I’d put this down almost as a 2.5, it’s really middling. The concept is cute enough - nerd guy and average girl start dating in junior high and then he reinvents himself into the most popular guy and she hides as a nerd. I feel like there’s a lot of potential there and they don’t do anything interesting with it.
You’re working uphill already when your two leads start out dating and while this isn’t insurmountable, I have issues with manga where five minutes of conversation would resolve every problem in the story. Nothing here really sticks out beyond a couple of cute moments when they’re talking over voice chat.
Let's Kiss in Secret Tomorrow, Vols. 1 - 3 by Uri Sugata ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was pleasantly surprised by this series. With a premise of a secret relationship for really dumb reasons, I was fully expecting to get way more annoyed than I actually did. Saya and Yuto have been BFF’s since the womb and sort of naturally progressed to a “romantic” relationship in middle school. I’m using romantic very loosely because despite becoming boyfriend/girlfriend, the dynamics of their friendship never changed.
Then comes high school and Yuto’s makeover. Suddenly he’s seen as really attractive by the entire female student population, which intimidates Saya into making herself under. They still date, but in secret. Like I said, the reason for why is pretty silly, but she does at least attempt to course correct in volume two.
The big thing that I loved in this series, though, is that Saya and Yuto’s love for one another (both romantically and friendship-wise) never waivered, not for one second. Saya goes on a journey to discover not only herself, but also the young man Yuto’s become. Yuto finds the confidence to guide Saya to the first big turning point of their relationship (their first kiss). There were potential love rivals, but they were really mild and went nowhere because neither lead character was having it. The love rivals were even portrayed as decent people (well, ⅔ of them, anyway) in the end.
The big thing that I didn’t like, however, was that the ending focused so much on the side character of Amabiki instead of our two leads as a couple. Did she deserve to be forgiven by them? Sure, why not. Did it need to be the scene that the series closed on? Uh, NO. There should have been at least another chapter or two following that to bring it back around to the main reason why everyone picked up this series in the first place - Saya and Yuto’s relationship.
Luckily, throughout volume three, the mangaka included little one-panel “where will they be in 10 years” for each of the major players. The one for Saya and Yuto has them . If that hadn’t been included, the ending would have been even more of a major disappointment than it already is. Still, I would have preferred a time jump chapter that actually shows the characters in the future rather than the one panel snapshots, but I’m happy we got what we did.
4 stars. This is refreshingly different. I like a couple that games together online, plus the set-up that they're already couple after years of being friends is nice.
The main characters are such cuties, but I thought this would be a little more...mature, at least going by the cover. Not reading the synopsis, I honestly thought this was going to be a love story between opposites attracting and having to slowly build their relationship. But, no, they’re childhood friends who end up hiding their relationship for silly reasons once they get into high school! Ah, well. I am at least interested in seeing how the story ends up going.