Presentation:

The cover of Love Com is fairly simple, with just a whimsical portrait of Risa and Atsushi and Viz’s standard-issue graphic type to give the title and author names. However, when you get past the cover you find that creator Aya Nakahara’s art style, while simple, is very charming. Visually, there’s nothing lacking and every panel seems to have something to offset it from the rest, whether it’s detailed background scenes or emotive comic tones to set the mood. At intervals all through the book, Nakahara has included blurbs as to ongoing projects involving the series—mainly the new drama CDs coming out. Most people tend to avoid reading these, but I always enjoy reading little blurbs like this in manga. I like having insight into the life of the author or the current news on the series. A fourth of the way through the book, there’s even a mini comic regarding the voice actors for the drama CD. To sweeten the CD deal, the author wrote a song and put a drawing of Umibozu at the end of the volume for extra content. There’s also a mini glossary, because Love Com reads a little differently in translation than your usual manga. All of the characters are Osakan, so they speak with a Kansai dialect. So, the publishers have taken this into account and given explanations as to why certain phrases sound off. Another small extra at the very end is a brief bio of the creator and a drawing of herself (which is quite adorable).

Overall:

I really enjoyed Love Com volume 7. The funny argumentative friendship that Risa and Atsushi have hit close to home for me, and provided me with much amusement at their silliness. I admit, it didn’t dawn on me at first that the reason the dialogue was coming across as odd at times was that everyone was speaking Kansai-ben; I jadedly assumed that it was bad translation or censoring, but that wasn’t the case. Not to mention, I fell in love with Aya Nakahara’s art style. If you’re looking for a good romantic comedy, then Love Com is right up your ally. I know I look forward to seeing how Risa and Atsushi’s relationship will grow.