With a title that contains kanji that can be read as “summer wind” and the general summary on Crunchyroll’s manga reader, I expected Kouji Seo’s series to be a light-hearted, slice of life sports series about a boy and a girl on the track team. And while the titular Fuuka may be coaxed into joining her school’s track team at some point, for the moment this series seems perfectly content to drift along lazily like a summer breeze
Our point of view character isn’t actually Fuuka; instead it’s Yuu Haruna, who has just moved into the city with his three sisters and happens to be Fuuka’s new classmate. They meet as Yuu runs afoul of Fuuka trying to check Twitter; Fuuka keeps holding up his phone, which makes it looks like he’s taking panty shots. This vein of slightly off-color humor pops up in a few other parts of the series: His sisters wander around in their bras at home complaining that they should fix the AC — “fanservice” that felt very awkwardly crammed into a series that’s already lacking direction. The story is a slow-paced, slice of life, not-yet-a-romance where not much has really happened. Yuu has met his new classmates, acknowledged that he tries to make his life sound more fun than it really is on Twitter, and has possibly inspired Fuuka to actually become a singer instead of just listening to songs; but it took an entire volume to do even that much. The story isn’t quite as bland when you read it but honestly, there’s nothing particularly new or inspired about either the setting or the execution. Kodansha has just picked up the manga for ebook distribution (as opposed to Crunchy’s “streaming” distribution) so maybe someone will tell me later that the story is worth continuing. For the moment, I think I’ll pass.
