A lovely manga with a set of short stories about two people called Tamaki and Amane.

Each story is a different pair of characters but the have the same name. This is a lovely book of storytelling and I enjoyed reading it.

Copy provided via Netgalley

I truly loved this manga. Throughout its pages, we see two connected souls reuniting again and again, each time with a different kind of relationship and influencing the other's life in different ways. I thought it was an excellent and unique way of approaching the subject of soulmates, something that goes beyond the merely romantic. I definitely want to read more from this author.

I must not know how to read because somehow I missed the part in the synopsis where it explicitly said that this was a short story collection.

I started "Tamaki & Amane" and loved it so much that I stopped until I was in the right mood to enjoy it the most.

The first story in this book follows a middle age couple who catch their daughter kissing a girl and that leads the father to reminisce on his first love: a crush he had on his school friend that believed in him and pushed him to apply to a school that he did not think he had a chance at since he had 3 younger siblings that his parents needed to care of too.

Too often, parents are relegated to secondary characters who are at best supportive, at worst antagonists in the protagonist's lives, so it was refreshing to see them be complex characters with personal inner struggles while part of a family unit, particularly the father. I never thought I would say this, but I really enjoyed being inside that man's head as he tried to be there for his daughter as she was experiencing life, love and heartbreak for the first time in her life while being a hormonal teenager and keeping peace in his family.

I loved seeing men having complex feelings and talking about their children until one of them had to ruin it by sexualising girls and how that connected to what happens to his daughter and the way men feel free to harass her now that she is a teen. I loved seeing a believable family fight and how he was able to give his daughter a life unaffected by the same financial burdens that he had to weather at her age, and how he takes an active part in his household.

The only complaint I had about this story was that he never spoke to his wife about none of the things he was thinking of, and she noticed, and only much later I realised that they were supposed to be the happy ending because from here on out…heartbreak.

In the second story, there are two school girls from different economic backgrounds who maintain their friendship after they marry. I thought this had a "The Handmaiden" sapphic vibe to it, but it ended up being more focused on female friendship. The greatest betrayal, though, was after making me like the husband, ending the story with him saying such a misogynistic and callous comment.

By the third story, I wanted to personally fight the author because how can I keep falling for it? And then I fell again. Author, when I catch you…

The book ends with the most tragic crushes to enemies story which leads me to believe Fumi wrote this as a revenge for something that someone else did to them. So why was I the one suffering?

Fumi, I'm in your walls. When you hear a noise at night, it's not the wind, it's me, and you should RUN.

Thank you to NetGalley and Yen Press for this DRC.

This manga is a collection of short stories that all focus on the relationships between two characters named Tamaki and Amane. Some stories are far more interesting than others, but most of them pull on the heartstrings. Pretty much all of the stories are sad in tone or bittersweet. The unfortunate issue that most of the stories suffer from is that the dialogue gets to be waaaaay too much at times. Why is 70% of the page getting taken up by text? Because some sections are so text-heavy, you get bored with the actual story. The writing is pretty solid for every story, it's a complete short story, and all have satisfying conclusions. The art style was great and consistent throughout the entire manga, which is good.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

This book is a collection of mini-stories, each one unique and carrying its own deeper meaning. While the stories are short, many have a darker tone and offer something to reflect on. The art perfectly matches the mood of each story, enhancing the emotional impact. If you enjoy quick reads with thought-provoking or eerie themes, this is a great pick.

Thank you so much for letting me read this manga. This wasn't what I expected but I ended up really liking the stories.

I've never read a soulmate romance before this one and I loved the execution. Short vignettes that flow "backwards" starting with the characters current incarnation and ending with their first life. It dances with LGBTQIA+ characters (their Meiji era incarnations specifically) while also having relationships that aren't romantic but still deeply loving.

Interesting, at times a bit dense and unengaging, but the stories and their connections were enjoyable to read. I think it's a story that touches on some interesting themes, but at times it became a bit dense to read and generally unengaging.

Thank you, Yen Press, for the ARC, which I read through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a good break from some of the other manga that I have read! I think that it was a sort of lighthearted story, and I enjoyed reading it. Had an interesting premise and I was interested in the story.

This was a beautiful book. The story was well written and I loved the art style. It was a great read and I enjoyed it.

I always love Fumi Yoshinaga's more philosophical works, and this one stands with them nicely, with a bunch of short stories following reincarnation and identity. Some serious topics here, it's not a light read, and it has a lingering sense of sadness throughout it. Lovely stuff.

This was an interesting premise, following Akane and Tamaki across reincarnations showing how their lives were intertwined throughout time. There were definitely some stories I enjoyed more than others and the epilogue shifted my opinion for the better. The art style almost feels a little retro in a good way at times and helped carry the stories when they weren’t quite as interesting or else a little too maudlin. There’s a lot of fairly serious topics that come up across each story so this isn’t a light read, with some topics handled better than others. I enjoyed Story 4 (set during the post-war occupation) the most though Final Story helped to finally make the stories tie together nicely.

