Reading Tamen de Gushi is like taking a cool sip of lemonade on a hot summer day.

*this review contains minor spoilers*

Tamen de Gushi, also known as SQ Begin w/ Your Name, is a fan-favorite slice-of-life baihe manhua which follows the adventures of athletic teenager Sun Jing and her best friend Qi Fang.

When Sun Jing meets Qiu Tong, a beautiful girl from another school, she eventually musters up the courage to ask Qiu Tong for her phone number, kickstarting their blossoming friendship and setting the plot into motion.

Despite its slice-of-life format (and the fact that it was originally serialized on social media), Tamen de Gushi doesn’t shy away from longer, multi-chapter arcs where characters experience meaningful growth.

But the story’s emphasis on its light tone and small but deeply touching moments makes it easy for audiences to fall in love with its cast of characters.

Sun Jing is an S-tier dork, but she’s also popular in school and confident in her own skin. She’s the type of girl who plays basketball with the boys and then walks her crush home at the end of the day.

Qiu Tong is Sun Jing’s puppy love crush. Despite being just as popular, she can be quiet and prone to nervousness in certain social situations. But Qiu Tong is also prone to competition, and her and Sun Jing’s banter is filled with mutual teasing.

Tamen de Gushi has been independently written and illustrated by Chinese artist Tan Jiu on her Weibo since 2014, where it’s gained critical acclaim and a cult following.

In 2015, the Zhejiang People’s Fine Arts Publishing House officially published the first volume of Tamen de Gushi under the title SQ Begin w/ Your Name.

But due to the publisher’s request to censor the manhua’s central same-sex relationship, Tan Jiu announced in 2018 that the second Chinese print volume has been indefinitely delayed.

This is because *spoiler alert* Qiu Tong and Sun Jing do eventually get together in the second half of the story—which I know can be a concern for serialized manhua.

After this point, Tamen de Gushi reaches a sort of “soft ending.” While Tan Jiu still uploads art pieces and short skits here and there, there haven’t been any major plot developments in quite a while.

Despite not having a definitive ending, this suits Tamen de Gushi quite well, as Tan Jiu is able to further explore Sun Jing and Qiu Tong’s relationship after they begin dating (and dodge the censorship police.)

And of course, the art is just excellent.

The hardest part about reading Tamen de Gushi is finding it.

For English-only readers, I recommend the fan translations collected on MangaDex.

If you know a little bit of Chinese, you can also browse and follow Tan Jiu’s official Twitter or Weibo accounts. Weibo is definitely the superior method here, as it’s easier to keep track of updates to the story in real time with the Super Topic #SQ#.

But if you want the best way to catch up on the story from the beginning, I recommend Tencent’s ACQQ manhua app, where all the chapters are officially listed up to chapter 209, including the main story and then some.

I feel like I repeat this often, but while themes of desire and drama have their appeal, I’m a huge sucker for stories which focus on wholesome, light affection between the main leads.

Tamen de Gushi is free and readily available online, so if you’re looking for something fresh, please take advantage of it and give this series a try.