Fresh off the heels of Teasing Master Takagi-san comes another manga that firmly fits into this newly-established “teasing” genre that has really gained a fan base in the past year. I was admittedly not a huge fan of the genre myself, finding most of the shows that spearheaded this trend to be just OK. A lot of that comes from the difference in power dynamic between the two leads that often comes with the genre; it always felt as though the teasing party was framed as the one in the show's favor, which oftentimes made the character interactions feel a bit unbalanced, even awkward, especially if the show is pushing a sort of romantic development between the two. Personally, I like a little more give-and-take in my romantic comedies, and thankfully When Will Ayumu Make His Move?'s first volume seems like a step in the right direction.

Right off the bat, the dynamics between both of our main leads can in no way shape or form be misconstrued as bullying. The two seem to get along very well and have a very decent rapport with one another. This is a story that's less about two characters discovering their feelings for another and more like a cute cautionary tale where sometimes having too much pride can get in the way. Ayumu, our titular character, vowed that he would only confess his feelings if he beat his senpai in a game of Shogi. However, he does very little to conceal the fact that he finds her cute and wants to spend a lot of alone time with her. For someone who is so evasive when confronted with straightforward questions like “do you like me?”, everything else about him is extremely clear and wholesome. He's not an immovable rock, in other words, and some of the biggest laughs in the manga are when he goes into a brief moment of shock at the thought of his time alone with his senpai being threatened.

This brings us to Urushi, the object of our titular character's affections and who suffers from similar issues of pride – just framed with a lot more confusion. To my surprise, she's actually the one that's on the receiving end of the teasing in most of the book and given how contradictory Ayumu can be sometimes, it's actually pretty believable that she's not 100% sure how he feels about her. On the one hand, she's kind of the reason why they're not together since she is such a good Shogi player, but she's also blissfully unaware of what she's doing. This of course leads to some fun moments where the best teasing comes from situations where she doesn't even realize that she's doing it. In a way, it kind of sums up the message that when you don't try so hard and overcomplicate things, everything sort of works itself out in the end. The story isn't trying to make a big statement about that revelation but it's at the very least consistent about it.

This carries through in the dialogue which is often snappy and direct, squeezing a surprising amount of setup and payoff in chapters that feel a lot shorter than they actually are. This could be due to the panel layout, which seems to opt for very large sizable shots, to the point where sometimes you'll have a few pages in a row that only have 2 to 3 panels in them. The downside is there's not a lot of visual variety in the storyboarding or the actual content of the manga chapters. Pretty much the whole volume – aside from maybe 2 chapters – takes place in the club room and there are only so many angles and shots you can do to make that setup look interesting. That might be why the author tries to focus more on the characters' facial expressions which can be pretty fun, especially when they linger to establish an awkward character beat. Plus the designs of the characters themselves are simple yet effective, and I love the added touch of each chapter ending with an actual play-by-play of how the actual Shogi game went so we can see just how Ayumu lost. It's not winning any awards and this is definitely a manga you buy more for its writing than its visual style.

Overall, I personally feel that this series was a step up in terms of wholesomeness and humor compared to the writer's previous work. The two main leads are likable and the premise gets a surprising amount of mileage without feeling boring or rudimentary. I can definitely classify this as something you pick up for about a half-hour of wholesome, good feelings. I do wish it did a little bit more to make it worth revisiting; as it stands now, I don't really see people reading this more than once. If you're a fan of the teasing genre and are looking for something new within it, then I definitely think you'll probably get the most out of this story. However, even for people like me that weren't a big fan of the genre to begin with, I think this takes things in a better direction than what we've seen before, and there might be just enough here to win you over.