Now Loading...!

by Mikan Uji

Two ladies playtest love in this yuri one-shot about the video game industry! Takagi just started her dream job at a gaming company! Not only that, but she’ll be working for her idol, the famous game designer Sakurazuki Kaori! When Takagi finally meets her hero, she’s in for a Sakurazuki is harsh, blunt, and better at playing video games than dealing with people. As Takagi and Sakurazuki work together, the two women grow closer and even fall in love. Can they keep it professional, or will the whole workplace find out?

Genres: Manga, Yuri, Romance, LGBT, Lesbian, Graphic Novels, Queer

164 pages, Paperback

Published January 29, 2019

About the author

Additional works for Mikan Uji can be found under the names みかん氏 and Mikanuji.

Reviews

[Lauren]

2.5 stars

A fairly standard Yuri manga - it had its sweet moments but it was pretty forgettable :/

[Dani(elle)]

I think I discovered a new favorite trope: background shippers (ie the friends in the background shipping the mains hardcore)

[Rose]

Quick review for a quick read. Ehhhhhhh, it was okay. That's basically what my overarching reaction to "Now Loading...!" was overall. I'd probably give this 2.5 stars - the artwork was good, the storyline felt like it had more places it could've gone. It had a really cool concept - a klutzy game developer in training getting off the ground and getting to know her rather colorful co-workers and prove herself worthy at her job. The parts of the story talking about gaming marketing and aspects were really cool. But things get complicated quickly when she forms a relationship with her supervisor/mentor. Some parts of it were nicely done (the romance short and sweet), but I guess for a short manga it still felt too short.

[Jamylle Sampaio]

it delivers what it promises. it is a cute,sweet and short office romance.

[Kay ☾]

Very boring. These are supposed to be adults? It was cute though despite me feeling a bit bored while reading. Good work with the illustrations though. Clean line work for sure. So at least I had some pretty artwork to look at during this read.

[Rod Brown]

A game developer is sexually harassed by her mentor, but it's okay because it turns out she likes her mentor that way. Hrm.

An even bigger concern: her mentor's boss is aware of the situation and addresses it by making the mentor her direct supervisor. I want to think this is an outrageous fiction, but my gut tells me good ol' boys are doing this sort wingman crap every day in the real world, and that the only fiction is that in this book everyone involved is female.

The book of course just sidesteps controversy and presents it all as a bland, fuzzy-wuzzy romance.

Side note: This author's works are spread out under three different names: Mikan Uji, Mikanuji, and みかん氏. As a Goodreads librarian I feel I should do something about that, but at the same time I'm intimidated by all the rules about when author names can be changed and the fact that there doesn't seem to be an existing utility to just merge authors without changing each book record one-by-one. I'm just going to note the fact and step away for now.

[Snail]

Unremarkable and forgettable with arguably poor character development, but it was nice to have an all female cast and no question of queerness; just jump right in! That's fine, too. Also interesting to learn a little more about videogame development; I wish that had been explored and explained in more detail.

[poet]

Solid little story. I liked how it strayed from the clear Butch/Femme dynamic here. Much as I love that, it's nice to see a romance trying not to hang purely on those tropes.

[Aleksandra]

3.5 stars

This was a cute yuri office romance. I like the main couple and side couple was lovely too. The art was cutesy and nice. The cast is all women and they work is game development. It was fun to see them at work.
The main couple is dumbass and even bigger dumbass, I liked it.

I wish the story would dive more into the romance, I felt sometimes the office work outshined the romance.

[Rachel]

Reading this was pretty fun. The interaction between the two main love interests, Takagi and Sakurazuki, was at times somewhat awkward, yet adorable as well. Also, I really enjoy playing games on my phone, and this manga provided me a lot of insight into how much work is involved in making mobile games.

[Amber]

This was adorable. I love following an older couple and I love that they all work in gaming related jobs. It was super sweet and the friends were fun. I just wish there was more. I would love to see more of their relationship.

