Manga Review: Summer Snow Rendezvous (Natsuyuki Rendezvous)

Title: Summer Snow Rendezvous (Natsuyuki Rendezvous)
Author: Haruka Kawachi
Genre: Josei, Supernatural, Romance
ISBN# 9786022669890 (Volume 1)
M&C! Gramedia 2015

Natsuyuki Rendezvous must be among of the first titles I noticed on my early days of my comeback as an anime and manga enthusiast. It was put on the featured section at an anime streaming site I visited a lot back in late 2012. The title, the pretty art and the synopsis caught me, though somehow I haven't managed to watch the anime up until now. Thankfully, M&C published the manga in Bahasa Indonesia sometime this year. The publication went smoothly that we managed to get all of the mangas including the extra volume in just a few months.

The story follows Hazuki Ryousuke, a 22 years old man who is madly in love with his 30 years old boss, Shimao Rokka. Turned out that she is a widow whose deceased husband, Shimao Atsushi, still haunts the florist they are working at. Strangely, it was only Hazuki who was able to see Atsushi as a ghost. To make things even more complicated, Atsushi asked Hazuki to borrow his body. How will Hazuki respond to the ghost's request? Will Rokka be able to move on and embrace Hazuki's feeling? Will Atsushi let his wife go and continue her life?

This manga shows the complication of matured romance that involves the importance of compromise, the strength to let go and move on, and some acts of physical intimacy. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this manga. I like the bittersweet story, the setting full of pretty flowers and plants, and the complication between the characters. I like how Hazuki adores every aspect of Rokka, including the ones that many men often find unattractive such as Rokka's rough working hands and how he fell in love at the first sight when he saw Rokka being immersed in her work. I like how he can accept that somehow Rokka is still attached to her deceased husband, without having him give up on her.

Before this manga; Saiunkoku Monogatari; and No.6, I did not buy many mangas published by M&C! Gramedia because the majority of them are generic shoujo mangas I do not normally enjoy. I once joked on how M&C should determine their genre focus and be the Flower Comics of Indonesia. Even the light novels they started to publish recently are all shoujo, LOL.

That said, I did not notice how they use different font from the one commonly used in Elex Media's mangas. I admit I am not very comfortable with the tall font they use here. But I guess I have to get used as they also use it in Saiunkoku Monogatari and Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii. Back to the tendency of M&C to publish mostly shoujo mangas, I am happy to see them publishing new titles from more diverse genres. Besides the next volumes of Saiunkoku Monogatari; No.6 and Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii, I am also looking forward to read the Indonesian licensed translation of “Sakamoto desu ga?” that is going to be released next month.