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THE MANGA IS GOING TO BE TRANSLATED AGAAAAAIN!!! yey ~~~

Yes, to me, this manga is a masterpiece.
But for information: I love age gap romance stories - not all! but stories, especially when the manga captures a respectful atmosphere within a mature love bond. In this manga, the mangaka did an amazing job, I tell you!

The dynamic of a young girl (Amai) yearning for love and care from someone who could look after her, while masking her vulnerability with playful charm so he doesn’t notice her deeper longing.
All contrasted with an adult/mature man (Shiota) [mature in Amai's eyes/in mine too, by the way] who admires ... and respects her youthful femininity!

All in combination with comedy, I just fell in love with everything! So just put on your favorite music [for this manga my favorite songs were 'piri - beachin' AND 'piri - nice 2 me (+acoustic)' AND 'Videoclub - Roi (Instrumental Slowed)'] and read the manga, for moments to get excited, laugh, smile, pout pitifully, be swayed, and find things so cute you need to calm down. :)

Story: 10
Characters: 10
Artstyle: 10

Over All Enjoyment: 10

It's one of my comfort manga's. Try if you want to be comforted ;)

Hi, person who reads this ~ ^-^
Maybe you already read into this Manga or just not yet.

But one thing is clear about this Manga:
It divides many minds.
And the reason is almost only the age gap between the protagonists Himeko and her soon to be husband. That is already mentioned in the synopsis.

But next to that "issue"...the writing of Nagakura Hiroko is refreshing and enriching, the Art Style of her is so detailed, accurate and very expressive (ugh I fell in love with it! (^▽^)ψ), the character designs are perfect (to me) and so variable even though there wasn't much to learn about ... yet BUT still I could sense each characters personality, AND the story telling is so satisfying (at least to me xD) - not exaggerated, not lame / not too fast, not too slow - just so so right that I now really cannot wait to read more. I already know it is going to be one of my favourite Manga of all time! >.<
[I hope more & more people get to know the Manga "Smoke & Honey" and someone will be able to translate it officially, so it and the Mangaka are supported in the process!]

So yes, I really can't wait for and I am looking forward to more, because for this Manga my heart skips some nice beats. XD As the Female Lead is 12, the Manga awakes my inner child, that wants to be protected, helped out, taken care of and taken to adventures...that wants to learn a lot and be capable of the things that life is about, to be a good person some day.
Even though the Male Lead is 18 years older and her fiancé, I actually enjoy how Nagakura Hiroko portrays their relationship in her Manga! Male Lead is like a fatherly and competent companion for the FL. No wonder Nagakura Hiroko chose the protagonists dynamic to be fiancés/man and wife. It is super interesting and fascinating how the Manga handles it, especially the romantic tension.

Be curious if you can. You might really enjoy the Manga Smoke and Honey

What I noticed after finishing the last uploaded chapter ~ 38 (my favorite one, ehehe) ~ is that to truly enjoy this manga, you need to take your time and maybe even take pauses while reading.
This manga is full of action – not necessarily in terms of genre, even though there are plenty of fight sequences – but rather in the sense that so much happens rapidly in a row. It's very easy to accidentally miss some pivotal points. To be honest, this manga confuses you regardless because it simply fails to properly convey many of its essential points. At least for me, piecing everything ... together was difficult, so… yeah, following the context wasn’t that easy.
Because of that, the manga felt less enjoyable at times. To avoid this, I again strongly recommend reading it slowly and paying close attention. After all, this isn't a feel-good, slow-paced slice-of-life manga.

That aside, for me, this is yet another case of "a manga that has potential in its story/lore, characters, and so on, but didn’t quite know how to execute it the right-right way."
The story tries to be and present something, and many times, the mangaka actually does a great job. However, most of the chapters and moments felt unnecessarily dragged out due to tedious back-and-forth chatter and speculations the characters made throughout. In my opinion, certain parts and pieces of information could have been presented more easily, quickly, and excitingly. I feel like the manga lacked suspense in moments that should have been much more thrilling. This, again, ties into my point that the manga makes it unnecessarily difficult to follow the context – as if it doesn’t quite know where it wants to go. But the potential is definitely there.

And it’s exactly that potential that makes me skeptical about whether I actually like this manga or not.

Also, I love the genres Yakuza, psychological, and romance – but some of their potential wasn’t executed in the way I had hoped. So:

All that stuff: Story/Lore/Telling + Dynamics (I have no idea what the professional term for this is)
= 6/10 ...(￣▽￣)...
From another perspective: I think this manga is beautifully drawn. Huge props to the mangaka, really! The art style quickly developed into an incredibly aesthetic piece of art for me. (I even saved some good shots from this manga for inspiration. ;) I already liked the art style from the beginning and even got the impression at times that it was somewhat similar to Komi Can't Communicate. :D)

For the art style, definitely:
= 9/10, especially for the recently uploaded chapters (´｡• ω •｡`) ♡
What also fascinates me are the characters. Most of the male characters (including the older ones) and even some of the female supporting characters are refreshingly well-executed and have unique, albeit slightly exaggerated, personalities. And that’s nice.
But when it comes to the female protagonist... ugh. I find her either likable or absolutely annoying – sometimes from chapter to chapter, sometimes even from scene to scene. Her personality doesn’t feel stable at all; at times, it feels like she could be an entirely different character. And yet, despite that, she still feels rather one-dimensional and lacks real depth. Unfortunately, I can only sympathize with her in a few moments, and then again… I just don’t like her behavior throughout the manga.
Most of the time, she’s irritated and pissed off over a bunch of little things (maybe that’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t feel it), and then suddenly, she’s portrayed as someone special… Sometimes she does unusual things, but I feel like the manga just doesn’t present it smoothly enough for her character to really hook me.

