Once the door opens, it’s hard to close it again.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Uchigawa
What They Say
A hazy, hot, and immature… summer experience.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Originally appearing in the February 2025 installment of Comic Bavel, this story of “Crescendo ” comes from mangaka Uchigawa and clocks in at twenty-four pages. It marks my third experience with their work, and I was drawn to it simply because it’s playing with college-age characters. Uchigawa only got on the service late last year, I believe, so it makes it easy to subscribe and continue to explore if their storytelling scratches the right itch, which is why I do like sampling other creators from time to time instead of just sticking to the ones I know.
The story for this introduces us to the couple Ryohei and Kasumi. They’ve been dating for a bit but are intent on waiting until adulthood to go all the way, though that’s obviously an amorphous thing in so many ways. The two are a cute couple, and while he’s frustrated, he doesn’t want to lose her either because he’s totally into her. What he suggests that she agrees with is that kissing is fine. She simply doesn’t want to have sex, which he understands. This leads to a few weeks of some good kissing that got longer with each experience, but you also see how it starts to go further when she’s got a canker sore and that has him spending his time on her neck. What’s fun about the story is that it does take its enjoyment in the progression, because she eventually realizes how aroused he’s getting and approves of him pleasuring himself in front of her. That’s just increasing her curiosity in a huge way, as expected, and there’s quite the thrill for him.
This leads to things getting more creative as time goes on and while it doesn’t go all the way, it gets close at one point. When he accidentally dirties her outfit, that has her stripping down and it just drives him even more. He’s still restrained and respectful, but she wants to feel more herself, and it’s fun to watch as the two figure it out, both each other and themselves. But all of it serves as a delay once again until they can get together another time. And that has a fun moment where he feels like a bad guy because he’s prepared by having what he needs for protection, and just that he feels like anything he says would be pressuring her. But the reality is that she’s in control of this situation and wants him, to go to adulthood together, and it’s a great sequence as it unfolds since it’s not the usual stuff, her outfit is pretty restrained in a lot of ways, and there’s just a kind of honesty about it.
In Summary
I tend to not get into a lot of the first-time stuff simply because of the age range I tend to stick to, so something on the cusp here isn’t the norm. But it’s handled well and I liked that it was on both sides with what they wanted and how to get there when the time was right. It wasn’t a big pressured situation that led to drama but rather incremental connections that built to more. The artwork is solid throughout and while we didn’t get a lot in terms of actual personality outside of their more intimate moments, the time spent building each of those moments helped to make them engaging enough for the story that you had fun with it and the reminder of one’s own experiences with certain aspects of it.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: FAKKU
Release Date: February 2025
MSRP: FAKKU Subscription
