Thank you to Kodansha Comics for the copy of this Manga in return for an honest review

My Summer of You is the story of two high-school boys who bond over their shared love of movies. After a year of hanging out, Chiharu confesses his love for Wataru. Not wanting things to change or get awkward they set out to pilgrimage to locations from their favourite movies and Wataru starts to realise his own feelings along the way.

This is a really nice, simple manga that feels like summer. It tells a really sweet story that’s emotional without coming across as schmaltzy. The artwork is nice with clean, crisp panels that give everything a really summery feel. There’s not much conflict here and it’s just pure escapism.

I really like the idea of travelling to the locations of favourite movies, it’s a nice touch to the story and makes it more interesting to see the main characters talk passionately about films they like. They are also nice characters that have good chemistry together.

There is a flashback sequence that is a little messed up, that sets the whole plot in motion. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. It’s a twist in the plot, so I can’t spoil anything, but it feels like something I’ve seen before and at the same time I don’t think it works completely. It’s hard to talk about without spoiling it, but I think the flashback could have been tweaked slightly to be less messed up and the story would still work nicely.

Aside from that I enjoyed this book and will read more when the second and final volume comes out later this year. I haven’t read much romance manga, so I’m not sure how original it is, but as a newcomer it’s an enjoyable tale of summer and love.