Title: My Cute Cousin Always Gets Her Way Vol. 1
Author: Inuchiku
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 186
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Comedy
Publication Date: November 11, 2025
The Story
Nozomu ends up spending the summer at his uncle’s house; however, it’s not about to be a quiet and peaceful trip. From the moment he arrives, his cousin Sou is all over him… literally. She’s a super clingy type who loves to just pounce on him, and to make matters much worse, her wording is highly suggestive. Despite her seemingly innocent advances, Nozomu has a soft spot for her when he learns that not everyone sees her as a girl. Her classmates make fun of her, and at one point, her own father says a rather disparaging remark.
Just when he tries to instill some confidence in her, he learns that more of his family is coming to his uncle’s house to visit. When they arrive, they can’t help but notice the way that Sou acts around Nozomu, and chatter begins to happen about them behind their back! When Shiori and Tsumugi’s father arrives with the dog, he suggests that they take it for a walk; however, it turns into a family affair down at the creek. One messed-up throw of a twig, and the dog starts a chain reaction that ends up with Nozomu in an embarrassing situation, but when Tsumugi makes a rather awkward statement, perhaps that embarrassing situation plants an even more embarrassing idea into Sou’s head!
Characters
Nozomu is a typical level-headed boy. While he doesn’t like the fact that Sou keeps clinging to him, he doesn’t want to be rude and scold her for it. Instead, he tells her to stop, but she doesn’t exactly listen. Even though he bottles up his annoyance, when he learns that her classmates make fun of her, and then hears what her dad says about her after seeing her in a yukata, it tugs a bit at his heartstrings, and this is where he shows his kindness. He wants to find a way to make her believe that she’s truly cute and doesn’t look like a boy, after all. That caring side of him shows that he’s good-natured, even if her constantly teasing, lunging, and sprawling across his lap could be something he could do without.
Sou, as I outlined above, is a hyper tomboy who has no respect for people’s personal space… or so it would seem because she’s only truly that way with Sou… that is, until Shirori and Tsumugi show up, and then she gives that same treatment to Tsumugi. Even though she gets called ugly and boyish by her classmates, she lets that stuff roll off her back. She’s too busy just having fun, but there is obviously something much deeper than that going on with her. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that she has a romantic crush on Nozomu, and her teasing doesn’t make it subtle. Then again, she could be doing all of this on purpose just to get a rise out of Nozomu, and the fact that she behaved the same way around Tsumugi suggests that could very well be the case. Still a bit too early to tell, but she is quite a fun character.
Tsumugi, on the other hand, is very much unlike Nozomu. He doesn’t let Sou walk all over him. In fact, most of the time, he acts as if being at his uncle’s house is a complete bother. He constantly looks and acts as if he wished he were somewhere else, but is trying to make the best out of a bad situation. Despite this, it doesn’t stop him from harshly pointing out that he knows some things about his sister, Shiori, which makes her come undone!
Now that I’ve said that about Shiori, let’s jump into her character. First, she comes off as rather reserved… as if she is the type to sit back, watch, make her observations, then pass those off as opinions and thoughts behind people’s backs. If you thought that… you’d have half right because the reason she’s doing this is that she’s an otaku who loves shipping loli and shota couples online. I didn’t see that coming at all, and it was hilarious when Tsumugi pointed it out as if it were nothing. Even though she tries to act reserved, in reality, she’s kind of a klutz… especially with the stick-throwing incident at the creek. Still, despite that, she can’t help but worry about Nozomu and Sou after seeing the way they act together. I like the duality of her character as she tries to be calm and rational, but the other side of her is just a complete fangirl. This makes her my favorite character so far!
Final Thoughts
Just from the title, I expected this to be a slapstick comedy, and I was not disappointed. It’s just another situational comedy where you have a boy being teased by a tomboyish girl. We’ve seen these kinds of stories before with Uzaki-chan, Nagatoro, and others. What sets this one apart is that it crosses into the Domestic Girlfriend realm except… they’re kind of blood-related. Then again, that’s not a proven fact yet, and it could very well be that Sou just loves to tease Nozomu. Given how she was treated by one of her classmates, it could easily be written off as Nozomu being a safe space for her to just be herself without fear of consequence, and therefore, she just goes all out around him. When you couple that with her being a country bumpkin down to the bone, it would explain all of her actions.
Tomboys can be flirty without having romantic feelings because sometimes, that’s just their nature, so it wouldn’t shock me if that were the case here. After all, this is meant to be a gag series, and that’s a pretty good hook to build a gag series on, and I do have to say that even though the gag runs throughout the whole volume, it doesn’t feel as if it were getting stale. You can thank some extra characters for that, along with a rather interesting mystery in the last chapter that highly suggests a big plot point in the next volume. Running jokes work if they are surrounded by variety, and My Cute Cousin Always Gets Her Way understands this and executes on it nicely.
Overall, this was a great first volume that gave me some laughs, gave me some “aww” moments, and then spiced it up with some variety that didn’t feel forced or contrived. Everything just meshed together well. If you’re looking for your next fix in the teasing genre, I would give this one a try!
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