An unexpected reunion.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sakuma Tsukasa
What They Say:
Is that their pulse quickening at their coincidental meeting? Or…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Originally serialized in Comic Kairakuten from the July 2024 installment, Stay With you is a thirty-page story from creator Sakuma Tsukasa, who has over two dozen other works on the service. I’ve enjoyed a lot of their work a few years ago, but they’re also a creator that if there’s not enough of a story to hook you into it, it doesn’t work quite as well. This story has all the right charms that it needs and spends a lot of time on set up so you get to know the characters well, which helps a lot. There’s plenty to get out of a story that’s just right to the heart of the matter but the ones that will likely stick with you longer and that you’ll revisit are the ones where you feel a connection to the characters.
The premise for this is a bit awkward in some of the structure but we’re introduced to Kasumi and Ritsuo, two step-siblings who haven’t seen each other in years. When they were teenagers she was cold and distant when her father remarried his mother and she got out of the house as early as she could and the two haven’t talked in forever. They end up meeting at his rookie introduction party where she’s only attending because she quit a month prior but they couldn’t coordinate a party until combining it with this one. It’s awkward between the two but she drinks too much and he’s asked to take her home, which is comical in itself since they’ve been distant so long they don’t even have each others phone numbers. Ritsuto does all the right things and sets her up at home but we see through the flashback some of his more youthful restrained curiosity.
Kasumi has changed over the years, though some of it is an act of sorts,to be nicer to people in order to survive in the world. And she modeled that on Ritsuto in how he treated her so kindly as teenagers. That has her meeting up with him again to thank him for his help and the two end up back at her place to talk more, though it’s not deep or anything while still covering some of the awkwardness of years ago. But Ritsuto takes some of her comments and questions as an opening to show his long love and lust of her and they end up in a pretty intense situation. It’s problematic only in the denials she puts forth for doing any of this but it’s the standard hentai shorthand so it’s not a surprise in how it unfolds. That the two end up spending a very long night in repeated throes of passion and exploration shows an interesting future here – though Ritsuto is not the master of reading the room.
In Summary
There’s a lot going on in this story and that it spends half of its thirty pages devoted to background and character material is great. I wish the payoff was a bit better in regard to their carnal relations but a lot of the problematic stuff – though not all – was removed quickly from the story. I get the things being checked off on the list here so it works in that regard well but it still felt more like it was working through something of a checklist instead of a more natural reason for the pairing to go all-in. The artwork is solid but wasn’t enough to drive it home as well, but it handles the main story materials well that it helped immensely.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: FAKKU
Release Date: July 2024
MSRP: FAKKU Subscription
