The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time is a collection of yuri love stories written and illustrated by Akiko Morishima. It is the second volume of the The Conditions of Paradise manga series.
Front cover of The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time, featuring Sarina Itou and Sumi Takami
Every love story has two sides…
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 Paradise: Our First Time!
This second volume of The Conditions of Paradise contains four different stories: “The Conditions of Paradise”, “Aim For Our Love”, “Azure Dreams” and “Honey and Mustard”. There seems to be a recurring theme of how the relationship between each of the couples evolves, as they take that next step.
Said evolution pretty much always involves things becoming much more intimate. It takes time to get to that stage, though, and as we see in the stories here, some longer than others.
Out of the stories included, I’d probably have to pick out “Honey and Mustard” as my favourite. The fact that it has three chapters probably helps; particularly with the other stories getting only one or two.
That particular story is about two women rekindling their love for each other after fifteen years, and even includes a flashback to where it all began for them. There’s just something satisfying about seeing the two characters realise that the feelings they held for each other so long ago have not disappeared.
The other stories, “The Conditions of Paradise”, “Aim for Our Love” and “Azure Dreams” are all pretty satisfying reads. There’s no melodrama; this is quite simply about women growing intimately close with other women.
That’s a key point to remember; even though at least one character is on the more petite side, all the stories here are about adults. There’s a lot of schoolgirl yuri out there, so something like this is a nice change of pace once in a while.
“The Conditions of Paradise” and “Aim for Our Love” are also continuations of stories from the first The Conditions of Paradise volume. Nice to see them build upon what has come before.
Overall, a decent collection of yuri stories. A nice followup to the first The Conditions of Paradise.
Rory Muses 