Thank you Nachi Aono and NetGalley

On a whim i seen this on netgalley and loved the art style of the book cover and seen it was a read now book so obviously i had to read it now… or yesterday as of writing this review.

The art is so stunning, every page you turn is just so darn cute and is easy on the eyes i love it. I love the storyline with the magic but i feel it needs to be having a bit more information on the magic system however this is only the first book so it could devlop in time. I would love to learn more about the war that is happening and what is all intels and maybe during one of the volumes we actually get to see it. I also like the fact that you have to kiss someone to heal them… it is something different.

There are a few things i did not like in this though, the fact that the nurse who is a trans women is being called a pervert by one of the students, the nurse having to kiss these children is a little odd. There was also a scene where one of the 10 year old children are “naked” i say it like that cause her hair is hiding most the parts.

Lovers of Revolutionary Girl Utena and Madoka Magica will want to pick up this new Kodansha manga release. I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day is a tragic magical girl yuri set in an orphanage… or, at least, what passes for an orphanage. In actuality, this facility trains up magically-inclined girls for combat. Sheena is one of these girls, and she watches as classmate after classmate (including her roommate) dies on the battlefield. Then she meets Mimi: a cheerful student with unbelievable combat skills and surprising powers. And, in the midst of the horrors, she takes a liking to Sheena.

I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day is tonally dissonant, but that works in its favor. Sheena’s gentle heart and Mimi’s cheerful demeanor both shine against the grim reality they’ve found themselves in. Injury and death are very real threats, but love is also a very real possibility in this setting. If you’re looking for a new yuri title with plenty of story and lovely art, give this one a try.

This graphic novel was amazing! It might have been a horror and/or thriller novel, but I thought it had multiple wholesome moments in it as well. I loved the healing magic scenes. I would have liked to see a tiny bit more tension, to explain why the students were being trained for war and/or battle. Otherwise, this graphic novel was great!

I gave this a 4.5/5 stars. I went into this blind I had no idea what it was about. I remember requesting to read it for review so I knew it was something I was interested in I just couldn’t remember the plot. When I dived in I was glad I had no idea what to expect because it blew me away. It took me less than an hour to read this from cover to cover. It truly had me engaged to my fullest extent. I can’t wait to pick up vol 2 because the cliffhanger from this one has me needing more. I definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of fantasy and romance. There was just enough of both to keep me intrigued without being too overwhelming.

I had really high hopes for this manga with it's blurb that promised a critique of the exploitation of children, and especially orphans, to become soldiers in a war.

I was very uncomfortable with many aspects of this book, especially with the implications that come with the magic system and how healing magic works: through mouth to mouth kisses. Considering the characters' ages (both main characters are ten years old and all the students are supposed to be minors), it was already a bit questionable since some of the kisses here were not consensual. The worst part is that it is implied that the school nurse also heals students this way. This nurse is also gender non-confrming but she is insulted by one of the main characters from the get go and I really didn't like that.

This really could've been a good story because I liked the way Sheena puts the school, its purpose and its effects on her classmates into question. Mimi's character and story is also really interesting and the art is great, but everything that I mentioned in the previous paragraph just puts me off of continuing the series.

This could be so interesting and gut-wrenching, but the worldbuilding just doesn't make any sense and continually throws me out. I love the concept of a school training orphans to basically be cannon fodder, but we don't get a sense for who they're fighting or why, why they need magicians specifically, why it's just orphans, etc. And it would be fine if it felt like it would be revealed slowly or they'd been given a false reason, but I didn't get that sense at all, just that it was necessary for the setting.

So that brings me to the other thing that just does not make sense to me about the worldbuilding: the healing. If the method of healing is kissing and that is just....how people are healed, why is it still sexualized. It would be one thing if the mana transfer kissing was only in dire situations or needed some extra bond or compatibility, but we don't see any method of healing magic other than kissing, so it feels weird for Sheena to be all in a twist about it, and even worse for everyone to shame the nurse and call her a pervert (made EVEN WORSE by the fact that she's either trans or crossdressing, so it all just feels unsettling).

