Tamba and Utagawa have been together for over ten years, but Uta still can't believe he's landed such a stud, and Tamba still gets blindsided when his young-at-heart boyfriend switches into adult mode. It's a nonstop whirlpool of love that sends both their hearts skipping!

Ripples in the River has story and art by Zeniko Sumiya. English translation is done by Avery Hutley, with lettering by JM Iitomi Crandall. Published by Seven Seas (October 21, 2025). Rated OT.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Is Ripples in the River the deepest, most astounding manga I've read for this Guide? Not really; technically speaking, it may not even be the best BL title. But where it stands head and shoulders above the rest is in the sheer adorable charm of the couple at its heart. Utagawa and Tamba have been friends since high school, dating since at least college, and are now on the verge of moving in together, and if what you crave in your reading is a couple who know each other inside and out and respect each other, then you really do owe it to yourself to pick this up.

Starting in the present, when the two are twenty-seven, the story goes backwards through time to their first meeting in high school. Each time period is given its own chapter, and like four-panel series (which this is not), the chapters are made up of many shorter storiettes. The backwards drift of the timeline works particularly well because we know where these two will end up – happy, teasing each other about buying condoms, and rolling their eyes at Utagawa's youngest sister. That means that each chapter in the past lets us look for the signs of their future bliss in the little details. At one point in the present, Tamba unearths their high school yearbook, and he and Utagawa are floored by how obviously in love with Utagawa he is – even though at the time, neither of them were at all aware of it. Jokes about Utagawa wanting Tamba to “top him” because he finds him that sexy make more sense when we see them struggling with sex back as college students. It's a perfect example of hindsight being 20-20 while still providing plenty of romantic hijinks and “aww” moments.

The downside is that the short chapters-within-chapters mean that there's sort of a scattered feel to the narrative. Zeniko Sumiya originally posted the series on social media, so that makes sense (and it really does feel like it once you start reading), but that's not really an excuse; other series that began that way do a better job at cohesion between bites. But Sumiya's art is a winning combination of cute and attractive and the characters are just so charming that it barely matters. I know that “heart” is a nebulous quality, but trust me when I say that this book has it.