Nope, this isn’t a release, but I’d like to take this opportunity to recommend to you all a masterpiece of a manga I have been hopelessly hooked on for the last few days: Sakuranbo Syndrome, by the mangaka Taku Kitazaki. It is a Seinen manga of the Romance/Drama/Comedy genres with some explicit content.
I picked up Kono S wo Miyo (also an awesome series in its own right) from the same mangaka one night and simply could not put it down, reading all five available volumes at the expense of my sleep (the sixth is apparently due sometime this March). A couple days later, hungry for more Taku Kitazaki stuff, I made the “mistake” of deciding to read a chapter or two of Sakuranbo Syndrome right before I was about to go to bed.
A description taken from mangaupdates.com:
[spoiler]
“Progressive Rejuvenation Syndrome.” This is an extremely rare disease causing the inflicted person to gradually become younger. The main character of this story, Munenori Agawa, is the only person that could save Rena Amami from this odd disease. Agawa’s saliva is the only thing that can halt the disease from making Rena younger, so they must kiss everyday in order for her to survive. This causes an immense amount of conflict and drama between Agawa and his new girlfriend, Sayako Asou. This triangle relationship story tests the capabilities and limitations of human love.[/spoiler]
Kitazaki is a master of taking ridiculous sexual/romantic premises and milking out of them surprisingly realistic stories in which his characters face social issues and grow from their experiences. In Sakuranbo Syndrome, Kitazaki explores mature issues such as what it is to be an adult, the power of destiny, the nature of love, and more, as Agawa, Rena, and Asou interact with each other, the people around them, and the society they live in. The variety of characters, the gripping drama, and the comedy interspersed throughout contribute to this beautiful and very human tale that will keep you wanting more until the very last page.
TLDR: it’s a great manga you definitely don’t want to miss. For Japanese readers, scans of the entire series are available online; for English readers, GantzWaitingRoom has scanlated up to vol.4 as of the date of this post (you can read it online HERE).
EDIT: It’s apparently a huge pain to download Sakuranbo Syndrome from the scanlator’s site, so here are some DDL links.
Sakuranbo Syndrome 01 [GWR].zip [MIRROR]
Sakuranbo Syndrome 02 [GWR].zip [MIRROR]
Sakuranbo Syndrome 03 [GWR].zip [MIRROR]
Sakuranbo Syndrome 04 [GWR].zip [MIRROR]
Alternatively, you can download it via torrent.
Kono S wo Miyo, on the other hand, can be downloaded via torrent.