Cigarette Girl (4 points)

 I thought Cigarette Girl was a pretty relaxing easy read. It's a collection of pretty easy going slice of life stories about young adults and romance. I thought the art style was pretty charming with the goofy looking characters that juxtapose the detailed well drawn backgrounds. The stories themselves were charming as well and sometimes pretty cute. Like the story set in a geisha house about a comedian and a geisha he has a crush on. He finally gets her to agree to meet up, but he misses the time because he gets drunk while entertaining someone. He slides into her room quite humorously as there are other people in the room, since he missed their arranged time. “The Taste of Coffee” and “To Somewhere” were pretty cute as well, though they felt a bit like wish fulfillment/ escapism I think. Like both feature a sort of timid guy who is friends with a more expressive/ spontaneous girl, and they quite seamlessly become a couple at the end. Maybe this happens for some people, I don’t know I’m not great or knowledgeable about this stuff haha. Maybe healthy relationships are like that? Like they just sort of work and happen. Though I guess it’s different for everyone. I really have no idea. In “The Taste of Coffee” they become a couple as they spend a lot of time together, and she declares “I’m going to be living here all the time…” while playing with his siblings at his house. Like they don’t kiss or have some defining point, it just sort of makes sense because they spend so much time together. The same happens with “To Somewhere,” the girl just shows up at his place one day, and they decide to buy tickets as far as they can go. They end up together at the end. It’s quite nice to read either way.

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