This week I read ねねね, the second half of からかい上手の高木さん vol. 2, and 徒然チルドレン vol. 2. I also shadowed an episode of きくドラ and a good 40 minutes of the Persona 4 drama CD.

I put 高木さん on hold a while ago after it became obvious that I wasn’t up to scratch with regards to the grammar. I revisited it this week while working through my backlog and was delighted to find that it’s comfortably within my abilities now. 西方’s internal monologues can get pretty literary but I only got stuck once or twice.

徒然チルドレン is a series I picked up pretty early on Misa’s recommendation. It follows a variety of characters who all attend the same school and are all hilariously dysfunctional when it comes to romance. This was another series I shelved a while ago and (as expected) it’s much more accessible now, though there’s a fair amount of weird slang that I don’t always follow. I don’t think I’ll end up continuing it, honestly; despite not being all that difficult it took me a surprisingly long time to read, and the different threads are pretty hit-or-miss.

The star of the show this week was ねねね, which I literally picked up for no other reason than that the cover art was nice — I had no idea what to expect but I really loved it. The story follows an arranged marriage between 小雪 (a 16 year old girl) and 清 (a man 20 years her senior who wears a mask all the time). He’s made a vow to keep the marriage platonic until she comes of age, and she’s determined to be a good wife — so of course hilarity ensues along the way.It’s a pretty believable depiction of two people learning to communicate effectively with each other. It’s a one-shot and the whole story takes place in one volume, which is a nice change of pace that I’d like to see more of. Very cute and wholesome and I would highly recommend it.