[Honor]

I liked the game developer aspects but I wish there was more character development and romance between the two main characters but I liked mari chan and her friend Sahara chan a lot. I'd like to see a manga volume on them.

[Kate Long]

Stars: 3.5 Stars
Format: Print
Steam Level: Not Steamy

Solidly enjoyable. No steam at all in this.

Quick Thoughts:
- Fun setting I haven’t seen before and it was all female coworkers in a game making team yay though management was dudes boo
- Off putting power dynamics here. It’s a team boss and new underling situation. If it had been the stereotypical male/female pairing I would have noped out, so that was concerning
- I didn’t totally buy into the main romance, it felt like it should have been either a longer book or a couple of volumes
- The side team characters were so much fun and I would have loved a full story of them
- The little afterwards/daily life four panel comics at the end were a bunch of fun, loved those
- Nice artwork though the younger/shorter part of the pairing seemed to be a little too young looking

Overall a fun book though I think it could have been better.

[Veronica]

Cute office romance in a video game production company. I'm not a gamer and I imagine the setting would be more interesting to those who are, but the romance was enjoyable and it's nice to see a story about adult women in yuri for once. The story wrapped up in a single volume, too, which is a welcome change from all the school romances where everything drags on forever!

[Mira]

Pretty generic yuri. Any yuri about adults is a welcome enough change, though.

[Katie]

Cute fluff. That's what you will get with this one.

[Boujee]

lukewarm yuri about a couple of nerd girls with stupid profiles

[Kathleen]

Unexpectedly cute new-adult romance!

[Bryan]

Enjoyed this book so much I read it on and off three times in the past couple hours. I am currently really into Yuri! All these titles I’ve checked out thus far have been great!

About a chapter into this book I realized that this title was the first one in which the characters aren’t high schoolers or even college students...they’re working adults!

Obviously I check out the Yuri for the queer representation, but this is a title I’d follow and thoroughly enjoy doing so even without the “romantic relationships”. The characters are very likable and have built good chemistry between each other in a short amount of time. I like the premise and the boldness to present a “slice of life” story in which no life threatening or drastic events occur. It’s literally likable characters working together creating a game in an office setting. They also hang out after work. I’d say that this manga reminds me of a “sitcom” almost.

Will definitely be following this series from now on.

[Claire]

Has the same problems as all single volume mangas, but this time there wasn't even enough there for me to feel bad about not getting more. Just really mediocre. All of it has been done before but better.

Basically it's a 'New Game' ripoff with a really generic yuri romance tacked onto it for seemingly no other reason than "this will differentiate it". And I normally love yuri manga!

[Audiophile]

This was super cute!

There's not really any plot, just ladies working hard and being super cute with each other <3

I really enjoyed that it's all adults in a work environment instead of the same old high school drama crap.

Overall it was just a very lovely quick read :3

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader)]

3 stars. The plot left a lot to be desired. It felt underdeveloped but the characters were lovely and I liked the romance and the artwork was nice. It’s only one volume so I’m not mad that I read it. It was fine the plot just needed some work.

[Jillian -always aspiring-]

Adorable! I really liked how this was a workplace slice-of-life story with a side of fluffy romance. I just wish it was longer!

[Jenna]

Second read around. Cute romance but a bit slow going and wish it had had time to develop more. A spinoff of our side cast would be nice!

[Jennifer C]

Fun but too short

It was cute heartwarming but was too Short for my liking. It’s a fun manga just to short for my standards?.

[Heather]

Really short read where I felt like I didn’t get the romance. It developed in what felt like seconds and I didn’t feel invested in their relationship. The art was good but nothing groundbreaking

[Katja]

3,5 stars. Cute but doesn't rise above, and the support cast is more interesting than the main to-be-couple. Setting is fun though, the cast is an all-female game developer team.

[Aurora]

Was boring and lacked substance.

[Mizu]

A rather cute story between two women who work in the game development industry. This last element was what was the most interesting for me.

[David Doel]

The story was pleasant. The characters were hard to distinguish from one another; there were five principal players and three were hard to tell apart.