Every morning at 6:58, a train departs for Maibara Station--and with it, an entire car full of emotionally invested commuters. Their obsession? Two high schoolers from different schools who haven't said a word to each other...but might be falling in love. He sneaks glances. She looks away. He panics. She blushes. The tension is unbearable--and the peanut gallery of passengers can't get enough.

Can young love survive the pressure of an entire train rooting from the sidelines?

They Are Still Being Shaken This Morning has story and art by Eiji Masuda. English translation is done by Miki Z and lettering by Mo Harrison, with an adaptation by Rebecca Scoble. Published by Seven Seas Entertainment (March 3, 2026). Rated 13+.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

If you've ever commuted, you'll know the small joy of watching your fellow commuters and trying to pick up small pieces of their lives. Most of us just make little mental observations – she must have had her baby, he always changes into dress shoes on the bus, she's works the entire ride, that sort of thing. But for the three adult commuters on the train most of this book takes place on, watching two shy high school kids try to talk to each other is much more than that. It's become their spectator sport and the entire raison d'être for their ride.

In real life, they'd be pretty damn creepy – a department head, an office lady, and a college student who have exchanged numbers so that they can spend their ride texting about two kids. But here, their situation is presented as cute and heartwarming, and honestly, it works pretty well. Part of that comes down to how the oldest member of the trio texts: he's clearly past middle age and he uses more emojis than a nine-year-old. He also makes the most overt facial expressions, to the horror of the office lady (probably in her 30s) and the university student. All three of them bounce off each other well, throwing their various experiences at their observations and often seeming more invested in these two high schoolers getting together than the kids themselves are…and the kids are definitely invested in pulling it off.

You know, if they could bring themselves to talk to each other and possibly interact like normalish human beings.

This is a book that revels in awkwardness. Everyone is just this side of ridiculous, from the observers to the kids, who either over or under interpret everything. Hikoichi, the boy, is a champion overthinker, but also a very nice guy who's too kind and polite to blow off the people who get in his way, while Nayu (the girl) isn't so much shy as anxious about her own feelings, which prevents her from acting at all. By the end of the book they do make some progress, and it's hard not to be as invested in them as their observers.

That said, this is one of those series where I'm not sure how long the single joke it's built on can last. It could definitely get annoying if it goes on too long, and the messy, busy art is a bit exhausting to follow. But for right now? The ride will be fun until it runs down.

Caitlin Moore
Rating:

I genuinely had no idea what to expect from a series with the title They Are Still Being Shaken This Morning. Frankly, I'm still not sure what Seven Seas was thinking when they went with that for the English name, unless it was mandated by Akita Shoten when they licensed it. It's meaningless word salad, a translation of the Japanese title that makes no sense in English. The cover of two teens standing back to back on a train didn't help much either.

Once I dug in, I found that it's a charming little story about two kids who take the same train every morning and, despite never speaking or knowing anything about each other, are attracted to one another. The other commuters have taken notice of this dynamic, and three in particular – a department head, an office lady, and a university student – have started a group chat to discuss day-to-day developments. It's a touch creepy, but also so cute and good-natured that I can't get mad at it. Frankly, it's even kind of relatable; just as I'll never experience first love again and must live vicariously through fiction, so does this trio live vicariously through watching the two students. I'd frown and shake my head at shipping real people but… nobody involved here is real, anyway, so it doesn't feel worth making a fuss over.

While DH, OL, and US's running commentary are what make a fairly unexciting love story interesting, the real winner here is in Eiji Masuda's art. Normally I'd criticize it for feeling busy and overcrowded but when most of the action takes place in a packed commuter train, busy and overcrowded is the exact right vibe. The facial expressions especially are a sight to behold, encapsulating the emotions one may feel at various common events on a daily commute. I'm still giggling at the perfect representation of the feeling you get when a random stranger starts rambling at you uninvited about some topic or another.

The story's greatest weakness, however, is the writing around the girl in the couple. While both teens are more or less ciphers, she gets far less interiority. What's more, she's written more like an ideal dream girl. When asked about a video game she has a keychain for, she shamefacedly calls herself a fake gamer who only started playing it because it was popular and she wanted to know why people were into it. That's… a perfectly valid reason to pick something up?

Once I understood what the story was about, I thought it sounded more like a single-volume story at best, and wondered if the gimmick could really carry it for a full series. And really, I'm still not sure about that. I enjoyed what was set in front of me, but other than a couple panels of weird faces, I'm unlikely to think about it past writing this review.