Title: The Anemone Feels the Heat Vol. 1
Author: Ren Sakuragi
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 178
Genre: Yuri, Slice-of-Life
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
The Story
In The Anemone Feels the Heat, Nagisa loves to study and her goal is to get into a top-tier school; however, on the way to taking her entrance exam, she sees a girl collapsed on the sidewalk. She rushes over and helps her; however, giving her assistance caused her to miss her exam and her shot at getting into the school she wanted. She ended up going to a private school; however, the academics there aren’t even a real challenge for her. She holds this deep grudge within her until she sees that her classmate, Mashiro, is the girl that she helped. Despite changing her appearance to fit her new school, this causing Mashiro does not recognize her, and she must live with the face that the reason for all of her regret is sitting right next to her!
It turns out that Mashiro has a condition where she is very frail. She almost passed out in class because of it. Even though she didn’t want to, Nagisa gets roped into bringing her to the nurse’s office. This one trip begins a journey for Nagisa. This journey is to determine whether or not she can come to like Mashiro and let go of what happened in the past. In the process, Mashiro hates the color white because it reminds her of a nurse’s office. She hates being frail, so Nagisa sees this as a challenge to help her overcome the things that she hates, just like she’s doing with Mashiro herself.
Through this little trial, Nagisa begins to wonder about her feelings. As she sorts through them and wonders if she can truly like Mashiro as a person, she begins to wonder if her feelings are a product of something else!
Characters
Nagisa is the type who lives for studying. She wants to get into the best schools, earn the top grades, but also wants to be left alone. She doesn’t feel the need for friends as long as she can study. Despite this, she’s not truly cold-hearted. Even though her inner monologues say otherwise, she is caring and considerate in outward-facing situations. After all, she could have ignored Mashiro on her way to the exam, but it was that compassion that caused her to go check on her. Despite having a deep grudge against her for missing her exam, she likes to focus on the pros in life versus the cons. This is why no matter how much something inconveniences her, she goes through with it because she’s always trying to find the good in the reasons for doing things. It’s this attitude that causes her to get closer to Mashiro despite her being the reason for her grudge. She tries to figure out if she truly hates her, but the fact that she is willing to discover the answer rather than accept the surface conclusion is admirable. She’s a pretty diverse main character… someone that we all could learn a little something from.
Mashiro is the opposite of Nagisa in the sense that she’s a bit air-headed, a little more outgoing, and happy-go-lucky despite her condition. Even though she projects herself in an outward way, she is filled with regret internally for her condition. She hates being frail, doesn’t like it when people worry about her or baby her, and just wants to live a normal life. Because she spent so much time in the nurse’s office, she has grown to hate the color white because it reminds her of the walls, the curtains, the bed sheets, and everything else one might find in a medical room. Despite that, through Nagisa, she is learning to push through all of it and find the positives. When Nagisa gave her a sleeping mask to help calm her down, it became like a security blanket for her. This means that she relates items to their meaning and cherishes them for what they symbolize. Despite being quite “simple,” Mashiro does have a lot of depth, which makes the chemistry between her and Nagisa very dynamic!
Then, we have Uda… our comic relief. She’s a classmate of Nagisa and Mashiro’s, a little on the short side, but she’s full of spunk and energy. She’s very outgoing and extroverted, a little bit on the loud side, and loves to give people nicknames. Nagisa is Nagi Nagi, and Mashiro is Mashirocchi to her. She is more of a background support character than anything; however, she is the one responsible for getting the two of them to go see a movie called Anklet, claiming it was so good that she sent them to see it without telling them anything about it. She even gets upset as if the two of them are going away forever, despite them just changing classes for the period. Yeah, she’s that kind of person, but her heart is in the right place. Whenever we need a laugh, I’m sure we’ll see her “on screen.”
Final Thoughts
I will admit, I did not expect The Anemone Feels the Heat to go this deep with their characters. The synopsis led me to believe that this was going to be a simple Yuri story about two girls discovering their feelings for one another, but it goes MUCH deeper than that. This is about coming to grips with your personal demons, finding the positives in life, and using those to overcome those demons and find a way to put them behind you. In Mashiro’s case, it’s about living with her medical condition and getting people to take her seriously, and for Nagisa, it’s about overcoming her hatred for Mashiro because she made her miss out on going to her top school of choice.
Then, you have the romance aspect of it. I love how the first volume suggests that the feelings between them could be romance, but from Nagisa’s viewpoint, she’s trying to ascertain them on a more basic level. For instance, what does “Like” truly mean? Does it mean that she can tolerate Mashiro? Does it simply mean that she doesn’t hate her? All the while, Mashiro begins to like Nagisa because it seems as if she’s the first person to see her as something more than just a frail girl. Even Nagisa flat-out tells Mashiro that she likes her (not in a romantic way), which solidifies that theory.
In any event, this series is going to be more heavily based on character development, and if that’s the case, it’s off to a fantastic start! While I’m sure the romance aspect of it will kick in sooner or later, I can say that with the way the first volume presented itself, I wouldn’t be mad if the romance aspect never came because Nagisa and Mashiro’s personal struggles are that well-written and could carry this series by themselves.
If you want a Yuri series with some deep meaning other than “Do I truly like this girl romantically?”, this should be a great pick up for you!
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