Suuna is a very shy girl who has no friends and describes herself as a ‘ball of anxiety’, so when high school starts, she decides to leave home and live in her school’s dorm to finally make friends. On her first day, she meets her roommate Ruka in a very compromising position with another girl. Suuna is super confused; is this what friends do? She begs Ruka to help her and agrees to become FWB: ‘Friends With Benefits’. For Suuna it means she can finally grow comfortable around other people and make friends; for Ruka however, this means something completely different…

This is so far the only work of Minori Chigusa that has been translated into English, but they are an experienced mangaka in Japan, with multiple series under their belt. They normally focus on school settings, but have a mix of hetero, Boys’ and Girls’ Love titles under their belt, but with more Girls’ Love stories in general.

With the Mature rating of the book, and the synopsis above, it’s safe to say that this book contains suggestive themes and sexual poses; there’s no sex in this book, but some close-ups of bodies and such, and it’s clear that Ruka has a lot of experience with sex, so safe to save it’ll likely get more steamy as the series progresses. There is also unbalanced relationship dynamics, due to Suuna being a very secluded girl, who mistakes Ruka’s sexy fun times as simply two mates hanging out. She’s basically the ‘they seem to be very good friends’ meme incarnate, but it’s a sheltered young girl who has been taken advantage of by Ruka, who manages to convince her new roomie that touching each semi-clothed is totally what gal pals do! Ruka is the street smart, sexy one of the pair, who’s very experienced in sex and even has earned herself a reputation among her peers. But she’s thrown off by Suuna’s sincere nature, and finds herself getting moved by the simplest touches from Suuna, who completely panics and goes into meltdown from the slightest touch. It’s an interesting dynamic that shows that sex isn’t everything, that intimacy is more than just grabbing boobs and penetrative sex. Also, it’s revealed that Suuna is not very school smart either, needing Ruka to study with her to help her catch up on classwork. So in a way, despite being one-sided in terms of power dynamics, it’s Ruka putting in all the work into the relationship! So in a weird way it semi-balances it out. I would say however that Ruka is the more interesting one of the pair, having not just sexual experience but also being smart at school and having a sense of humour as well, with an expanding group of friends that add dynamics to the series as the manga progresses. Suuna, however, I found less interesting, due to her anxious and innocent nature being used as a recurring gag so she hardly develops over the book.

If you’ve seen preview pages, you’ll notice that this book seems to be a mixture of the traditional and 4-panel manga style, and that’s because it is; for about 70-80% of the book is in 4-panel style, but the rest is traditional manga style, normally reserved for the steamier or emotional parts of the book, where a bigger spread does the sexy poses justice. In the manga notes at the back, the mangaka says they’re grateful that the magazine Kirara allowed them to do that, but I have to admit, I didn’t like the back and forth. The mangaka has done one other 4-panel style previously, but most of their work has been in the traditional style. You can tell from this series where their strengths lie, because the manga is much easier to read, and the character art is given room to breathe in the traditional style, especially when it’s saved for the big moments. When we switch to the 4-panel style however, it’s very cramped, it’s hard to tell who’s talking sometimes and there are many panels with way too much text. It’s not helped that the mangaka’s preference is to express Suuna’s anxiety with comedic chibi or over-the-top designs, that fill up the whole boxes, and therefore you get little else in there. I had to squint a few times to read the panels, and I wear glasses! So I found myself feeling claustrophobic when reading the 4-panel style, then sighing with relief when it returned  to the traditional style.

The art is pretty good though. I like the girl’s distinctive designs: Suuna with her curvaceous body shape, but long hair [where she hides her expressions behind], whereas Ruka has shorter hair with cool star-shaped clips, reflectingf her more vibrant personality, plus the long nails and cool expression show off her domination.

Translation by Giuseppe di Martino I found to be more of a mixed bag; there’s a couple of sentences that were a bit clunky to read, but I could put that down to the tight frame of the manga itself. But it also applies to the title; in the original Japanese Ruka calls her girl companions as ‘sefure’ or ‘semi-friend’ which obviously Suuna mistakes as a typical innocent ‘friend’ way and therefore it relates to the title. However in the English translation, Ruka says ‘FWB’ or ‘Friends With Benefits’ which has a particular meaning in the West, and again it’s easy to see why Suuna would mistake that phrase as innocent due to not knowing the context, but now it no longer relates to the title. They mention off hand ‘semi-friend’ in the middle of the book, but mostly they stick to ‘FWB’ in dialogue, so it’s a very clunky connection to the title.

Convenient Semi-Friend is a title of messy dynamics, comedic shyness and lesbians learning intimacy in a new context, for a potentially fun series. The mixture of the traditional and 4-panel manga style threw me off a lot of the time, and made reading this volume difficult at times, but if you find the premise interesting, be sure to check it out.

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.