That's not even addressing that if Mimi is 10, why is she with (I'm inferring) the class of 14-year-olds, and if she's an immortal monster who doesn't have an age and you're going to have to lie anyway, why even state that she's 10 and not just say she's a young-looking 14.

The art style is cute, and I love the almost sketch-y nature of it that lends to the despair, but there are just too many issues for me to want to continue with this series

˗ˋˏ ♡Thank you Nachi Aono and NetGalley♡ ˎˊ˗

the main plot for this book does not make sense to me, it seems like their are different points however they are not brought together well, as well as I found the whole book just weird. Our main characters look nothing above the age of 14 and yet you are having them kiss......as a healing method. That just seems random and very much not needed for this, especially for such young kids, which they literally are, young teens basically. There is such an opportunity to have the main plot be about the war and how they send basically kids to fight for the war, but no you have most of the story be about kissing.... and if the main or even only way for them to be able to heal each other is kissing, the nurse being and adult must mean you have a grown adult kissing a minimum age of 10 as that is the youngest in the academy thing and the maximum/oldest being 17, so you would have a grown adult kissing underage children, yeah no.

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the description of the story, I got super excited for the manga. Girls getting educated to become weapons in a war? Oh, count me in, especially if they fall in love. Love a good lesbian story. The artstyle is beautiful, the world-building started out great, and then... it's revealed, that the main characters are over-sexualized-10-year-olds. I immediately lost my liking for the story, and the nurse, who is supposedly transgender, gets shamed all the time and is the "sexiest character" in the whole manga somehow made things worse. The students call them a perv, also they might be not trans, just crossdressing? Also shows predatory behavior towards the students, being very happy that she gets to kiss the MC to heal her. THE MC WHO IS 10 YEARS OLD. Consent basically doesn't exist in this universe. I wish they were older! I really do! Sadly not what I expected. The art is still pretty tho.

I love the concept but I will not be reading any farther. I’ve seen other mangas/animes where mana can be transferred via physical touch, kissing being an optimal way to do so. I can be fine with it but in this story, it’s done between children. They’re 10 years old. I liked everything else that was going on so far but it just made me too uncomfortable. Unfortunately this will be the only volume I read.

First off, the art is absolutly lovely!!!!! I loved the main character so much, and the contrast with Mimi (secondary char) was so nice! The designs are lovely and the story is full of potential, it is darker than i thougth it would.

2.5 stars
First, the art is gorgeous. I love the character designs and how cutesy everything looks. I also like the main relationship so far.
There isn't a ton of world building or info about how the magic system works in this volume, which is fine as long as future volumes include those things.

With that being said, I agree with other reviewers on goodreads about this manga's issues. There are several scenes of 10 year olds making out which just feels weird (also that's how the healing system works and while it isn't shown, the adult nurse also has to kiss these 10 year olds, sometimes while they're unconscious). Also, the nurse is a trans woman who is constantly referred to as a pervert, which is a harmful trope that is particularly frustrating to find in a queer story.

It's been a bit since I found a GL I was this intrigued by. A lot of that comes down to the plot structure. Orphans with magic are raised for warfare, and the story starts with the death of an unseen roommate, so the tone is set early, but the girls are aware of their reality and try to make the best with the time they have. Then we are introduced to Mimi. who is a whole other can of worms as to just what she actually is. This series has a lot of interesting worldbuilding that makes up for the more mundane setting. If it was a more typical schoolgirl romance, it wouldn't have grabbed me as hard. I like what I'm seeing here, I hope the momentum keeps going.

Yeah, I don't appreciate the tranphobia in this manga at all. Penning the only non-gender conforming person in the whole story as a sexual predator is a wildly harmful and inappropriate thing to do, and needs to stop now. Also didn't love the focus of children kissing being a bigger topic of the plot.

Such a cute story and amazing graphics. Read this in one sitting and can’t wait to read further.
The story was so original and the main characters Sheena and Mimi were so lovable. Can’t wait to see where this story goes and it will be an insta buy for anything further by Nachi Aono

~ARC Reader~

Thanks to NetGalley for access to this ARC!

Starting with the one thing that left a bad taste in my mouth: the nurse character and the language used around them. They are apparently a cross-dresser or trans and they are belittled and berated repeatedly by the students and insults are hurled at them constantly if they are in a scene. That was my only major detractor.

