A Town Where You Live

A Town Where You Live (君のいる町) is an ongoing Japanese manga written and illustrated by Kouji Seo. The series is a character-driven romance story set in the same universe and during the events of the manga and anime series Suzuka, it follows Haruto Kirishima, a self-conscious teenager, and Yuzuki Eba, a boisterous teenage girl that moved from Tokyo into the Kirishima family's country home.

A Town Where You Live is serialized in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine published by Kodansha since June 2008. As of July 16 2010, Kodansha has compiled its chapters into 10 bound volumes.

Plot
The plot primarily follows the two characters Haruto Kirishima and Yuzuki Eba. Yuzuki moved from Tokyo to her father's rural hometown in the Hiroshima Prefecture. Given that Haruto's father is an acquaintance of Yuzuki's father, the Kirishima's take her into their home. Haruto is not keen of the situation because he believes that Yuzuki is a complete stranger and that a girl his same age, who is not a relative, living in the same home will cause complications for him. The misunderstanding he wants to avoid the most is that they are a couple because he already likes his classmate, Nanami Kanzaki. The problem is that Yuzuki has romantic feelings for Haruto and is not timid in pursuing a relationship. Haruto being stubborn confesses once more at the Kouyasai, Yuzuki accepts. They both start a long distance relationship.

A Town Where You Live plot principally makes use of dramatic structure to facilitate character development. The story takes a realistic tone of the lives of high school freshmen. The story's setting is based on Kouji Seo's hometown and takes place approximately 2 years after Suzuka, Seo's previous manga.

Main

 * Haruto Kirishima (桐島 青大)
 * He is the male protagonist of the series. He has a reserved personality, which causes him to become perturbed with Yuzuki and his sister's actions. He has a very strong sense of responsibility as well as consideration for others. He is a member of the cooking club because he thought that Nanami would also join.


 * Before the series, he always lived in his hometown. He met a lost Yuzuki during the festival while they were kids, he took care of her and told her that if she ever had problems she could come see him again. Entering in middle school he secretly had a crush on Nanami.


 * At the beginning of the series when Yuzuki comes to his house, he's a little irritated with her and doesn't remember meeting her before. But he becomes protective of her and they become good friends. Thanks to Yuzuki he gets closer to Nanami and finally confesses to her, but she replies that she wants them to stay friends and tells him that she wants more time to think about answering his confession. Yuzuki also confesses her love to him, saying that he'll fall for her eventually, but she believes that first he'll end up with Nanami.


 * When Yuzuki has a personal problem and needs to travel to Tokyo, he gets on a train with her and helps her with family problems. But weeks later, Nanami discovers that he hid the fact that he travelled with Yuzuki instead of going on the date they planned together. She first seems to be able to forgive that, but after he chooses to retrieve a missing Yuzuki instead of staying with her, she decides to reject him. Rejected by Nanami, Haruto is consoled by Yuzuki and also realises that Nanami probably rejected him due to Yuzuki's presence in his life. Later, Nanami confirms this, but when Haruto asks her to hide that from Yuzuki (to not hurt her), she slaps him, saying no to play with her feelings, because the person he really loves is Yuzuki. At the same time Yuzuki announces that she'll be back to Tokyo in April, her familly issues being partly solved. He eventually invites her to the Kouyasai but she explains that they can't date now, because she can stay for only a few months. So, he decides to leave their relationship as it is rather than confess.


 * Finally, the day of Yuzuki's return to Tokyo arrives and Haruto finally sums up the courage to confess his love and requests that she stays by his side forever instead of going to Tokyo and to go out with him. As she boards the train to Tokyo, she agrees to have a long distance relationship. Planing to meet her and buy her a gift during a school field trip to Tokyo, he finds a job at a restaurant in Hiroshima, were he meets Shiho Amagi, who shares with him the dream of becoming a chef. While in the beginning, he considered her too strict, he finally befriends her. During the trip Nanami asks him to temporarily pose as her boyfriend to impress a boastful friend, after which they are eventually discovered holding hands on a train station by Yuzuki. Haruto then decides to meet up with her in person to clear the misunderstanding. Yuzuki explains she understands and forgives him for what happened, then he gives her a kiss for the first time. But for several weeks after the trip Yuzuki doesn't contact him, while his phone number seems blocked. Haruto believes that Yuzuki has broken up with him which results in him becoming deeply depressed. Nanami, who still loves him, and is pained by how he became, decides to make a move, by joining the cooking club with him and meeting him regularly. After she was informed by Rin that Yuzuki got a new boyfriend before the school trip, Nanami decides to confess. However, Haruto later rejects her confession after he discovers a letter he has been long ignorant of in the bag that had the shirt Eba gave to him, believing that something had happened to Eba rather than Eba finding a new boyfriend and cutting off all contact with him. Due to this, he decided to transfer to a school in Tokyo after the school term.


