I Want Your Mother to be With Me! Volume 1 Review

Recently, it seems that publisher One Peace Books has been expanding into various genres beyond fantasy. This is true of the last series I reviewed, Detectives These Days Are Crazy! and the new title I’m here to review today: I Want Your Mother to be With Me!. Will this romance manga prove to be a charming read? Let’s find out!

Our story follows student Ryo Ishizuka, who is studying for an accountant exam while working part-time to keep himself afloat. And it’s at this part-time job where he’s fallen in love at first sight with co-worker, Yuzuki Tachibana. Six months after starting in the role, Ryo decides it’s time to finally confess his feelings, but he doesn’t get the response he’s hoping for…

Yuzuki is a widow with a five-year-old son, and she refutes Ryo’s intense outburst by pointing out that she isn’t a woman, she’s a mother. And even besides that, she asks if Ryo thinks he can support a child while only working part-time. Ryo is crushed, but not prepared to give up yet, so he continues to figure out a way to get Yuzuki to accept his feelings while learning more about her.

Because of needing to support herself and her beloved son Asahi, Yuzuki not only works at the second-hand store with Ryo but also runs a restaurant that her husband was originally opening (sadly, he passed away in an accident not long after Asahi was born). She works all the hours she can, feeling as if she can’t depend on anyone else and never putting herself first.

That’s one of the many reasons she rejects Ryo, but another is that there’s an age gap between the two. It’s never directly stated how old either character is (although there is one reference to Yuzuki approaching 30), but given Ryo is studying for an exam, it’s enough of a gap to bother Yuzuki.

Mangaka Yutaka Tazawa does a good job of depicting the fact that the characters are in very different places in life through their actions. Once we formally meet Asahi and see how Yuzuki treats him, it’s easy to see the similarities in how she treats Ryo. She doesn’t at all see him as a romantic partner, but instead as a child. This is, of course, half the battle for Ryo since he really needs to change her perspective, but while she sees herself as nothing more than a mother, that’s easier said than done.

In some ways, I wish I Want Your Mother to be With Me! were a slice-of-life with no romantic inclinations. There’s no chemistry between our two leads, which in some ways gets worse after Asahi enters the picture. Ryo and he become friends, which is great, but also makes it so much more obvious how little romance is in the air here and how much better the daily life segments of the manga are in comparison.

There’s a surprising amount of depth to both Ryo and Yuzuki as we’re shown the struggles they’ve faced in life and how that’s shaped them. As Yuzuki comes to rely on Ryo and the people around her, there’s a lot that the mangaka can do with her character moving forward. I just hope they choose to embrace that rather than zeroing in on the bits that don’t work as well. It’s hard to tell which direction the author intends to take it from here, though, particularly as there’s a fairly major shift at the end of the volume.

This is Tazawa’s debut series, and that does show when it comes to the artwork. Character designs can often be off-model page to page, particularly when it comes to the sizes of their heads. Another element that I didn’t particularly like was how Tazawa handled the fan service, which usually saw Asashi or Ryo’s head squished between Yuzuki’s ample breasts. Tonally, these scenes just don’t feel like they fit within what is otherwise a fairly unsexualised series. I didn’t dislike the artwork generally, but compared to other debut series I’ve been reading lately, this does come off as more rookie-like.

As mentioned earlier, I Want Your Mother to be With Me! comes to the West thanks to One Peace Books. This is usually where I’d talk about the translation, but in this case, there’s absolutely no English localisation credits whatsoever, so I have no idea who was responsible! The release does read fine with fairly distinct voices for the two leads. There’s not a lot of variation when it comes to lettering, but it’s not bad either. After reaching out to the publisher, we were informed that LOYAL PLANNING Co., Ltd. are responsible for lettering. Nothing in the way of extras to speak of, sadly.

I Want Your Mother to be With Me! is complete in Japan with four volumes. Here in English, One Peace Books has #2 scheduled for a release in January 2026(!) and nothing beyond that (unsurprisingly, given how far off that is), so we’ll be waiting a long time for more. I do fear that having such a big gap is going to lead to this going forgotten by potential readers…

Overall, I Want Your Mother to be With Me! is off to an imperfect start, but depending on how it develops could prove quite interesting. Right now, it fails at being an age-gap romance or a straight slice-of-life, but I’m hoping Volume 2 will firm up its direction.

Our review copy from One Peace Books was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).

© Yuraka Tazawa / SQUARE ENIX CO. LTD.