Breathless Time Traveler

by Yuyuko Takemiya

When one girl gets another chance at her youth, can she avoid death and keep the love of her life? A supernatural love story that transcends both time and death! From the author of Toradora!—also available from Seven Seas!Kannami Rara is addicted to social media and idolizes Ariana Grande--in other words, she's your typical modern college girl. Or, she was, anyway, until a traffic accident cuts her life short. But forget heaven or hell, Rara now finds herself stuck in a time loop, repeating her life up until that tragic day. She has another chance at her youth...and love with her boyfriend, Kengo. As time loops over and over, Rara finds herself scrambling to pull together the threads of her life. But can Rara prevent her death and create a world where she and Kengo can have a future together, or is she destined to repeat the past forever?

Genres: Light Novel

192 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2025

About the author

Yuyuko Takemiya (竹宮 ゆゆこ Takemiya Yuyuko) is a Japanese writer of light novels. Takemiya debuted in September 2004 with her light novel series Watashitachi no Tamura-kun (Our Tamura-kun) which first appeared in the autumn 2004 issue of Dengeki hp Special, a special edition version of Dengeki hp. That same month, Takemiya worked on the scenario for the bishōjo game Noel by FlyingShine (also known for creating Cross Channel).

Following the completion of Watashitachi no Tamura-kun, Takemiya began her best-known series, Toradora!, which she declared to be complete in April 2010 after ten volumes and three spin-off books. The first book of her next series, Golden Time, was Dengeki Bunko's 2000th published light novel. Takemiya launched the manga series Evergreen with artist Akira Kasukabe on July 19, 2011 in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Daioh Genesis quarterly magazine.

Reviews

[Rafael Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The time travel aspect of showing Rara and Kengo’s relationship was pretty good. Rara’s narration was enjoyable at times as well. And I did like the initial alien interactions, along with the bike ride into space. However, the final chapter explaining the whole alien “mystery” left a bit to be desired, as did P. The ending did wrap everything up, but it felt a little hollow. Maybe I’d like it more on a reread, but not right now. That said, I do hope Takemiya continues writing and gets more of her other work translated.

Edit: Honestly wished she’d focused more on the romance, she was in her bag with their interactions; the time travel explanation really did drag it down.

Edit 2: After some more distance from reading this and having read other books, I'm leaning more towards a 2.5, so I'm taking this down to 2 stars. The fact that I'm questioning whether this or Evergreen was her worst is really telling.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is for the folks still on the fence about whether or not to read this book. Going in, you should know there's no big mystery to solve in this book, and you're going to jump from point to point in the timeline in a kind of choose-your-own-adventure manner. You're meant to be flowing along in stream-of-consciousness style the same way Rara is. This is a story about recognizing and preserving what is important in life along with exploring fate and free will. Following Rara's life from X to P is an interesting ride and totally worth letting yourself coast along with the narrative. The downside here is that the summary of the story from P forward is rushed. You really want to spend more time and get the details more fleshed out, but the plot wraps up quickly and sort of flings you back out into reality. I say it's worth getting on the merry-go-round to enjoy the ride, even if it throws you off in a dizzy heap.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5, Clearly Kengo loved Rara a lot to create all those time loops... I would have bumped up to 4 if the romance (at least on his side) was shown (in the flashbacks) to be deep as her's for him, ya know? I was looking forward to their interactions each loop and thought the alien concept/overall explanation was smart.

[Adrian Peinado · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.
4.
3.
4.
3?
4!
Okay, 3.
I really wanted to love this book, but I cant.
The writer tried hard for sure, but this could have been pulled off in a much better way.

[Lazu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a fun enjoyable time loop novel. It's not fancy or outstanding but just fun and short. A quick read :)