 * Yuzuki Eba (枝葉 柚希)
 * She is the female protagonist of the series. She moved from Tokyo to her father's hometown. She is staying with the Kirishimas, who are her father's acquaintances. She has a sociable personality and gets along with others easily. She confesses that she likes Haruto, but it does not prevent her from helping Haruto get closer to Nanami. It is later on revealed in the manga that she had met Haruto once when they were younger at the summer festival, and he had helped her stop crying. She consoled Haruto when he was dumped by Nanami. She was ecstatic after hearing that Haruto might just go to Tokyo after they graduate. She started avoiding Haruto after he held her hand while walking home. She is specially spending time with Narumi Kanzaki (Nanami's Brother). She has accepted Haruto's confession and agreed to have a long distance relationship with him. Recently she hasn't contacted Haruto for several weeks and accoring to Rin, she found a new boyfriend.


 * Yuzuki is surprised when Haruto visits her during his school trip to Tokyo. However she misunderstands the situation when seeing Haruto and Nanami holding hands. Yuzuki refuses to speak with Haruto, but his persistence appears to pay off as she forgives him. However, this forgiveness may have not been sincere as a short time later, Yuzuki cuts off all contact with Haruto and avoids Haruto's request to meet up and apparently has dumped him for a new boyfriend. Yuzuki apparently "explains" this to Haruto in a letter that came with the shirt she bought for him (that Haruto was ignorant of for around a month before it accidentally fell out of the bag). She explains how she must date a boy who dumped her in middle school and therefore must break up with Haruto. However, after reading the letter Haruto decides that the content was not something Yuzuki would write, and that something has happened to her once again.


 * It turns out that she really does have a boyfriend, who turns out to be Haruto's new friend, Kazama. She coldly rejected Haruto and any attempt to see her until one day Kazama collapsed because of his illness, and they meet again at the hospital, in the room where Kazama was staying. After finding out the truth, Haruto questions her motives and why she dumped him back then, and she tells him that she knew Kazama since middle school, and he was a great help to her when he helped her come out of her shell, but after Kazama confessed to her, she rejected him multiple times and moved to Hiroshima. She kept in contact with Kazama even while in Hiroshima behind Haruto's back, and after Haruto and Eba started their long distance relationship since Eba moved back to Tokyo, he confessed to her again, only this time he revealed that he doesn't have much left to live, and wants to spend the little time he has with Eba. She accepted his confession, and dumped Haruto with a letter she put inside a bag that was supposedly to be a present for Haruto.

Classmates

 * Nanami Kanzaki (神咲 七海)
 * She is Haruto's classmate and love interest since middle school. She has a modest personality and is somewhat insecure as she once stated that she felt like an outsider with Haruto, Yuzuki, Takashi, and Akari. Haruto confesses to her, but she rejects him although afterwards they become better friends and she then tells him she wants to reconsider her rejection to his confession. At the summer festival when Rin and Itsuki come to visit Eba, Rin speaks with Nanami about Nanami's true feelings for Haruto and how Haruto served as a "safety net" for Nanami. Later, during the festival, Nanami made her decision to reject Haruto, after hearing that Haruto looked for Eba when she was missing and because of jealousy over Yuzuki, one of the many reasons was because he seemed to care more about Yuzuki than her and made her insecure about dating him. Since then she has been avoiding Haruto because their situation and acting extremely cold towards him.


 * Nanami later visits Tokyo with Haruto on a school trip. She follows him as he went to give a present to Yuzuki and asks Haruto if he can pretend to be her boyfriend for a moment and holds his hand. This leads to a misunderstanding between Haruto and Yuzuki, that appears to ultimately result in Yuzuki breaking up with Haruto. When Haruto returns to their home town, Nanami feels bad seeing how depressed Haruto is. As a result, Nanami appears to have finally recognized her true feelings for him and is now actively pursuing Haruto so she can become his girlfriend. She recently quit her manager position with the baseball club not only to join Haruto in the cooking club but also so she can walk home with him. Kanzaki then hears from Rin that Yuzuki has a new boyfriend, but doesn't tell Haruto since he seems much happier lately. However, after discovering that Haruto is still secretly hoping Yuzuki will come back to him, she reveals the truth about Yuzuki's new boyfriend and confesses her desire to be his girlfriend. He then proceeds to put her confession on hold because he believes that Yuzuki is in trouble and does not believe that the letter she wrote is the full truth.


