When Panini Manga made their debut last year, I was impressed with the high quality of the books and the two titles they chose to launch with. Those two were Earth Expansion and the title I’m returning to today, Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me. How will this second instalment fare? Let’s take a closer look!

As we reunite with Ryuto and Runa, we find them at school, where rumours are beginning to spread that Runa has a new boyfriend. The students are busy speculating that her new boyfriend must be super hot or rich, which only makes Ryuto feel even more inadequate to be by her side. And then there’s Maria Kurose, Ryuto’s first crush and classmate, who also seems to have a problem with Runa.

It’s soon revealed that Maria is Runa’s twin sister, but their parents divorced, and the relationship between the two girls has become strained after their parents fought over which daughter to look after. Unbeknownst to Ryuto, Maria also has a crush on him and is upset to discover that Runa has taken him for herself.

About half of this volume is dedicated to the relationship between Maria and Runa, which works out well since author Nagaoka Makiko has put the work in to ensure there’s not just shallow jealousy here. It’s clear that Runa loves her sister and doesn’t understand why she’s so reluctant to talk to her since they got into high school. But Ryuto, as someone who can see both sides, understands that there’s a lot of complex emotions at play here, and he does his best to reassure Runa without sharing any of Maria’s secrets.

It seems like the sibling relationship will be a long-term storyline, which is fine since these are the kind of emotions that have been built up over a long period of time and aren’t (nor should be) easily resolved. The second half of the volume balances out the drama by Runa and Ryuto going on a date to the zoo and making some small steps in progressing their relationship.

Just like the first instalment, this volume of Our Dating Story is a cute and relatively grounded approach to a teenage romance. Our two leads are total opposites and that causes a lot of problems, but they communicate well, and that lends believability to them. It’s not necessarily doing anything original, but it’s this sincere approach to the storytelling that draws you in.

And now that we’re getting to know more of the characters, it’s becoming clear that this approach to storytelling extends beyond the romance. It gives the series a lot of room to grow without relying on creating drama between our main couple to sustain the story. I’m certainly looking forward to spending more time getting to know Maria and also any other characters that get brought in.

As mentioned, Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me Volume 2 comes to the UK thanks to Panini. Like with the first volume, the translation is credited to CCC International LLC, and while, for the most part, it does read well, there are some confusing decisions. Notably, there’s a scene where Runa gets embarrassed about being complimented by Ryuto and responds with “baka”. Yes, the Japanese term is left untranslated, and there’s a translation note placed within the panel that notes it’s “a slang term that means foolish or idiot.”. In contrast to this, the English release on Manga UP translated it to “you big dummy”, which I personally feel makes more sense for the scene.

The issue here is that you’ve had to put a translation note in for no real reason. While the word “baka” is certainly going to be well understood if you’ve been watching anime for a long time, it alienates people who haven’t. I wondered at first if it was simply replacing some other kind of slang, but no, the Japanese text does just say ばか. This is a series that retains the usage of honorifics (which I feel is appropriate for the setting), so it does seem aimed toward an audience with some understanding of Japanese culture, but I feel retaining baka rather than properly translating it, like Manga UP did, doesn’t make sense. I also wish that translation notes were a page at the back of the book or within the margins between panels as opposed to being drawn in as whole new text blocks. The panels can be cramped enough at times without adding to the problem unnecessarily.

Otherwise, the release is without issue and comes with colour pages, as with Volume 1. The age rating has also been increased from the previous 12+ to 14+, which feels more appropriate. There’s no eBook option here, so for now this remains a physical release only unless you read the individual chapters on Manga UP. Panini have already released Volumes 3 through 5, with #6 due in early October.

Overall, Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me Volume 2 continues in a similar vein to the first outing, with a realistic but sweet look at two teenagers in love. Despite a baffling translation decision, this is still proving to be an enjoyable romance series.

Our review copy from Panini was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).