Ore no Class ni Wakagaetta Motoyome ga Iru

Most time regression manga and anime ask the question "What if I could go back and redo everything I did wrong?" which plays upon the very human emotion of regret. Everyone has made mistakes and wishes they could undo them, hopeful that the knowledge and experience they've earned would allow them to make better choices to a better future. This one, however, has a difference question: "What if I could avoid a future mistake long before it occurs?" Wrapped in a romcom wrapper, it's a very sweet story that's filled with love and emphasizing the importance of communicating wants and needs. The manga begins at thetail end of divorce, as our protagonist Kouhei is determinedly ending his marriage to his college sweetheart Yuzuka. He's embittered by how their marriage has failed and highly frustrated by how much his adorable wife changed into a nag. it's very clear that they are both filled with regrets, and that the divorce is already one more, but they feel driven to it. And then truck-kun come along with objections. Without hesitation, Kouhei jumps to try to save Yuzuka from her impending death. He obviously fails, since he wakes up a dozen years in the past, on the first day of high school. He vows to himself he will do everything in his power to avoid getting entangled with Yuzuka in this second chance at life. As you can guess, he is completely unsuccessful. The art is cute, so there's no reason to complain on that front. As this is a romcom with two tsunderes in heavy denial, their natural habits from their marriage keep cropping up in their lives, leading to plenty of humor at their mutual expense. However, under the humor is the fact that Kouhei had to die trying to save Yuzuka from death in order to start some badly-needed couples' therapy. It's clear that neither parts of this couple actually hate the other, their deep-seated love remains, but they're unable to communicate this to their lover. Kouhei is afraid of being hurt again, Yuzuka wants to reconcile but has become a tsundere from that same fear. Their development is as much learning to forgive each other as it is accepting their mutual love and the need to express it once again without letting themselves lose sight of how important that love is to them. I recommend this manga. Brevity helps deliver the romance and a happy ending is something I will rarely refuse when characters work as hard as these two. Read it in an afternoon, laugh at these two and sympathize with them, and enjoy the lovely aesthetic and underlying emotions that drive the story forward.