One Week Friends is about one-week friends.
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Matcha Hazuki
Translation/Adaptation: Amanda Haley
Lettering: Bianca Pistillo
What They Say:
Yuuki Hase desperately wants to be friends with Kaori Fujimiya, the girl in class who always seems to be alone. Just when he thinks they’ve hit it off, she tells him her secret: Every week, her memories reset. Yuuki resolves to befriend her as many times as it takes, but is he prepared for how much it will hurt to be one-week friends…?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Week Friends was a surprise for me back when the anime was airing in 2014. I kinda watched anything that vaguely struck my fancy back then, and I recall the art for this being very appealing. Appealing enough that I reviewed it week-by-week back then. I didn’t intend to review the manga as well, because it’s pretty tough to come up with new things to say about the same thing, especially when it’s relatively content-lite like One Week Friends, but it’s only seven volumes and it’s still very cute.
Which brings me to the manga, which is incredibly cute. It’s a combination of regular manga layout and 4-koma. It was off-putting at first, but I think it works out in the end. The moments of gravity are placed in the manga format, while their regular interactions are 4-koma. I don’t know about other readers with better memories, but I tend to remember a chapter or volume relatively well, but I remember specific gags or strips of 4-koma. It goes along with the manga’s story, of Fujimiya losing her memory every week and Hase becoming her friend. Eventually, she remembers some of those gags and good times after a trigger (18, geometric sequences—I guess they’re all math-related?), but she has a much better record of the larger moments in the manga format; they’re much easier to fill into a moment in the diary.
There’s something inherently heartwarming about someone trying so hard just to make a friend. I don’t think there’s anything too overtly romantic about Fujimiya’s relationship to Hase, but largely because she seems oblivious to it, having only known about friends and relationships through shojo manga. Hase, however, catches onto a few things, though he’s not pursuing Fujimiya like that. That’s part of why this manga is so charming. There’s not a will they-won’t they hanging over the entire thing, or at least there isn’t yet but who knows what will happen by volume seven.
In Summary:
There are cute moments throughout this manga, and I’m glad to be able to revisit them in this format. I kind of forgot how much I enjoyed the One Week Friends anime, but this is a great way to be able to go back and even get the whole story eventually as Yen releases the completed manga.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: December 19, 2017
MSRP: $15.00
