Every quarter we are running a Manga Review Contest where you can submit a review from a selected list of manga. If you want to participate or learn more, click the link. These are reviews for one-shot yuri manga: The Girl I Want Is So Handsome and 5 Seconds Before a Witch Falls in Love
The Girl I Want is So Handsome! Review By Abigail
The Girl I Want Is So Handsome is an entertaining yuri with some basketball flavoring. While it doesn't do much outside of the typical outlines of a GL story, the main couple is a joy to read and has great tension throughout. Yuri fans will enjoy this, especially ones who favor cute and soft stories with happy endings.
The story follows an ordinary setup for a senpai/kohai story, with our protagonist Hina wanting to get closer to her titular handsome lady Shiki. But oh no, she has to be the manager of a basketball team to do it! After some fun together, and a few trials in their relationship, they end up falling in love (and even get to date for a solid majority of the story!) A few other couples round out the cast, and I was rather disappointed we didn't get to spend more time with those characters. In particular, despite my favorite character providing some extra tension in each of her wonderful appearances, she only shows up in a couple of chapters.
Our main couple is fun enough, with all the stop-and-start confessions longing gazes to set your heart aflame. The art is really great, with some beautiful full-page panels. Each character is drawn with a strong personality and each scene with Hina and Shina looking at each other looks great. When you close the book, you'll announce "that was cute" and have a smile on your face. If you're interested in basketball, though, you'll likely be disappointed. The sports theme is mostly from handsome Shiki being tall and wearing sports gear in the early scenes.
Any fan of GL will enjoy this omnibus and likely have a couple of chuckles at the humor. If you're curious about romance manga, this is a fun one to read through, and being the complete omnibus is a great choice to get a full story without having to grab dozens of volumes.
The Girl I Want is So Handsome! Manga Omnibus
First-year high schooler Hina falls head over heels in love at her first glimpse of Shiki, a gorgeous, cool older girl with mad basketball skills. But when she tries to confess her feelings, she ends up as the basketball team's manager instead. It seems like a huge blunder until she realizes it's the perfect chance to get to know Shiki better. Will Hina and Shiki overcome their comical misunderstandings and realize they're the perfect couple?
Add to CartLearn More5 Seconds Before a Witch Falls in Love Review By Brian
This starts out as a cutesy yuri manga in your classic medieval fantasy setting. The witch Meg is a massive nuisance to the town, though not malicious really, she mostly seems to go for over-the-top pranks. She is constantly hunted by the Witch Hunter Lilith, who Meg is very tsundere towards. She expresses her feelings the only way a witch like her knows how: more pranks. So the story goes on to see if her shenanigans can eventually lead to romance.
But then the second chapter is a completely unrelated story about a modern high school girl in a yuri love triangle with an angel and a demon. Or perhaps they're both demons. I honestly wasn't sure by the end of it, but I lean towards the latter. But then the third chapter picks up where we left off with Meg and Lilith so it's honestly very confusing. Though admittedly the high school girl does look like Lilith, so maybe it's implying that she's a descendant? But really that's just a complete guess on my part.
The middle story isn't bad, it's cute as well and I like the exploration into demonology, as much as could be done in a single chapter, but the way that it was presented in this manga was odd. If it was the last chapter rather than being shoved in the middle it would have been less of an issue.
Overall, I like this manga but am sad it's a one-shot. I like cute fluffy romances, will-they-won't-they, and fantastical rom-com scenarios, which both stories cover very well. I would like to see fully fleshed-out stories for both sets of characters as they have great potential to be really fun in my opinion. It's hard to get overly attached to characters you meet for such a small period of time, but I can see myself thinking of these for a while, hoping that someday we get more stories with them.
5 Seconds Before a Witch Falls in Love Manga
Solitary witch Meg likes to be mischievous and make trouble in the forest for her nemesis, Lilith the Witch Hunter. But when an altercation goes sideways and Meg turns Lilith into a cat, a cascade of unfortunate events means witch is now responsible for saving witch-hunter! Sparks were flying between these antagonistic ladies before - what will their relationship be like after this cat-astrophe?
Add to CartLearn MoreCheck back every month for our manga review contest page as we will be adding new manga to the list! Don't forget to submit your reviews for a chance to win a $75 gift card like Abigail and Brian did!