Our Colors has a great premise, but a somewhat “meh” execution. Compared to Gengoroh Tagame’s other “safe for work” manga, My Brother’s Husband, this story feels considerably less fleshed out. I think the biggest problem is that the narrative bit off more than it could chew given the manga’s short length. The platonic relationship between Mr. Amamiya and Sora doesn’t have a ton of time to develop since the story is also focusing on Sora’s relationship to his childhood friend, his family, and his crush at the same time. By the end, none of these plots resolved in a gratifying way; it felt like all ofthem could have been explored further.

Though the art is generally good, there are several moments where things look a bit off. Every now and then, the characters’ feelings are expressed through magical realism, where the panels suddenly portray things in a more fantastical way. Each time this happens, the transition is extremely awkward. I don’t believe this was an intentional choice on the author’s part; these sequences felt clumsy and jarring.

Finally, without spoiling anything, I think one part of the ending totally undermined the rest of the story. This moment left a really bad taste in my mouth because it felt completely unearned and inappropriate. Some key themes and ideas are set-up and reinforced for 99% of the narrative, only to be disregarded at the very end for seemingly no reason. It’s really unfortunate, because there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had with this story, but it seems to sabotage itself so frequently.

Overall, I’m left with pretty mixed feelings. There are some good ideas here, and I mostly enjoyed my experience, but Our Colors just didn’t leave much of an impact. I hope that Tagame’s next venture into SFW manga is a bit more polished.