Sooo, character/personality design (1 minus point because of the female lead):
= 6/10 ...(￣▽￣)...

All in all: 7

This Love is Strawberry Sweet - yes it is ma'am! A lot of thanks to Mangaka >Irono< of this work of hers!

This Manga hits so right in my mind. - Story telling, details, humour, romance dynamic, characters themselves etc. - are so readily to read, it's inspiring for my creative and artistic mind and made me chuckle so many times.

I thought I will never find a manga that goes along with my peculiar taste ... and what I mean by that is: I adore age gap stories that go slowly and in a realistic but fluffy way (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧, a female protagonist who is ... mature for their age, ain't a pain in the ass and through the way she is presented you can better understand a bit of the multi-dimensional being of her - what I mean by that is she ain't lame xD.
The Male Lead is respectful and sees the Female Lead as a real potential partner for the good of his future! Yey! [FUN FACT: I've seen some comments on the Male Lead that go like: "I love me a gentle giant🍓" "Ahhhhh I'm screaming, a tall hot rugged kuudere ojisan" "Never would I thought that I'll be jealous of a strawberry... This delicious long haired, tall, rough looking ossan IS GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME." AHAHAHA - you gonna say this too ... trust me!^^
The main character designs are not over-sweetened and/or exaggerated especially for the manga or anime "vibe" like we have it nowadays (in my perspective). Instead there is a realistic take on their life of understandable protagonists and side characters. And I love that. So yes, the other characters are also well written.
Of course we have some moments of oh so beautiful or dramatic coincidences, but at least they add something positive in terms of the narrative. In this Manga you really enjoy reading these more imaginative "overdone" moments. Especially in contrast to other Josei/Shoujo Mangas that took it to the moon - I even think of overdramatic contrivances in many Bollywood Dramas...and these are yikes to me.

So to be very clear: This Manga is not really like the other romance show/novels ~ stories - I really mean what I just said - It is realistic, you want to know what's next, it's mature and not full of strange, irritating and dumb drama b*shit. So what it is then? It is ANOTHER LEVEL OF WHOLESOMENESS - and I love the fluff. Have I even mentioned: There is healthy COMMUNICATION between them! What a TWIST and rarity in Shoujo/Josei kind of Mangas ahaha xD

So now...just read the Manga fellas^-^!

Hello You ... yes, you start to read this amazing (webtoon or eBook) manga and think:
Well, what have I got myself into?! What is that romance dynamic? Hardly encountered one like that one... Well, reasonable questions and conclusion. And the answer is:
You got yourself into an authentic adult love story, telling us about a gemmy woman, Chako, who escaped an arranged marriage, your best cute girl, Futaba (even better than Anya) and your definitely not communication-skilled but (to me at least) still so very lovable man, Isshin. He definitely is not everyone's cup of "tea" aaahaha - but if you keep in mind that he ... has a story and past himself too, you may be able to understand his behavior. In fact, I strongly suspect he has an avoidant attachment style, which makes him more understandable.

This story, surrounded by the theme 'tea' as they live and work on a teafarm at a quick time together, gets your heart for the sake of its mature love- and realistic life-dynamic. It's not the usual manga that goes around right now, so this manga could be a bit irritating for some people, but this is exactly what I personally searched for. If you also searched for a manga you can follow with your mature but shy heart, this is the right one. Convince yourself.

Yamanaka Umebachi is an awesome Mangaka, don't underestimate her storytelling. She surprised me with a lot of moments in the manga I really did not expect!

As far as I am informed, UPDATE: there are now 40 chapters (10 volumes) translated into English, and soon it'll be more. Whom I can't wait for. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

This is a very biased review:

As a lover of age gap stories and the quite possibly occurring romantic tension between a teacher and a student, this collection hits exactly my taste. Every chapter is written and drawn by a different mangaka/artist, so every chapter has its own special charm even though those only catch just a short glimpse of the depth and background of each of the short stories. But the variation of stories, dynamics and characters are great. Every couple/teacher & student has a different point, atmosphere, flavour to it.

This is not your typical manga in which one is supposed to identify with ... the main characters. Here you rather accompany and take notice of the little romantic slices in the lifes of the shown persons. It's their story. (What I think could actually happen or have happend in our real world too.)

For me every chapter leaved behind a particular warm feeling. I especially favour chapter 02, 05, 07, 09.
Overall I'd describe this anthology as mature, wholesome and wistful.
It very is worth a read.

Sooo, as someone who really adores it to the core of my heart, that the male lead has a wholesome gentleman-vibe with the right amount of sexual lust/appetite, this smut manga is just right.
The fact that it is a human-beast relationship is totally not the problem xD. Both main characters do have such a great fundament on developing a bonding relationship in the Manga, out of growing and learning from each other. That aspect gives this manga a really deep and kinda realistic and relatable quality.
The story telling in comparasing to other Mangas coming out at the moment is so authentic and one ... actually feels the relationship between the cute female lead and the big male-beast lead glowing up and bonding to something serious.

For me in particular there just could've been even more scenarios of the beast side of the wall, to bring the story to an even bigger significance and more meaningful conversations between more characters, as almost all the characters were good written.
I am just always wishing that the female lead would also show more playful and "dirty" initiative; in this story here it could be her also biting or petting him(I MEAN HE WOULD LOVE IT RIGHT? XD) ~ but that's just me ~ overall a very solid 10. ＼(￣▽￣)／