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Conditions of Paradise
The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time
A follow-up to yuri superstar Akiko Morishima’s The Conditions of Paradise ! Sumi has long carried a torch for her best friend Sarina, but she’s made peace with the fact that Sarina will never love her back. But as the two women start to blur the lines and kiss, will they go from being friends to lovers? Read their tale and many more sweet yuri love stories in The Conditions of Our First Time!
180 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2013
About the author
Akiko Morishima
27 books25 followersAkiko MORISHIMA (森島 明子) is a Japanese manga artist.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 11, 2021
Please don’t read this manga. There is a sexual scene between a 13 year old and an 18 year old, and the writing in the entire story is awful as well. Nothing can redeem this. One star.
November 11, 2020
Another collection of yuri stories, this time focusing on a travel writer and her friend, a crybaby and a cosplayer, a quick digression, and two people with a lot of history. And if some of that seems familiar, well, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... let’s just say that the author really wanted to flatter herself.
When I started this book I was super excited to see Sumi and Sarina, who I remembered from the previous volume. Freedom-loving Sumi is a travel writer living out of a suitcase and Sarina is more strait laced (ahem). I decided to refresh my memory by looking over the first book and this turned out to be a bad idea.
The first two stories, over half this volume, are retreads of the original book, just told slightly differently. At first I was very, ‘aww, this duo is off to Malta’ and that quickly turned into ‘Malta again!?’ when I realized what was going on.
The real problem is that the original book told both stories better. The Sumi and Sarina one is fine - I really like these two and think there’s a longer series buried in that premise - but the first volume had them spending time in Malta and was romance plus travelogue, whereas this book shuts down their story as they head out the door.
It’s the return of the cosplayer and her partner where this starts going downhill. Their adult relationship was never terribly interesting - one looks young and does cosplay, the other, younger woman, is mature and supportive. They’ve been together forever.
Then we get a flashback to their getting together and uninteresting would be a reprieve from how stupid this premise gets. The younger girl has no mother, but the older is graduating. The latter flushes her career plans down the toilet and alienates her entire family to get a job and a place of her own to raise the younger one.
Very healthy basis for a relationship. And where’s the dad? Was the young girl living in a box? Why doesn’t anybody stop this in the first five seconds? Does a story need to make a lick of sense? I would argue it does and the contrivances do not justify the role reversal as the younger becomes more mature and maternal as time goes on.
Next story is a one-off about a drunk confession and it goes like basically every one of those stories ever goes.
The other new story is a three chapter one called Honey & Mustard and it’s about two best friends who do everything together except get together after a disastrous romantic entanglement some 15 years prior.
It’s actually pretty good, taking on some fairly crazy definitions of an open relationship and not being particularly judgemental about it. I don’t mind the characters and in this instance the flashback to their first meeting adds something to the present day.
Once again, however, the premise that these two have been smouldering along for 15 years joined at the hip with this never coming up? Yeah, perhaps not so much. That’s two stories with script issues and one that’s dead boring, it isn’t a great ratio.
2.5 stars, but I genuinely can’t round this up given how derivative of the first book it is. It feels like I’m getting half a book because the changes to the other stories either aren’t good or don’t add enough.
I’m tempted to bump it up for the two bonus manga, which involve the 30-year-old and 20-year-old from the first volume (they were the other best pairing), but it’s simply not enough.
When I started this book I was super excited to see Sumi and Sarina, who I remembered from the previous volume. Freedom-loving Sumi is a travel writer living out of a suitcase and Sarina is more strait laced (ahem). I decided to refresh my memory by looking over the first book and this turned out to be a bad idea.
The first two stories, over half this volume, are retreads of the original book, just told slightly differently. At first I was very, ‘aww, this duo is off to Malta’ and that quickly turned into ‘Malta again!?’ when I realized what was going on.
The real problem is that the original book told both stories better. The Sumi and Sarina one is fine - I really like these two and think there’s a longer series buried in that premise - but the first volume had them spending time in Malta and was romance plus travelogue, whereas this book shuts down their story as they head out the door.
It’s the return of the cosplayer and her partner where this starts going downhill. Their adult relationship was never terribly interesting - one looks young and does cosplay, the other, younger woman, is mature and supportive. They’ve been together forever.
