Yes, this is a furry romance manga, and yes, it fits the criteria for young adult fiction. But those two things don't need to be either mutually exclusive or a terrible warning, and to be perfectly honest, any reservations I have about this story don't arise from the fact that one half of the main couple is an anthropomorphic dog with impressive abs. Instead the issues here arise from standard romance tropes that aren't great when employed for a young adult audience, and it's important not to conflate the “furry” and “bestiality” terms. Although creator Chihiro Yuzuki clearly likes writing about human women and dogmen (both this series and Hana and the Beast, available in French and Italian, but not English as of this writing, feature this type of couple), in With You, Our Love Will Make it Through, Tsunagu Hidaka's race is also a way for the story to explore racism and human treatment of someone they perceive as Other.

The story takes place in a world where beastfolk were genetically engineered (for unclear or unstated purposes) quite some time ago. Although they live like humans, they're kept separate, living inside walled areas within cities with tight security; Tsunagu is shown having to show some form of ID in order to leave to go to school. When the story opens, the high school our leads attend is taking part in a new integration program, where students from beastfolk schools will be allowed to enroll in human schools. While it won't conjure up this image for everyone, it will absolutely remind some American readers of school integration efforts during the Civil Rights era, and I think that's deliberate on Yuzuki's part. Tsunagu faces discrimination from his first day in the classroom, with students targeting him because of his race, and some attempting to get him expelled or “encouraging” him to leave. Alongside this overt discrimination we have scenes such as Mari bringing Tsunagu home with her after he falls into the river; her mother isn't cruel to him, but she is visibly shocked and clearly uncomfortable at first, although she does recover quickly.

Mari and Tsunagu first meet when they're both running late for school and have to climb over a low wall to get there on time. Mari offers to help before she sees Tsunagu's fluffy dog face, and she is taken aback when she realizes that this beastboy is wearing her school uniform. But she quickly realizes that he's just a bigger, furrier version of the boys she already knows, and this allows her to become one of his first allies at school. Only one other person, Yukihiro, is willing to engage in a friendly way with Tsunagu, and while other students may act like they accept him, little events show that they're not as comfortable or happy as they pretend – for example, when Tsunagu takes first place in the exams, a female classmate is furious because she wanted that rank. There's more to her disappointment, to her credit, but that her first instinct is to lash out at the one student who it feels “safe” to hate is still telling.

It's really quite well done, even if subtlety isn't a priority. The issues with the narrative are solely confined to the romance plot, and if you take out the way that Tsunagu looks, they're really just the same problems people have had with YA romance for quite some time. As some of you will have guessed by now, that means that there are elements of Tsunagu and Mari's burgeoning relationship that feel distinctly unhealthy. Largely this comes down to him forcing himself on her because he simply can't help himself. Admittedly, there is an extra layer here in that he has “beastlike” instincts; he's started school in May rather than April because of beastfolk's mating season. Yuzuki is clearly trying to shield these controversial romance tropes behind the trappings of another genre, and if you enjoy forceful romance, this won't be an issue.

But for other readers, they do risk being a dealbreaker. Tsunagu licks and bites sexual(ized) areas of Mari's body while she tells him no, and he's fully aware that this is not acceptable behavior. But he does it anyway, shielded by the idea that he wants her so much that he can't stop. This plays directly into what scholars Megan K. Maas and Amy E. Bonomi call “the virgin-beast trope” in their 2020 essay “Love Hurts?: Identifying Abuse in the Virgin-Beast Trope of Popular Romantic Fiction” in Journal of Family Violence. According to them, “Popular romantic fiction … often portrays a submissive/virginal female character and an aggressive/beastly male character. This binary portrayal of heterosexual relationships is problematic because it presents a power imbalance within the couple as essential for romance.” While there are many more egregious examples of the trope, it's hard to deny that the romance plot of this volume plays right into it, and it's not only a trope some readers dislike, it's also one that is controversial when used in young adult fiction.

Still, if you enjoy that trope or are looking for a furry/human romance in general, this isn't a terrible choice. There are some confusing elements of the art – apart from his face and tail, it doesn't really look like Tsunagu has fur all over his body, especially since we can see his very human fingernails – but scenes of him unconsciously wagging his tail are adorable. The translation does its best to highlight the racial inequality message, and if you find the romantic scenes sexy, Yuzuki's art does its best to lean into that. With You, Our Love Will Make it Through isn't for everyone, but if it's in your area of interest, I think it does a good enough job.