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How Do We Relationship?

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How Do We Relationship is a raw, emotional, and heartfelt look into romance. It's less of a romance manga and more a manga about romance, exploring why and how people get together, how they date, how they fight, how they make up, how and why they break up, how their lives change for better and for worse. It's a very grounded look at relationships, and it's not afraid to show both the good and the bad. The story centers around lesbian romance, and has a lot to say about the queer experience as well.

The characters feel very human, and the manga takes great care to ... avoid labeling characters as good or bad. They act emotionally, they make mistakes, they say things they don't mean, some don't understand themselves, some don't understand others. It really feels like every character is trying their best, and the manga does a great job at making you feel exactly what they're going through at each point of the story. Romance is very emotional, and the manga is great at making you feel what the characters feel, whether it be love, hate, or anything in-between. There's a lot of embarrassment, too.

The story follows a variety of relationships, and each of them has a unique flavor. It delves deep into every aspect of any given relationship. It shows why people get together, and how the reason for the relationship affects it. It shows how different personalities clash and complement each other. It shows how different people view sex in a relationship. It shows both the importance of communication and how difficult it is. It shows that different people need different things to be happy. It shows how relationships change you, in what ways, and how much. Most importantly, it shows that love on it's own isn't always enough to keep people together. It's not afraid to say, sometimes, even though there's so much love, even though you want to stay together, even though, emotionally, you feel like you would do anything to make your partner happy, the harsh reality is that not all relationships work out, and the world doesn't end together with your relationship - life goes on, and people change, and you have to learn to move on.

From love to heartbreak, to new love, from shame and embarrassment to growth, from the elation of love, to the bitter, pure, heart-wrenching despair that comes when it finally clicks that the relationship is over and there's nothing you can do about it. How Do We Relationship takes great care to show the good and the bad, carefully, respectfully, but holding nothing back, resulting in a breathtaking and beautiful story about why people seek out love. I cannot recommend this enough - there is nothing else like it.

it's not bad... Certainly not worth writing home to mom about either.
Since the start of this manga one thing has been made painfully evident, the side characters in this manga just don't do it for me. It feels like they rush the pacing by forcing their own ideals onto Miwa which just leads to a slew of things that shouldn't even be happening. If the side characters aren't forcing their ideals onto Miwa, they're constantly prying into Miwa's private life, which just gives me an icky feeling all around. I'm not one to hate on intercourse scenes either by any means, especially if ... they're initiated in the right way, but the way in which it was incorporated into this manga just gives me an icky feeling. Miwa's scared, she has a certain way she wants it to go, she wants to take her time, yet none of that happens because of peer pressure from others around her, it just doesn't do it for me. The relationship between Miwa & Saeko is also extremely inconsistent, some chapters they're lovey - other chapters they're on the verge of falling out over something trivial. Although they get along it just doesn't feel like they're a good match. This manga isn't bad, hell, I'm even grateful for it, it takes a more realistic stand on homosexual relationship which we don't see too often, it's just the way this manga's events unfold. There's so much more I could list, yet that would just be me describing my own personal distastes in detail, I personally think you should read it on your own time and develop and opinion for yourself. The art is nice, and this manga certainly has a lot more pros than cons, these few things piled up just take the enjoyment out of this manga for me.

If you want a story about a woman who drunkenly forces another woman into dating her, and then continuously belittles her and ignores her wishes and emotions and sexually coerces her, then this story might be for you. Otherwise, this is an absolutely god awful story. None of the characters except Miwa and one other girl are even remotely likable. Miwa and Saeko are physically incompatible with each other. Saeko constantly forces Miwa into sexual situations when she's not comfortable. All of their "friends" have crushes and want to date at least one of the two. Miwa isn't innocent either. She sexually assaults Saeko because ... she can't take no for an answer when very clearly Saeko isn't comfortable being topped due to some sort of relationship trauma.

tl;dr this is a frustrating series to read at best, and legitimately harmful at worst. There is nothing redeeming about this plot. There is nothing redeeming about 99% of the characters.