If It’s You, I Might Try Falling in Love Volume 3 Review

Amane Kaidou has transferred from the big city to high school in Enoshima and has just started to go out with his classmate Ryuuji Amasuge, whose family run a restaurant overlooking the ocean. But they haven’t told anyone about their relationship yet… and who would have imagined that the last egg sandwich on sale at lunchtime would cause so many problems? Amane goes to grab the last one (the special!) only to find another hand has also landed on it – and taken it! Luckily for him, the one who’s paid for the sandwich then smiles and offers him half. As they bond over the deliciousness of the mustard mayo in the sandwich, Amane offers to pay for his half but his new friend says no, it’s fine, let’s share a tuna sandwich sometime. His name is Nanase Sunabara (“Just call me ‘Suna’”) and he’s in the class next-door. He’s also very tall – and friendly. Amane is won over. When he and Ryuuji are sitting together at lunchtime, quietly discussing about whether they should or shouldn’t go public about being boyfriends, Ryuuji asks Amane to come up to the restaurant for a meal again – only to hear a voice ask from the open window behind them, “Where are you off to?” It’s Sunabara and somehow he ends up joining the two of them on the long climb up to Ryuuji’s family restaurant.

So now there’s a third wheel in the boys’ nascent relationship – a tall, friendly third wheel – and because Ryuuji and Amane haven’t announced that they’re going out together, it’s impossible to know how to tell him without going public. And when Amane needs to borrow a t-shirt for a long-distance run at school, he asks Suna if he can help out and Suna, all smiles, lends him his shirt (which is way too big and also has – of course – his name printed on it). Ryuuji has been struggling with unfamiliar feelings since Suna showed up and now he realizes that he’s feeling jealous. But why? Outward-going Amane is friendly toward everyone but even so… Matters come to a head when Suna confronts Ryuuji at the school lockers and asks him outright, “Are you and Kaidou a couple?”

There’s always a risk with a high-school romance that once everyone gets to know about it, it’s never quite the same – even more so, when it’s a same-sex relationship. Ryuuji is still trying to understand himself and why he feels this way about sunny-natured transfer student Amane, when Sunabara appears and seems to get on so well with Amane; they’re two of a kind. Ryuuji begins to wonder where he fits in and tries to suppress the jealousy that he feels but deep down, he just wants to keep Amane all for himself. Can Amane understand? He’s so quick to make friends. The third volume of If It’s You, I Might Try Falling in Love takes us into the next stages of Ryuuji and Amane’s relationship as both boys try to understand how the other is feeling and why. Maru Kubota doesn’t take this into angst territory – it’s still early days in their friendship – but gives a sympathetic portrayal of two people who are drawn to each other beginning to work out the give and take needed to make a relationship work. So, it’s not a heavy read but there’s enough here to make us wonder if their relationship can survive. A date at the local aquarium might make or break the impasse for Ryuuji and Amane…

Maru Kubota’s attractive illustrations continue to convey the emotions of her high school protagonists effectively as well as affording atmospheric little glimpses of Enoshima where the story is set. The cover art is appealing, as before, with an eye-catching use of colour; it’s a shame there’s no colour art inside and the only extras are inside the covers, including some sketches made by the mangaka on a whistle-stop tour of Enoshima for location drawings.

Translation of this likable Boys’ Love series from Yen Press is again by Avery Hutley and flows nicely, helped by Elena Pizarro Lanzas’s apt choices of lettering. There’s no date yet for Volume 4 (of six, so far, in Japan). The manga was adapted into a live-action TV drama in 2023 entitled If It’s with You.

Like Sasaki and Miyano and I Cannot Reach You, this is a BL rated suitable for the Teen age range (13+) and it’s still a likable read, recommended for its realistic look at the perils and pleasures of embarking on a first serious relationship.

Read a free preview at the Yen Press website here.

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.