I bought this at random, not realising it had had a TV anime adaptation in January-March 2024. I've just watched the first episode of that, too, and they're identical except that the anime's omitted some of the manga's asides (e.g. the Rules about Hokkaido Gyarus) and that Fuyuki's voice actress isn't playing the character as stupid. That's a surprising choice, but hey. Anyway, both versions of this story are likeable enough, but I won't be continuing with either of them.

A boy (Shiki Tsubasa) moves to Hokkaido (a famously cold Japanese island region) because of his father's work. He does two stupid and entirely avoidable things in the first 24 pages, either of which could have killed him. Fortunately, though, his life is saved by a girl with big boobs! Her name's Minami Fuyuki and she's thoroughly nice, but also the manga's fundamental problem. I struggled with the first four chapters because of her, although the manga then started introducing other characters and became quite good. I can see why it got a TV anime adaptation. Fuyuki, though...

1. She's a fantasy for the romantically challenged target audience. Big boobs, stupid and glomps on to Tsubasa like a limpet. We know they'll end up together almost before we start reading.

2. Her lack of self-awareness is so implausible that it breaks the character. She invites this strange boy to her house (having only met him the day before) when no else is there. She makes mildly suggestive comments, changes into pyjamas that highlight her enormous breasts and then falls asleep in front of him. Yes, she's an idiot. A bubbly, nice, super-friendly one. Even so, I couldn't buy that. In real life, you'd think she was trying to get into his pants. Here, no. She's just dozy. She hadn't meant to fall asleep and she chases him out into the snow afterwards to apologise.

3. She's not even that attractive. She has huge breasts (albeit inconsistently drawn), but that's it. The art style makes her heavy gyaru make-up look like bruises, although the same trick is quite effective when indicating that Tsubasa's freezing his arse off. She looks just as bad on the cover in colour, though, and the anime underlines this by constantly reminding us how terrible her fashion sense is. Her colour coordination is the pits. At least the manga's in black-and-white.

This volume's last eighty pages are good, though. I liked Tsubasa's aunt and the withdrawn girl on the ski trip (Sayuri Akino). The manga might be heading for a semi-harem set-up, with I think a core cast of at least three girls, but it's guaranteed that Tsubasa will stick with Fuyuki.

Overall, it's a comfortable read. Everyone's nice. Fuyuki is impossible to dislike, being kind, friendly, endlessly positive and a thoroughly good person. However, the first four chapters are dead until other characters appear alongside her and Tsubasa. That said, though, the manga has 13 volumes so far and has been successful enough to get an anime, so maybe all that was just teething pains and the series might easily be quite good overall.