The Spring 2021 Manga Guide

The Springtime of My Life Began With you

What's It About? 

Suehiro is a quiet girl, who prefers the excitement of her books to the real-life anxieties of friends. She'd been perfectly happy in her own little world until ultra-popular guy Takasago asked her out as part of a punishment game right in front of the class, bringing Suehiro front and center. Mortified, she tries everything to get away...but he persists, and insists he's serious! How will she deal with such an interruption to her previously quiet life?

The Springtime of My Life Began with You is drawn and scripted by Nikki Asada and Kodansha Comics released its first volume digitally on May 11

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Suehiro is the class loner. She's shy and introverted, and she spends all of her time in class hiding behind her favorite book, three-quarters hoping not to be noticed, and a quarter wishing someone would. The someone who does, much to her horror, is popular boy Takasago, and even worse, he only seems to be doing so because of a punishment game requiring him to ask someone out. It's terrifying and humiliating, and...wait, is he maybe using that as an excuse and actually does want to date her?

Nikki Asada has had a remarkable streak of titles released in English (all as digital-only publications) and each one of them is just different enough to make it worth trying if you enjoyed her previous series even a little. The Springtime of My Life Began with You is the most serious of her works thus far, which is striking since at least two of her previous titles were very firmly in romantic comedy territory. This one still has the romance, but it's less on the comedic side of things; Suehiro and Takasago both have very real scars and issues that they're not entirely comfortable about. In fact, we don't even learn Takasago's until the final chapter of the volume, which makes his behavior up to that point worth looking back at in light of what we learn. It's a trick that encourages us to read the book strictly from Suehiro's point of view, something that Asada also encourages by never revealing Takasago's given name – Suehiro doesn't know it and is afraid to ask, so we as readers are not given that information.

There's definitely a gloss of odd coupledom surrounding the characters, something that bothers the attention-averse Suehiro much more than Takasago. The rest of the school is completely baffled by Takasago's actions – why would he not only date Suehiro seriously, but go so far as to reinstate the Literary Club for her? The answer is of course that they actually do like each other, with Takasago being the more aware of the two parties, but Suehiro simply can't believe that any of this is happening to her, the girl whose name no one in class can even get right. The downside is that Takasago gets way too possessive of Suehiro, making comments about how she only needs him, but Suehiro manages to shut that down almost every time – partially by simply not getting what he's saying.

There's a very real sense that this book's portrayal of the high school experience is a little more grounded than most. At the very least, it's in line with my memories of being the girl in class no one remembered was there and the casual cruelty that comes with that. It may not stay that way, but the way that the characters are feeling out their own emotions and relationship could easily be enough to carry this into its future volumes, and the class rep (who is almost certainly Suehiro's favorite author) could have an interesting effect on the story next time.

Even if you have a patchy history with Asada, I think this is worth giving a chance.