Then we get a flashback to their getting together and uninteresting would be a reprieve from how stupid this premise gets. The younger girl has no mother, but the older is graduating. The latter flushes her career plans down the toilet and alienates her entire family to get a job and a place of her own to raise the younger one.
Very healthy basis for a relationship. And where’s the dad? Was the young girl living in a box? Why doesn’t anybody stop this in the first five seconds? Does a story need to make a lick of sense? I would argue it does and the contrivances do not justify the role reversal as the younger becomes more mature and maternal as time goes on.
Next story is a one-off about a drunk confession and it goes like basically every one of those stories ever goes.
The other new story is a three chapter one called Honey & Mustard and it’s about two best friends who do everything together except get together after a disastrous romantic entanglement some 15 years prior.
It’s actually pretty good, taking on some fairly crazy definitions of an open relationship and not being particularly judgemental about it. I don’t mind the characters and in this instance the flashback to their first meeting adds something to the present day.
Once again, however, the premise that these two have been smouldering along for 15 years joined at the hip with this never coming up? Yeah, perhaps not so much. That’s two stories with script issues and one that’s dead boring, it isn’t a great ratio.
2.5 stars, but I genuinely can’t round this up given how derivative of the first book it is. It feels like I’m getting half a book because the changes to the other stories either aren’t good or don’t add enough.
I’m tempted to bump it up for the two bonus manga, which involve the 30-year-old and 20-year-old from the first volume (they were the other best pairing), but it’s simply not enough.
December 15, 2020
2020 Read #705
I don’t know, I feel like these stories feature characters who are pretty emotionally immature, and that takes away from the reading experience for me.
I don’t know, I feel like these stories feature characters who are pretty emotionally immature, and that takes away from the reading experience for me.
July 16, 2024
Theres that one not too great part.. but I like the honey and mustard stories. The coworker one is nice too..
January 8, 2021
'The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time' is a sweet and sexy collection of stories about girls looking back at their first time together, whichever first that happens to be. It's aided by the fact that these are expansions or continuations of pairings from the first Conditions of Paradise collection, so there's a good sense of depth to all the stories. I enjoy that we get chapters from each of their points of view, too. Also to clarify, when I say 'sexy' I don't mean erotic; there's a lot of nakedness and sex in here, and they're very attractively drawn, but it's presented as part of the story of their relationships, rather than as something to titillate. Anyway, I'd really recommend this series to anyone looking for good love stories, especially featuring adults or people who are a little more established in their relationship.
August 24, 2021
Can lgbt people not adopt in Japan? I’ve been seeing this trope in manga a lot in manga where women dump their girlfriends and marry a man so they can have kids. It’s only ‘Runaway with me girl’ that one character is already pregnant, divorced her husband, and got a girlfriend, and ‘Days of love at seagull villa’ one character is the guardian of her niece and gets a girlfriend that they have kids. I think they should of done a better job of consent. Like showing them discussing with one another beforehand what they’re comfortable with and what they’re not comfortable with. Kissing when the other is asleep so they can’t give consent occurs to often in manga.
July 29, 2022
This would have been three stars, but there is a brief sexual scene between two minors--one much younger than the other at 17 and 12/13--and that's extremely uncomfortable.
If you read the first volume, you may enjoy the continuations of some of those stories, but they're not particularly necessary and are rather forgettable. The art is gorgeous, of course, so that's a benefit. Unfortunately, the only thing that really stuck with me was THAT scene, which is not a good thing. You have been warned.
If you read the first volume, you may enjoy the continuations of some of those stories, but they're not particularly necessary and are rather forgettable. The art is gorgeous, of course, so that's a benefit. Unfortunately, the only thing that really stuck with me was THAT scene, which is not a good thing. You have been warned.
April 6, 2021
It was really nice to see some of the original couples in this anthology! I loved getting to see both sides viewpoints on everything; how they felt, what it was all like for them as an individual, etc..
The art work was really well done, and all of the stories are a pretty good length, which was nice! Morishima has yet to disappoint me!
The art work was really well done, and all of the stories are a pretty good length, which was nice! Morishima has yet to disappoint me!
January 14, 2022
Stopped reading this midway through the manga.
There’s a sexual scene between 2 minors that was uncomfortable to see, as well as the overall writing wasn’t the best.
There’s a sexual scene between 2 minors that was uncomfortable to see, as well as the overall writing wasn’t the best.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews