Ameiro Kouchakan Kandan
Ameiro Kochakan Kandan

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TL;DR: A fantastically fluffy and sweet shoujo-ai slice of life series, guaranteed to be a treat for the shoujo-ai fan. Remains enjoyable for other readers thanks to vibrant interactions and quality slice of life content. Read slowly!

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Story: Focuses on the friendship and blossoming romance between Seriho, the owner of the Amber Teahouse, and Sarasa, a high-schooler who works in the tea shop on a part-time basis. The story is mostly sequential - there is a sense of progression as the chapters go on - but there is an episodic feel to it in that each chapter involves different, disconnected events in the lives of the ... two main characters. There's also a good amount of non-story "fluff" in each chapter, but the character development and interaction does not stop at all.

Art: Simple and pleasant backgrounds with a muted color palette that reminds me of Hourou Musuko. The characters are drawn with big, expressive eyes and thin, dainty mouths, and they are sometimes drawn in a super-deformed fashion (think Aria) in more silly or humorous panels. Easy to look at, easy to like - but nothing spectacular.

Characters: Although not unique or groundbreaking, the characters interact in a very vibrant manner to produce a bright and cheerful atmosphere. They can also be very easily distinguished - from the ever-responsible Sarasa to the sheepish Seriho - and the dynamics between them are very clearly seen. This is supported by a high-quality dialogue that performs well and suits the personalities intended by the author.

Enjoyment: I love shoujo-ai, and this is an incredibly enjoyable read that can be difficult to stop. It is equal parts hilarious and sweet, with many lines that tease hints to the relationship between Sarasa and Seriho. Slice-of-life fans can also enjoy the interactions between the characters, girls' love nonwithstanding.

Some final thoughts: "Ameiro Kouchakan Kandan" is very bright and sweet, reminiscent of Aria. It will not fail to enamor shoujo-ai fans and bring smiles to slice-of-life readers, and for everyone else it is a very pleasant read you can take in at a very slow pace. Highly recommended!

Initially, this was a one-shot manga and the mangaka's debut work. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. That first chapter and the sequel one-shot that is the second chapter are terrible. The art is quite bad, the story doesn't go anywhere, and the characters seem to be introduced without rhyme or reason. It was very sloppy.

But I saw this manga was highly recommended somewhere, so I skipped to the middle to see if something changed. It did. It got serialized, and apparently a great editor was brought in to help with the story. The art became very nice as well, so I assume they hired ... some assistants or gave the mangaka more time. I cannot emphasize this enough: if the manga seems like your bag and you're not into the first two chapters, I urge you to skim to chapter 3 and keep going. Most of the initial characterization takes place in those bad chapters, so you can't completely skip them, unfortunately.

The story after serialization is really short, only two volumes and with enough meat for about one and half. Nonetheless, it is as heartwarming as they say and worthwhile. I had a great time reading this before bed each night for a while. In the sign-off, the mangaka teased some ideas for more stories with the characters in this, and I would be very interested in reading them.

Note that there are 16 chapters of the main story, with some side stuff that's collected alongside and is just as good. However, this MAL entry also includes another work from the mangaka called "Otome-iro Stay Tune". They take place in the same universe and the magazine that was serializing this second work was cancelled, so the two were collected together. This second work is about two seiyu recording a radio show together. It doesn't have enough time to develop into anything, but it looks cute.