Even Though We're Adults Review: Two Women Reunite After Years Apart and Fall in Love — One of Them Is Married

Quick Take

• A completed yuri romance for adult readers that takes the adultery premise seriously — the series does not romanticize the harm of Akari's situation but also does not punish the characters for their feelings
• Shimura (creator of Wandering Son) brings the same unflinching but compassionate approach to adult relationship difficulty
• 7 volumes complete in English; one of the most mature and honest yuri manga available

Who Is This Manga For?

• Adult readers who want yuri romance that takes complicated relationship dynamics seriously
• Anyone who appreciated the work of Takako Shimura (Wandering Son)
• Readers who want completed adult romance with genuine emotional weight
• Fans of drama where the characters are not villains for their feelings but must still manage consequences

Content Warnings & Age Rating

Age Rating: M (Mature) Content Warnings: Adultery as central premise; yuri romantic relationship; emotional and physical infidelity; adult relationship drama with real consequences; some sexual content

An M rating appropriate to the adult content and relationship dynamics.

Yu's Rating

Category	Score
Story Depth	★★★★★
Art Style	★★★★☆
Character Development	★★★★★
Accessibility for Non-Japanese Readers	★★★★☆
Reread Value	★★★★☆

Story Overview

Akari is in her early thirties, a junior high school teacher, and married. She goes to a bar with colleagues and runs into Ayano — a woman she loved in high school, her first love, a feeling she never fully resolved.

Ayano is now single. She is also still attracted to Akari.

The series does not pretend this situation is simple. Akari is married to someone who has not done anything wrong. Ayano knows this. The love between them is real and not manufactured to excuse the harm — but the harm is also real.

Even Though We're Adults follows what two adults do when a feeling they thought was resolved returns and makes demands they cannot ignore without losing something of themselves.

Characters

Akari — A protagonist who is not a villain for her feelings and is not exonerated for her choices. Her specific character — her tendency to avoid confrontation, her genuine affection for both her husband and Ayano — is portrayed with the ambivalence that adult relationships actually contain.

Ayano — Who knows Akari is married and is not willing to simply wait — her clarity about what she wants is the series' driving energy, and her moments of doubt about what she is asking make her more than a simple antagonist to Akari's marriage.

Akari's husband — Who is not a monster or an obstacle, whose presence in the narrative is a genuine ethical weight.

Art Style

Shimura's art is quiet and precise — expressions carry enormous weight in minimal linework, and the domestic and ordinary settings of the characters' lives contrast with the emotional intensity of what's happening within them. The visual restraint makes the emotional moments more effective.

Cultural Context

Adult infidelity narratives in manga are more common in male-audience titles than in shoujo or yuri. Even Though We're Adults brings the subject into yuri with the same honesty Shimura brought to gender identity in Wandering Son — without comfortable resolution or punishment for complexity.

What I Love About It

The series doesn't give any of its characters an easy exit. Akari can't simply choose and be fine either way. Ayano can't simply want and be right. The husband can't be ignorant and be protected by that ignorance forever. Everyone is in a situation they partly made, and the series follows what that costs.

What English-Speaking Fans Say

Western readers describe Even Though We're Adults as one of the most mature and honest yuri manga available in English — specifically praised for refusing to romanticize adultery while also refusing to reduce the characters' feelings to something shameful. Shimura's authorship is cited as the primary draw for readers familiar with her previous work.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The chapter where Akari's husband shows that he knows — not that he has been told, but that he has understood — and the specific way he manages what he knows, without the scene becoming the confrontation the series has been building toward, is the most precisely written scene in the manga and the point where the reader fully understands all three people.

Similar Manga

• Wandering Son — Shimura's earlier work; gender identity with same compassionate complexity
• The Conditions of Paradise — Adult yuri with complicated relationship circumstances
• Bloom Into You — Yuri with more restrained approach to adult feeling
• My Happy Marriage — Completed romance with emotionally difficult protagonists

Reading Order / Where to Start

Volume 1 — Akari and Ayano's reunion at the bar is the series' inciting event.

Official English Translation Status

Seven Seas Entertainment has published the complete English series. All 7 volumes available.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Adultery premise handled with genuine moral seriousness
• All three main characters are written as full people
• Shimura's restraint as an artist makes the emotional content more effective
• Complete — a real ending that doesn't flinch

Cons

• Adultery as premise will not be acceptable to all readers
• Emotional difficulty is significant — not a comfortable read
• Quiet pacing may frustrate readers wanting more plot movement

Format Comparison

Format	Notes
Individual Volumes	Seven Seas; complete series available
Digital	Available

Where to Buy

Get Even Though We're Adults Vol. 1 on Amazon →

---

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.