 * Takashi Yura (由良 尊)
 * He is Haruto's childhood friend. He has a crush on Yuzuki which makes him jealous of Haruto because he lives with her. His first love was Aoi and he confessed to her even though she did not take it seriously. After finding about Yuzuki's sister Rin, he decided to give up on Yuzuki, but instead pursued her sister. Later, near the end of the summer, it was revealed that he confessed to and was rejected by Rin.


 * Akari Kaga (加賀 月)
 * She is Haruto's friend since childhood. She has a cheerful personality, but according to Haruto, she often hides her feelings from others. She is part of the tennis club along with Yuzuki. She was upset that Haruto decided to go to Tokyo for Yuzuki at first, but got over it later. She may also have romantic feelings for him since she kissed him as a going away present and told him to think of it if he was lonely. She is of mixed Japanese-Russian descent.


 * Narumi Kanzaki (神咲 成海)
 * He is Nanami's elder brother. He was introduced as Akari's love interest, but he likes Yuzuki. He is the captain of the baseball club and forced his younger sister to became its manager. He has recently been spending time with Yuzuki and even asks her to go to the Kouyasai although Yuzuki responds to this in a joking manner. After he overhears Haruto asking Yuzuki to go with him to the Kouyasai, he gives up on her and even encourages their relationship as he is seen forcing Haruto to accompany Yuzuki to the train station on the day of her departure back to Tokyo. As of the latest chapter, he has graduated from High School.


 * Kotone Kikukawa (菊川　琴音)
 * A classmate of Haruto and Yuzuki, she is a demure and timid girl with braided hair and donning a pair of glasses to hide her actually beautiful appearance (similar to Honoka Sakurai of Suzuka in mannerism and appearance). She is very adept in sewing and admires Yuzuki. Kotone develops a crush on Haruto. During a class outing to gather apples for the festival, Kotone arrived with her hair unbraided(because of a comment made by Haruto)and Haruto thought it looked nice on her. She replied that if he likes it, she'll leave her hair unbraided from now on. When Haruto is rebuffed by Eba again at the end of the outing,there is a slight misunderstanding that leads her to hold Haruto's hand and confesses to him. Haruto notices the misunderstanding between each other and she again misunderstands and says that she will wait for a proper confession at the festival. However, after witnessing Haruto drag Yuzuki away from the festival to talk, she seems to realize that he truly does like Yuzuki. Recently, it was revealed that she started dating Himuro.

Kirishima Family

 * Aoi Kirishima (桐島 葵)
 * She is Haruto's elder sister. She came back home from college in Tokyo to student teach in order to get her teaching license. Out of the two siblings she acts the least mature. In Tokyo, she lives in Ayano Fujikawa's dormitory and is next door to Yamato Akitsuki. She is the one who shows Haruto a picture of when he had first met Eba when he was younger. She thinks that Haruto and Yuzuki makes a definitely better couple than with Nanami.She is revealed to be a smoker and has a very lazy and laid-back personality which usually results in Haruto doing most of her chores.

Eba Family

 * Rin Eba (枝葉 懍)
 * She is Yuzuki's stepsister, who is younger than Yuzuki by one year. In the past, the two did not get along because Rin misunderstood Yuzuki in that she thought that Yuzuki purposely seduced men, but it appears that they have since worked out their problems. She seems to have a kind personality, but actually she is devious and likes to cause trouble for others for her own amusement. It is also shown that she has a brother complex for Itsuki and gets very angry with Haruto when he punches Itsuki back in Tokyo.


 * Itsuki Eba (枝葉 樹)
 * He is Yuzuki's older stepbrother, who his third year high school. Unlike Rin, he is very kind and gets along with others. He also encourages Rin to get along with Eba. However, he is completely oblivious to the problems with his sisters, to the point Haruto punched him out of anger with how blind he was.

Aoba High Students

 * Asuka Mishima (御島 明日香)
 * Asuka Mishima is Haruto's friend and classmate. She is also a friend and neighbour of Haruto's sister, Aoi. Due to Haruto's careless words and compassion, she develops a crush on him.


 * Kyousuke Kazama (風間 恭輔)
 * He is Haruto's classmate and friend who cherishes the exhilaration brought by riding his motorcycle. He afflicted by an unspecified illness which prevents him from fulfilling his future aspiration to race professionally. As of chapter 89, it is revealed that he is Eba's current boyfriend, despite wanting to help Haruto win his girl back.


 * Mina Nagoshi (夏越 美奈)
 * She is a classmate of Haruto Kirishima. She mistakenly believes Haruto likes her.