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This was quite an incredible ride. Ano ko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo is a shoujo ai / yuri manga that explores the relationships and feelings of the girls at the all-girls Seiran Academy. It mostly centers around two protagonists, Shiramine Ayaka and Kurosawa Yurine - the latter who is a transfer student that shakes Ayaka's self-esteem after stealing her number one spot in the academic rankings as soon as they entered high school. It's your typical cute and fluffy rival to lovers to trope except it's (finally) yuri.

Eventually, the manga also started to explore the relationships of the people around our two protagonists, ... albeit it was a bit messy at the start. At some point, one chapter after another became about completely different couples and we only get glimpses of Shiramine or Kurosawa. However, Canno was eventually able to find the right footing in exploring the stories of these couples in parallel to the growth of both protagonists.

I found myself growing fond of these characters and I appreciate how the author took the time to explore them - differentiating the relationships of each one from the other, which is a nice touch instead of getting that simple "...and they fall in love!' plot point. In Shirayuri, Canno nods to the fact that the dynamics in each relationship aren't always as simple as just falling in love - even bringing across the point that sometimes some of us love more than one person. I think it's nice that they went deeper with this, it's certainly refereshing that the feelings of these characters were taken seriously instead of just being there because it's "cute" or framed as a "phase" which yuri mangas have been guilty of doing.

While I wouldn't say that Canno was able to properly interlaced these stories cohesively, I think they were able to create quite a strong ensemble that I just grew to love and it's great that the main story closed nicely while also giving a send off to the other couples.

9/10 - it has flaws in terms of cohesiveness but it's definitely worth reading and great addition to anyone's shoujo ai / yuri collection (which is increasingly becoming more interesting these days!).