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The best slow burn slice of life and romance series excel with engaging characters, relatable moments, and interesting dialogue, often accompanied with solid comedy. But in Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, none of that exists. The personalities in here are incredibly flat, the conversations are dull, and the chemistry between the characters is one-note.

A big reason why is because Sasaki doesn’t realize that Yamada and Tayama are the same person (does he have working eyes?), which leads to repetitive jokes centered around Yamada teasing Sasaki and him getting embarrassed. Sometimes, these gags can get you to crack a smile, but generally they fall ... flat. The age gap between the two leads is probably the most interesting selling point here though.

However, even though this manga has adult characters regularly talking about work over a smoke, many of the interactions feel recycled from teenage school year, slice of life manga. Whether it’s the 45 year old man getting teased by the 24 year old “cheeky kouhai” or reacting to a change in Yamada’s appearance, he acts like an inexperienced grade schooler, immediately blushing and stammering his words, rather than behaving as the far more experienced adult that he is. Workplace stress and troubles do play a big part in the story as well, so them being adults is still relevant, but that only makes the embarrassed reactions feel more like they don't belong. Based on how he reacts, you'd think he's renting a girlfriend rather than taking a smoke break.

The character designs look great. Sasaki’s worn out, wrinkled appearance contrasts heavily with Yamada’s youthful face, though they both share sharp facial features. The difference between her neat and tidy workplace appearance and her punkier casual attire helps highlight the different sides of her personality pretty clearly, to everyone besides Sasaki that is. Beyond the characters, the art is fine but nothing exciting. Backgrounds are kept fairly clean with standard screentones and the paneling is functional.

There’s nothing in here that’s egregiously bad. The age gap, where Sasaki is nearly double the age of Yamada, is handled tastefully, and occasionally cute and funny moments pop up here and there. But this manga doesn't do enough to distinguish itself and is ultimately forgettable.

A hilarious story with creative and varied ways of exploring its silly premise, Turns Out My Dick Was a Cute Girl is another entry in Japan's quest to waifunize everything.

This manga knows its appeal and embraces it immediately, with a thick splooge of jokes revolving around Kosuga coming terms to living with the adorably fascinated Chinko-chan and teaching her/it/pp? about new experiences in a slice of life setting. Despite the degenerate topic, fanservice is practically nonexistent, as it's only logical to protect and treasure the most private parts of life. The pacing is quite fluid, flowing from page to page without needing to clean up ... any messy drama. At times, it's even relatable with very protective moments of Kasuga caring for Chinko, as well as the fact that I also struggle living with my 4 foot penis.

A surprising amount of thought is put into Chinko's character design for it to resemble a dick, from her general penis shape, the indent on her head corresponding to the urinary meatus (had to check for the scientific term, obviously), her hoodie doubling as foreskin, and the creases on the hoodie mimicking veins. And of course, she genuinely is a cute girl, in a truly wholesome way that just makes you want to give her a good head-patting session. A boner to pick with this manga is that backgrounds typically end up shooting blanks, with lots of empty space or basic design. The mangaka does make good use of both nutty expressions and panel angles for entertaining visual jokes, just to remind you that "yes, I am actually reading a manga about an anthropomorphic penis". Why spend time photoshopping cocks onto your favorite manga characters when this manga draws them for you already?

The title alone is already quite funny, and the comedy backs it up. From worrying about societal ridicule of his penis being publicly exposed, biological implications of this sudden transformation, and personal adventures that Chinko endured as a penis, the comedic content is shockingly diverse for what is essentially just a lot of dick jokes. Granted, there are some misfires or forced jokes that don't really seem to fit properly, but the vast majority of them hit well. Going forward, it might be difficult for this manga to keep shooting out fresh batches of jokes surrounding the same premise, but so far a variety of positions about our cute dick girl have been tested and occasional small gags surrounding different topics hints at the mangaka being able to avoid the comedy getting crusty.

The idea of this story certainly sounds like a meme, and it does cum from a joke one-shot (An Indecent Manga from Before), but it's also just really good fun and worth the read.

