The ocean of romance manga is a BIG ecosystem, and in order to survive you have to distinguish yourself. Most attempt this by hinging their entire narrative on a singular clever, silly, or sometimes outright ridiculous (its cousin adjective — stupid) premise; this works great for a few chapters, maybe a volume, but soon the spark dies and you move on to the next flash-in-the-pan work that ultimately puts in the minimum amount of effort needed to keep your heart fluttering. Even worse are the romance manga that actually lead with an interesting premise, but rapidly fall onto tropes that artificially keep the protagonist andtheir love interest at a frigid arm's length.

On both counts, not so with Wakaba-san Chi no Aoi Koi! It first makes the ambitious decision to present a story from four different perspectives, keeping the narrative fresh and moving at a nice pace, and second, all four of the protagonists' romantic feelings are reciprocated!

Crazy, I know. But that's what makes this manga so much fun: instead of stressing out over whether or not someone is going to get their heart broken, you spend your time enjoying the sights, smiling at the awkward fumbling and the nervous smiles, and warming up by the fire of innocent young love. This is all complimented beautifully with high quality illustrations that thankfully, resist the temptation to go full-on chibi and instead opt for a more mature, graceful style.

With all that said, it takes some time for the writing and plot to match the quality of the art: the four sisters are sweet, kind, and endearing, but they are all admittedly a bit of a one-note instrument, and the author frequently struggles for several volumes with having any of the potential couples hold a conversation for more than a few lines before a dramatic close-up ends with both parties blushing furiously and their words getting jumbled.

I very much like that this manga strictly avoids the route of painfully drawn out misunderstandings and nail biting romantic conflict — sometimes i just want to read something cute and relaxing! — but this also admittedly means that the manga can never achieve the status of a 9/10 or 10/10 for me. The innocent love aspect is fun and certainly worth sticking around for, but the very best romance manga are those that actually have people become vulnerable and risk failure, and whose fears exist alongside their dreams.

Wakaba-san Chi no Aoi Koi has attempted some version of conflict at small scale — a chapter or two at most — but its gut instinct is to bolt from any real problem lasting long enough to create genuine stakes. This reason is exactly why I praise the manga as fun and relaxing, but also why I do not rate it any higher: the author's strategy is safe and can achieve a high score, but not the highest; those almost always require a story that takes real risks, and this one doesn't (the one exception I'd name — that is, a risk-free story about falling in love — is Ponyo. But that's a pretty high bar to meet).

Still, what this manga sets out to do it does exceptionally well, and that certainly earns an 8/10!

TLDR: A cute, engaging four-perspective romcom that doesn't drag out the "do they really like each other?" aspect and instead dives straight into the funny, silly, and adorable antics of people falling in love and trying to gauge how fast the other is falling with them. However, the manga plays it very safe and won't blow you away; it's a happy, fun, relaxing manga that aims to put a smile on your face and does its job well! 8/10