I genuinely had no idea this was going to be a series of short stories (but looking at the synopsis, I can’t fathom how I missed that). The style was a little goofy - with lots of big facial expressions that didn’t fit the more serious tone. I think the first couple should have been more prevalent (maybe little mini chapters throughout?) to kind of focus things.

My favorite pair was the woman with the neighbor child. It was wholesome and fun and then devastatingly sad. But the others didn’t really sell me on their connection.

Tamaki & Amane is a collection of short stories by Fumi Yoshinaga. All the stories revolve round characters called Tamaki and Amane in different times and places. I really liked this approach, although there's some quality differences mostly plot-wise. The art is surely stable of course, since we're talking about Yoshinaga here. The idea is that love takes different shapes and the most I enjoyed the story about the parents and their daughter who's fallen in love with her female friend. The other one I liked a lot was the one set in the Meiji period about the two good friends. Both of these are realistic and depict women well and it's easy to understand them. The stories are oddly melancholic, but it fits the manga well. The "grown woman" approach is refreshing and highlights the necessity of imagery of diverse women.

The art looks nice and recognizable, which is always great. Perhaps less stories would've worked better though, since at times the balance is slightly off. Still, we need more manga like this for the sake of humanity. Yoshinaga is good at making us understand even if we don't agree.

I love soulmates' stories. Reading about people falling in love again and again is my weakness.

This story focusses on Tamaki and Amane, who meet each other over and over again in different settings. They're not always lovers, sometimes they're friends or even an older woman and her neighbour's child. But they always have a big impact on each other's lives.

I really enjoyed reading these stories. Each of them was short but comprehensive and well written. My only complaint is how sad they are. Apparently, being destined to meet each other doesn't mean you will live a happy life.

The art style is beautiful and makes reading this a pleasure.

I knew the work of Fumi Yoshinaga from afar, an author best known for her manga ‘The Men's Pavilion’, which has been adapted into film, drama and anime.

This one-shot is Top 1 in the Kono manga ga sugoi: 2025 selection in the category aimed at a female audience. A sure sign of quality!

In Tamaki & Amane, we follow different stories featuring duos of characters called Tamaki and Amane. The backgrounds, characters, ages and eras are completely different, and it's the last/next-to-last story that links them together. I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought the first story about homosexuality and the mother's ‘short homophobia’ would be more developed (and the center of this one-shot).
The stories are short, but no less well paced and interesting while conveying emotions (even if they are particularly depressing). I think my favourite is the one with the young child and the sick woman.

This was a really interesting read! There are four stories featuring a character named Tamaki and another character named Amane going through some kind of struggle. The bonds they share with each other vary between the stories, but they're always strong. The third story struck me the most, because of how it flipped the narrative halfway through, but they're all solid self-contained stories.

In this series of short stories, Yoshinaga flaunts her skill at conveying emotionally deep slices of life within a limited number of pages, and her readers benefit. Though separated in setting and time, each of these stories revolves around a Tamaki and an Amane, though who they are to each other-- sergeant and soldier, terminally ill woman and the kid who lives next door, or classmates at a meiji-era girl's school, for example-- changes with each tale. Regardless of the setup, each story explores the relationship between two people who feel some kind of connection, but must also reckon with social friction in maintaining that connection.

Yoshinaga is a skilled mangaka who I have read for years and this standalone volume is another lovely entry into her body of work. I am impressed at the depth of characterization she is able to achieve with characters who we only know for a brief period of time. Both her writing and art help to achieve this; as always, her characters' expressions are remarkably expressive, including more subtle emotions which might normally be difficult to convey in manga style. Her writing allows for characters to have real flaws and blind spots, but she maintains a empathetic perspective that also allows us to see the positive in them.

In the final story in the volume, we get a small hint at what threads these stories (very lightly) together. One iteration of Tamaki vows to Amane that no matter how many lives they lead, he will continue to find her, and help her see the value in life and living (or something to that effect.) The stories all stand well on their own, but this little thread did not go amiss, and helps create a nice frame for the volume as a whole.

I would highly recommend this to both young adults and adults-- it may be a nice way for adults unfamiliar with manga to dip their toes into a few stories without making a series-long commitment. The subject matter of the stories may also be a little more interesting for slightly older audiences, though there is nothing inappropriate that would put it out of the range of teens.

So fun fact, I had actually had this pre-ordered before it popped up on NetGalley! So because life is life I didn't finish it by publishing date and switched to reading my published copy (which includes the cover art, but extended, tucked in).

Anyway, Tamaki & Amane is a set of short stories all focused around Tamaki and Amane as they live through different ages and different lives, different genders and different circumstances, but one after another they find each other and touch each others' lives irreparably.

I've been a long time reader of What Did You Eat Yesterday? and I've slowly been reading Ooku recently (both works by the same mangaka author/artist) so getting to see another of Yoshinaga's works was refreshing, and I'm glad I took the time to slowly read these stories.

Gratitude to Yen Press for the eARC and Netgalley for hosting!

This manga had some absolutely breathtaking art work but sadly I just didn't feel like it was for me. I can definitely see where this would appeal to others but it just wasn't my thing. I think I just found it to slow overall. That is not to say this was bad. I can actually see this being very loved.