slightly believable. The major focus of the story is about growing up and accepting yourself which is displayed in both leads and the supporting cast. The feeling of loneliness, even when surrounded by others, is honestly displayed and well written. This manga isn't a tearjerker but it definitely has emotional weight. Art: 9/10 This manga's art style is at minimum influenced but possibly inspired by Yoshitoki Ooima's Koe no Katachi. The main character at times looks exactly like Shouko Nishimaya, the latter series lead, which brought a chuckle or two out of me. Its possible inspiration aside, this manga is very well drawn, and when it comes to characters and emotional moments, it's gorgeous. The artist Makoto Hagino is very talented at character art and expression and the best shots in this manga generally involve completely white backgrounds with only a single character in the shot. These special panels generally come at emotional high points and majorly assist in letting them land. The aquatic critters are also drawn quite well, with even a smiley shark named George. Characters: 8/10 This series has two female leads, Konatsu and Koyuki and they are about equal in development and depth, but I prefer Konatsu and her struggle with loneliness more than Koyuki who has had to live a life as someone she isn't truly. Kaede is a jolly friend of both who is a fun character in her own right with her own feelings. The family members of both girls also have a decent-sized presence which is appreciated. My main issue with the characters is the lack of an explicit answer about what type of relationship the leads are in. Enjoyment: 9/10 I read this series because it popped up on recommendations with Bloom Into You, a yuri romance that was quite good, but the two series have few similarities. This manga isn't focused on romance, but more on other feelings and due to how well it handled its primary themes I ended up enjoying it much more than I expected. I didn't cry reading it but it hit hard and was relatable. The art is excellent and being only 34 chapters it wasn't overlong. Overall: 8.5/10 This manga is excellent and I strongly recommend it. This is my first review so my own writing is meh but I hope to improve. Thanks to the Author, Makoto Hagino for making this manga. Have a great day ya'll!

First review for a Manga but i felt i needed to as it was one that i had high hopes for... i just finished reading this and saw that its not actually shoujo ai because the author said its not shoujo ai even tho its that on mal. (And i agree it should be a shoujo ai!) I honestly did have high hopes for this series and i felt like the author had led us on at the very beginning with these girls that felt like they could have something more. (I mean i never act that flustered round a 'friend') i loved the beginning howthey met and how that chemistry started, the middle was also lovely and showed a nice story together with the salamander and frog, which i enjoyed. It then went downhill by the end when i think the author realised it was too 'yuri' and decided to change direction. I felt the end could have had more however it felt to me that it was rushed. The art style is amazing and thats one thing that also made me pick up this series. It was well drawn and i loved the amount of detail that there was in each page. If it was made into an anime the way he drew the pages it would be a lovely anime to see. The shoujo ai rambling annoyance: (Slight spoilers but from early on chapters) This author says this isnt shoujo ai However: in a chapter one of the mc's takes a picture of the other mc sleeping, she blushes when someone says shes going on a date with her, and she gets flustered around her a lot and thinks of her. Is it just me or is this author stupid? I mean most 'friendships' dont involve a friend taking pictures of their sleeping friend and blushing...or even getting flustered when going out with said friend. Kinda is a slap on the face when the author is trying to force you to see friendship when its clearly more than that. This could have been an amazing series if the author just took a better route, heck made them get together after a year or two. Would of made a better ending than this rubbish end tbh. Still gave it a 7 as i did enjoy it however it would have got a 9 if it was more shoujo ai and a well better ending than just 'oh friends' i really did wish we saw them together...ah well. When i first read the first couple chapters i wanted this an anime but now i dont unless they change the ending. >_< this end really did make me not like this manga as much as i wish i could have. (And i know im being so shoujo ai pls but the beginning screamed shoujo ai)

I love how this manga series shows how much a person can mean to you, even after meeting for the first time and not knowing anything about each other. Even after having only talked once, or perhaps not even that much, maybe your eyes only have met, and now you want to know everything about that person. Not only that, it shows that this feeling often is mutual. Yet we don’t talk about it because society raised us to think that talking about our deep feelings is embarrassing and selfish and kinda creepy. Which is sad honestly. Looking back, what do you think how many deepfriendships would you have had, if you were more honest with people? If you just told them how you felt? This manga really did a great job in showing the insecurities of each person, when it comes to relationships like these. I love how slow-paced each volume is, making it very realistic. Perhaps not even that realistic, because nowadays it’s rare to actually get this close. Most of the time, people just accept that their feelings are one-sided, thinking they can read someone else so well, that there’s not even a point in asking how they feel. More often than not, feelings are more mutual than we think. ~ While this manga series wasn't typically Yuri, as in sexual or explicitly romantic, it was a love story and therefore I don't find the GL tag clickbait at all. It's more of a deep platonic relationship, like a QPR, but that still is love. Besides, I did read somewhere that sometimes "Yuri" is also referred to a very close friendship between girls and doesn't have to be romantic per-se, after all. Also, I totally didn't mind. Their friendship was just as intense as a typical romance story would have been, so I don't see the problem. Sure, there wasn't a kiss, but I don't think it was needed. Them learning to communicate and coming in terms with their feelings and their true selves was much more important than any physical stuff. So I'm very glad that books like these still exist and not every author falls into the pressure of doing fan-service, just so their manga will do better on the market. Thanks Makoto Hagino for such a wonderful series! I really hope this will get an anime someday because this would be exactly what our society needs to watch, in times like these.