I’m just going to list things I read from the start this year and ignore stuff like new volumes of series I’m already reading just to make it easier to choose (I guess I can give those an honorable mention at the end). In no particular order:
A 4koma manga. I especially like the extremely socially anxious protagonist of this a lot, along with the general band dynamics and some of the jokes. There was a part I personally found slightly weaker at one point in the more recent volumes, but it got better again afterwards. The anime is also a really nice adaption in case anyone wants to check that out — overall there’s maybe two small parts or so I liked better in the manga (one for changing things in a way I felt made less sense than in the manga version, the other for just not being nearly as cool as the manga made me expect). However, it makes up for it by doing some very creative stuff in many other places.
A 4koma manga that had a start that I thought was rather weak because of the jokes not really landing much and some weird fanservicey stuff (not just because of the presence of it but also just because of how it’s done). That said, I personally found the manga a lot more interesting after it tones down some of the attempts at comedy and becomes more of a normal fantasy story somewhere around partway through volume 2 (the joke density being lower also means that the jokes that are there also generally work better, in my opinion). Funnily enough this is the second fantasy 4koma manga serialised in Kirara Carat I’ve read that starts of very slice of lifey but gradually gets more serious.
The solutions to the mysteries presented in this visual novel are just very satisfying, and there was also some nice character stuff. I feel like this description is underselling it a lot but I’m also not sure what else to say.
A yuri light novel series about a girl’s first love, but things get a lot messier than she expected. Very far from the fluffier books I’ve otherwise read from the same author in tone, but it was still a pretty nice read. It is finished but all three volumes were released this year so it fits the theme of the thread! I haven’t finished the third volume myself yet though, so I can’t say how good or bad the ending is.
A fairly short yuri romcom? about an idol girl falling in love with someone and finding stuff to care about in life outside of school and work. It doesn’t really do anything super unique but I still liked it a lot. It also has a great cover.
Stuff I’ve read more of this year and still like includes:
Summary
Very slow burn yuri romance, though it does up the pace a bit around volume 4-5 or so and volume 5 and onwards is easily the best part.
I don’t even think I need to describe this
First visual novel in the same series as Steins;gate, this one takes some inspiration from horror stuff and has an even weirder protagonist but is otherwise kind of similar-ish in terms of how it’s written. I started it late last year but finished the last few chapters this year.
- 百合の間に挟まれたわたしが、勢いで二股してしまった話
A high school girl who isn’t exactly the brightest somehow accidentally ends up cheating on her best friends by dating both of them, though things generally work out a lot better than you’d think and it’s mostly just a fairly fluffy and extremely silly romcom. The writing style and some of the plot is very light-novely though, just so people are aware of that. This series is in some ways basically the exact opposite of 私の初恋相手がキスしてた which I mentioned a bit further up.
A manga about a depressed girl who lost her family in the past but starts actually doing various things after a mermaid youkai promises she’ll eat her if she goes along with what she wants, which generally includes doing various fairly normal activities (there’s also a bunch of youkai stuff). I like the art of this manga, especially for some of the youkai.