However, this beautiful one-volume story deserves more attenitiion from readers. To begin with, it is one of the first works by the same Fumiko Fumi who stands behind one of the best seinen psychological series ever which is Bokura no Hentai.
Sakikusa no Saku Koro is very laconic and simple both in terms of style and plot, and at the same time it perfectly expresses everything that I love about Fumiko Fumi's later manga.
Essentially, it is a story of a love triangle between the main heroine, Sumika, and her cousins, Akio and Tinatsu. Sumika cannot take her eyes off Akio, who is popular with girls, and looks so closely that she accidentally unravels his secret, which he hides even from himself: Akio has a crush on his best friend. And yet, when Akio asks her to date, Sumika cannot refuse. But while she is absorbed in her and Akio's love story, she fails to notice her best friend Tinatsu's feelings.
The two main themes of this short manga are the intervention of an indifferent “observer”, destroying the fragile illusion of harmony and the longing for the feeling of non-loneliness, even if false. If it had not been written by Fumiko Fumi, the development and the ending of this simple story could have been completely different. But even if you don’t recognize the author by her style, you will quickly recognize her by her approach to psychology.
Unlike her later works, this one is simpler and lighter, but still very bitter. It is reminiscent of such good short works about school as Manatsu no Delta and Smells Like Green Spirit.
