Home Office Romance by Kintetsu Yamada

TL;DR: What a fantastic single volume romance – I loved this.
Source: Netgalley – Thanks so much to the publisher!

Plot: Two neighbors meet during the covid lockdowns and slowly fall in love.
Characters: The characters felt very grounded, and considering the length I knew and cared about them a lot.
Setting: Most of the story stays within the two apartments and they’re a very important part to the story, but we also get shots and scenes outside the two areas.
Romance: I really believed this and especially loved how forward Natsu was, it was a refreshing change of what I have been reading.

Thoughts:

Sweat and Soap is one of my favorite completed romance manga so when I spotted a one volume story from the same author and artist I jumped at it! Home Office Romance is the story of two neighbors during the Covid lockdowns who cross paths on their adjoining balcony and strike a friendship then a romance.

This struck an almost perfect balance for me. The story was well and deeply told for a manga, and I loved the pacing and how we it managed to fit the relationship so well into the small amount of time and pages it had. The pandemic wasn’t the ‘main focus’ it was there, but it didn’t detract from the story of these two meeting and becoming friends.

I’ll be buying a physical copy of this – I can see myself rereading this and enjoying it in the future. It’s one of my favorite one shot romance manga I’ve read in recent memory if not ever and I can’t wait to see more from this creator.

5 out 5 stars