The Wedding Eve

I adore short stories like these. Seemingly mundane, daily scenes with a touch of melancholy...and then - a twist. Each of these six stories follows this formula, and most of them succeed in pretty much perfecting it. Here's my personal rating of each of the stories: #1 Shiki no Zenjitsu: 8/10 Intimate, unexpected, serene in a very particular way. An emotional opener that fulfills its role perfectly. #2 Azusa 2-Gou: 10/10. This one tugged on my heartstrings hard, so much brevity and emotion in so few panels. Easily one of the best short stories I've read in a while - both in manga, and in literature. #3 Monochrome noKyoudai: 9/10. Masterful approach towards reminiscence and a very, very pleasant flow of the dialogue. Touching in a bittersweet way. #4-5 Yumemiru Kakashi: 8/10 This is the only story that takes up two 'chapters'. Interesting characters and a rather rare (for a manga) setting. However, I feel the story lacked something. #5 10-gatsu no Hakoniwa: 6.5/10 The least interesting out of the bunch. A bit of a cliched story, and lacked the emotional punch or depth, to be honest. Still a pleasant read. #6 Sorekara: 7/10 Were it not for giving us a glimpse into how #1 goes on, it would've been a 6/10. However, I feel that using the cat soliloquy paired up with the atmosphere is a very nice closure to this collection. As far as the art goes, throughout it's rather nice. There ARE some characters that look slightly similar (especially men). However, many mangaka do this anyways. This particular art style is very fitting for the nostalgic mood present in all the stories. In short: read this. It doesn't take much time, and the intensity of the emotions/stories is easily on par with a lot of long-running series. Great work. 8/10

My score is heavily affected by the subpar work that ShoujoSense made translating this manga. The translation was bad to the point were I didn't understand most of the dialogue, and I ended up wondering if it was like that in the original japanese, or if the characters are extremely obtuse when they talk, or if I'm just too stupid to understand what I was reading. I did understand the overall plots of these short stories, though. This is a quick read that shouldn't take more than 20 minutes. None of the little stories are particularly interesting, impactful or eye catching. You probably won'tremember them for very long after finishing reading this. Some of the concepts, though, are very interesting, even if they're very simple. The art is (probably) the most positive aspect of this work, simple drawings and a nice-to-look-at artstyle that has an all around ethereal feeling to it. If you're able to read japanese, or you find a better translation, then your score will probably be higher than mine. If you do, feel free to send me a link, thank you.