"Summer Nude"
by Nagisa YUU
ISBN# 4-06-341010-2
KC Dessert Comics, 1997

Well HELLO cute almost-half-naked guy! I don't need much more than this to entice me to buy manga, I tell ya. Ahh I am such a scary fangirl. What can I say, he's CUTE! And it is always a nice bonus if the manga title has a word like 'nude' in it. Better yet, 'Summer Nude' which makes me think hot weather, sweat, skin, nude, hmmm there is potential here.....alas, this is not remotely smutty at all (not surprising, I guess, this is not a Flower Comics release) but it is cute and fun. There are 3 cute romantic short stories here to enjoy. I don't think the art inside ever quite lives up to the hot cover, but it is still cute and nice to look at.


The first story is rather bittersweet. It's about a high school girl named Natsuki. She is shy and loves to play the piano. Back in middle school, the piano room was her favorite place. Natsuki was in love with a athletic guy at her school named Hayama-kun. She would always stare out the window and watch him play sports. One day while she was practicing the piano, Hayama-kun walks into the room and stops to listen to her play. He comments on hos Natsuki is playing the song that Chikako-sempai always plays. Chikako-sempai is a upperclassman girl who is really good at the piano. After listening to Natsuki play the song some more, he asks her if she wants to start seeing each other and be his girlfriend. Shocked at having her dream suddenly right in front of her, she agrees. Unfortunately the relationship only lasts a week before Hayama comes to Natsuki and breaks up with her. Natsuki is crushed by this and has never really recovered. Now it is two years later and she is in high school. Her friends drag her to a 'gokon' which is like a group blind date. On her way to the date. Natsuki gets stuck in an elevator with a guy. It's dark, and she can't see who it is. Even worse, he is afraid of the dark, closed in space. Obviously we can all guess who is in the elevator. Yeah, it's Hayama. He and Natsuki finally meet again, and things are still bittersweet between them. The next story is about the Chikako-sempai mentioned in the first story. I can't explain too much about her story without spoiling the first story. But I can say that Chikako was orphaned when she was really young, and she grew up with Hayama-kun and his older brother. They were like siblings, however hikako's feelings for one of them are not quite sisterly. The next two stories are unrelated to the first two. Again, they have this sort of bittersweet (can I say that word enough here? ^_^;) feel to them. Very different from the usual happy happy kissy happily ever after types of stories.

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