I've read most of Seven Seas' releases under its Steamship imprint, in no small part because I've crusaded for years on the concept that those of us who were little girls reading Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura are now adult women who might like some adult manga aimed at us. On the whole, the imprint has been remarkably successful at bringing out a variety of subgenres and kinks in the romance fiction space, ensuring that there's something for almost every reader interested in the line. So what's Shindou-kun's Tight Squeeze's angle? It doesn't trade in anything like Ladies on Top's sub/dom themes, Outbride's reverse harem, or A Suitable Fetish's exploration of kink. It's pretty much what it looks like on the cover: a basic coworkers-to-lovers romance. So what does it bring to the table?

The answer arrives almost as soon as you open the book: explicit, uncensored anatomical correctness. Other manga might skim over details like “pubic hair” and use light bars, or white spaces to avoid showing the nitty-gritty details of human genitalia, but Shindou-kun isn't willing to compromise. Do you want a clear depiction of both the inner and outer labia? The clitoris? A normal(ish) sized penis? All of those things coming together? Then this is the manga for you. And it does all of this while remaining within the realm of smut rather than porn – there's more of a sense that the artist is drawing these things because that's what they look like; there are no excessive fluids or explicitly gendered gaze. Vulvas have these bits, and they're part of the characters' interactions. That doesn't mean that it isn't intended to be titillating, too, because it is, but the semantic difference between sexually explicit romance and pornography is an important one, and this skews towards the former in a way reminiscent of western romance novels.

With that out of the way, how about that plot? As I said before, this is fairly basic on that front. Heroine Rinko has been working for a nostalgic snack company for three years, part of a hiring initiative to bring in younger people to keep their penny candy relevant. She loves her job, but she's a bit of the office dogsbody, so she's stunned when she's asked to mentor new hire Ryoma Shindou. But she's willing to give it a shot and feels very good about it…until she starts working with him. Shindou is not only faster and more innovative than she is, he's also got the affect and social skills of a moderately sharp rock, so he comes across as even less pleasant than he is. Rinko's not sure that she's succeeding with him on any level.

But of course, that has to change. Shindou can be read as either neurodivergent or terminally awkward (and I think both readings are valid), and he's simply not sure how best to communicate with people, possibly because he's largely gotten through life by not doing so. (In one scene, he mentions to Rinko that he's never been to a drinking party before, and she realizes that he was probably never invited to one.) But he is interested in Rinko, and he uses his welcome party as a way to get that across…by drinking too much and insisting that he's going home with her.

It's not a great look, but it is fairly genre-typical and it gets the job done, especially since he does bother to ask for her consent, albeit not in the most polished way. And in Shindou's case, a physical demonstration of his feelings is the only way he can get them across – again, something that happens a surprising amount in romance genre fiction. But he does know how to use his words, too, because at the end of their first sexual encounter, he blurts out that he loves Rinko, which tells us that this wasn't a surprise event for him: he's been working up to it for a long time.

While the bulk of the volume is about their sex life (there's a graphic sex scene in each chapter), in between that, we see the way that their relationship helps both Rinko and Shindou. Through dating Rinko, Shindou learns the social cues he was unaware of, allowing him to live more comfortably and to better interact with the people around him. While this does create problems to a degree – he is a good-looking man, after all – mostly it serves to help them get closer, because as he grows more comfortable in the world, he's also better able to express himself. By the end of the volume, their relationship is moving beyond just being about sex, and that balance looks like it'll only improve in volume two.

Shindou-kun's Tight Squeeze may not be the most creative romance manga out there, explicit or otherwise, but if you're looking for a spicy good time, it more than fits the bill. And hey, there's something to be said for an artist who knows what everything more or less looks like. It's not the best Steamship series, but it's the most anatomically correct.