It was a delightful start to a story. I like the plentiful yuri pairings aside from just the main couple. Also the backdrop of a magical school in a war-torn world is pretty unique for a romance manga in my experience, so I found that refreshing! The artistic choices for the more gory scenes were very well done too. Hoping to see more volumes in transaltion!

I want to thank Netgalley for an advanced ARC of this manga to read

180 pages

This is a story about orphaned children being in an orphanage/Magical Military training school to send them into battle, to use magic and fighting skills to defeat their enemies and monsters but there are these special girls who are chosen to be elite warriors and are called MiMi.

We follow a child who lost her roommate in battle and has a new roommate given to her who is a MiMi.

I liked the story & how it progressed leaving me wanting to read the next volume, the main character is having trouble dealing with things and also starting to realize her future and I have a feeling we will be seeing more about the connection they are making between main charact3r and MIMi..

This is a fact read and not everyone will enjoy it but I did and I haven't liked allot of manga's recently

First review on netgalley!

Overall, I liked it. It’s a cute manga, which is interesting cause it's a story about the horrors of war, how casual the world (which is either a fantasy world or an alt history world) is when it comes to violence, which makes it more horrifying, and how growing up entrenched in that violence steals your childhood (as far as I can tell from the 1st volume.) The war is off screen and abstract but impactful all the same. And the scenes of the war making it back home (mock battles, injuries, deaths, etc…) are gruesome, which makes how calm and cutesy the rest of it is more jarring. What can I say? I'm a Madoka Magica fan, so I like cute stories that are actually super dark.

3.5 stars on that alone but…

I do take away points for the casual transphobia, which sadly is pretty rampant in manga. I can't tell if the character who experiences transphobia is meant to be trans or in drag, but it doesn't really matter; it's not cool. At least the main character treats her with respect. I'm not super surprised about the transphobia, but for a book that was labeled LGBT, it's disappointing that the T is ignored.

3 stars and I will be continuing the series as it comes out. It IS only the 1st volume of a manga, so I'm interested to see if it evolves as the series progresses. Also, I love the Author's avatar at the back of the book

*Thanks to NetGalley & the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest reivew*

Yikes! I saw this on Netagalley and thought it looked very cute, in addition to having an interesting premise. I've been really getting into manga that put spins on the magical girl genre. But this one was very much not it.

Right off the bat, the way that the school heals the girls who manage to make it back from the war front is to kiss them? Very strange and disturbing given that kids range from 10-17 and the main characters are 10 years old.

Despite its cute art style, I will not be coming back for this manga. It gave me a weird vibe all the way around and honestly I considered not even adding this to my goodreads and leaving it on NetGalley. 1/5 Stars, probably less.

there was nothing wrong with the story or the art. I was excited to read it, but I had to drop to 2 stars just because of the nurse character. not only is the trans pervert teacher trope harmful to the trans community, it also gives nothing to the story and is just gross. the book would be good without that trope and if the main characters were older than 10.

If I had to summarize I Want To Love You til Your Dying Day in one word, I would say it's wildly uncomfortable. Following orphans who are conscripted into a military school with little regard for their livelihoods, I wasn't expecting anything feel good. But underneath the dehumanization they are subjected to, these characters find connection and meaning in each other despite their unbearable circumstances.

This is all well and good, if you can look past some questionable elements it really has something emotional at the core of its story. However. I don't think most people could or should look past the pandering present here.

There is:
Naked, bloody body horror of a 10 year old
Excessive amounts of focus on kids kissing each other
A gender nonconforming character depicted as a sexual predator

Frankly, this feels like a painful throwback in many ways. Plot convenient excuses for intimacy, throwing out random pieces of world-building and just seeing what sticks, and edgy bleakness all feel like something that was Frankenstein'ed together out of a early 00s otaku fever dream.

Overall, I don't think this is a great series for most readers unless you have a high tolerance for grimdark, edgy fantasy and depictions of children in profoundly upsetting situations. If you can stomach Made in Abyss, you might like this manga. It definitely was not for me.

Thank you to Kodansha Comics for my ARC provided through Netgalley.