Sannensa
Three Years Apart

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This review will contain very minor spoilers:

Sannensa, or Three Years Apart, is an adorable story of childhood friends turned husband and wife. This manga is Comedy/Romance/Slice of Life in its purest form, as there is never a chapter intended to make you feel drama, upset, or disillusioned with our characters. It simply follows our husband-and-wife duo, Kazuya and Mizuki (respectively), as well as their son Naoto and them living their daily lives. The mangaka also manages to weave in two other minor romantic sub-plots into our story, and those are both very cute as well! Also, in case you’re curious about the manga’s title, ... it comes directly from the fact that all of our romantic sub-plots deal with a 3-year age-gap, but, of course, Mizuki being 3 years Kazuya’s junior is the primary focus.

While I want to keep this review short, I want to make note of how masterfully done, but yet incredibly nuanced, the age-gap romance is between Mizuki and Kazuya. Even though 3 years is not much, and many people are even more so okay with a gap if the characters have known each other since their youth, it’s still a topic that’s hard for some to swallow, myself included. However, the way it’s handled here is SO well done – About every 10 chapters or so, interspersed with our short daily-life chapters, are longer chapters about Kazuya and Mizuki’s past together. Within them, while Mizuki has always been head-over-heels for Kazuya, we get to see a wonderful progression with Kazuya and how he views Mizuki. At first, Kazuya saw Mizuki as nothing more than a close friend, or even like a sister, but, starting around the time that she was 15 [and him 18], he couldn’t help but notice her charms. Despite recognizing that he had feelings for her, because of their age-gap and situation, he was always concerned to act on those feelings. While I will save the details and the timing of the confession for you to read, I wanted to make note of how well done the approach was because it’s something I really appreciated and loved about this series.

In summary, Sannensa is a quick, cute, and extremely enjoyable read! If I had any gripe with the manga as a whole, it would be the fact that the last 15 chapters or so actually pulled away from the main couple, which I always wanted to see more of! Regardless, if you like things that you can turn off your brain and read just to feel happy, then this is certainly a manga I would recommend trying!

Mizuki and Kazu lived next door, and grew up together. Mizuki is 3yr younger and often thought this was a gap between them. But they got married!! This manga is all about their everyday beautiful married life, life as lovers, as parents and more.

From time to time we get flashbacks from childhood, high school and university days.


Art:
Art is clear, character design is nice. Mizuki is cute. This story itself is so cute.


Characters:
... You’ll love all the characters. No villain or enemy, just pure love and family time.


Overall:
This is the most wholesome romantic manga you’ll ever find. Slice of life.
Chapters are short, and you can binge through it in 2-3hr like I did!!


This is not an action, or adventure manga. It is a light and wholesome read and after every chapter you’ll be smiling and thinking about your girlfriend (imaginary, of course;)



Thank you for reading this review!!