Blue Spring Ride

## Blue Spring Ride *Blue Spring Ride* (*Ao Haru Ride*) by Io Sakisaka is a complete, 13-volume shoujo manga that delivers one of the more honest treatments of the "what happened to you?" reunion romance — a story grounded in the reality that people change, and that what you felt at 14 doesn't necessarily translate. Futaba Yoshioka deliberately makes herself less likeable in high school — eating sloppily, acting rough — to avoid the jealousy from girls that made middle school miserable. Her strategy is disrupted by the reappearance of Kou Tanaka (now Kou Mabuchi) — a boy she fell for in middle school before he disappeared. He has the same face but is now distant and cold. *Blue Spring Ride* follows Futaba's attempt to understand what changed him, her own struggle to stop performing "uncool" for social safety, and a slowly built romance that earns its moments by refusing to shortcut the emotional work.