An incredibly dorky and sweet story about two friends engaging in childhood friend tropes seen in manga.

Kaede, the transfer student, has constantly moved throughout her childhood but wishes for a childhood friend that she's read about. Luckily for her, her neighbor Kouhei likes her and is willing to play along as well. The events in this manga center around them roleplaying childhood friend cliches, but often with their own little twist. The meta aspect of these ideas and how they are addressed makes the plot feel more original than simply recycling the same ideas.

Kouhei and Kaede have really good chemistry as childhood friends, as both ... of them genuinely enjoy their antics with one another. Though Kouhei seems to have a one-sided crush, Kaede isn't entirely oblivious either and the path to romantic progress is being slowly but surely laid down each chapter. Since they're kids in middle school, their silly roleplays don't seem out of place either.

People are drawn in a fairly unique style and the background is often quite detailed. There's funny moments sprinkled into the chapters, and I always get a kick out of Kaede explaining to Kouhei how his childhood friend roleplay could be more accurate to what she's familiar with. The atmosphere is light and innocent as a slice of life centered around kids.

It's simply a lighthearted, fluffy manga with consistently enjoyable chapters that I highly recommend.

A high school romCOM where the friends outshine the main pair.

Story: Generic school life events that follows and drags out the plot of what you'd come to expect for a high school romance.
Art: Solid and improves throughout the story, especially considering Tomo-chan was a daily release.
Characters: Main cast consists of a generic main couple, Tomo and Jun, overshadowed by their friends Carol and Misuzu. Side characters are mostly forgettable or adult versions of the main cast.
Enjoyment: It's a light read and has its comedic moments, but blue balls the reader when it comes to the romance and compensates by overusing some jokes.

Tomo-chan is all about ... the chase. The quality fluctuates quite a bit from arc to arc, especially as the story progresses. There's nothing really special about the plot at all, as it doesn't try to innovate, but rather focus mostly on the interactions and dialogue between characters in their positions.

The art is solid for a daily 4-koma. It improves throughout the story, although as it's a daily release, the limitations the mangaka faces are obvious. The panels leading up to the jokes flow nicely and although each "chapter" is split into a page, that doesn't really affect the continuity of the manga.

The main couple are simple people, which makes chapters that revolve solely around the two feel rather repetitive. Both are naive, strong, clueless, and good people at heart. However, Misuzu is a welcome change of pace as someone who's a bit edgier, serving as a valuable foil to the flat personalities of the main two. Carol is the wild card of the cast, able to make things happen while maintaining her misleading smile. As for side characters, the most notable one is Misaki, who makes up for what he lacks in strength compared to the main couple with his common sense. The parents of the main characters are just older versions of the main ones, aside from Gorou, who is just the typical jealous doting dad. The rest of the characters are entirely forgettable and may as well not have a name.

Strangely enough, the best character and romantic developments are reserved not for the main couple. Not only do they act as wingwomen for Tomo and Jun, but they also legitimately learn from their mistakes and try to improve as people. When it eventually does come time for Tomo and Jun to make some progress, they fall flat in comparison. Their static characters can make the manga feel stale for a while, especially considering how plain their initial character design is in the first place. For a titular character, Tomo is surprisingly underdeveloped (outside of her physical growth).

Tomo-chan is first and foremost a comedy, with the vast majority of its chapters setting up for punchlines at the end of them. Although I don't think it's as funny as others do, it certainly does have some good jokes. At points, it relies on a bunch of running jokes, but they generally manage to continue being funny throughout. There are certainly some parts, however, that feel like filler and are a slog to get through. It's really only until the last couple dozen or chapters that this feels overly obvious. Despite my criticisms, it still has some fun arcs, but just like a hospice patient, the enjoyment flatlined at the end.

Overall, it's a mediocre/decent comedy series with a unsatisfying climax. It feels like Tomo being a girl is often only relevant to the comedic bits rather than to the romance; if only the mangaka had remembered Tomo-chan is a girl earlier.