Convenient Semi-Friend is a Yuri Genre Yonkoma by Chigusa Minori which has been published in Manga Time Kirara since March 2023.
Due to her nervous disposition, Suuna Kuruma is scared of strangers. So, imagine her shock when she arrives at her dorm on the first day of high school and learns her new roommate, the flirty and fashionable Ruka Hamanasu, is always bringing home different girls to make out with. Ruka explains she has a lot of sefurenote . When Suuna asks what sefure means, Ruka can't bring herself to destroy Suuna's wholesome aura, so she stammers out that it means a "semi-friend". As Suuna takes this in, she worries that Ruka's behavior will be bad for her fear of strangers. She proposes they become "semi-friends" instead, so that Ruka can satisfy her desire for skinship and Suuna doesn't have to be stressed out over strangers in the dorm.
Convenient Semi-Friend contains examples of:
- All Just a Dream: The volume 1 omake, where Suuna and Ruka meet the protagonists of Chigusa's last manga, turns out to have been a dream.
- Always in Class One: Defied Trope. Suuna says she assumed Ruka will be in Class 1 with her, but Ruka is in Class 2 instead.
- Crush Blush: Despite Ruka's "experience" with girls and her inner disdain for Suuna, doing even the slightest amount of skinship with Suuna leaves Ruka a blushing mess who isn't able to think straight.
- Brutal Honesty: Suuna has a habit of blurting out whatever's on her mind, with no tact whatsoever. It often hits close to home for Ruka, making her recoil in shame and blush heavily.
- Cliffhanger Copout: Chapter 10 ends with Ruka sensually embracing Suuna and promising to teach her the ways of love. Chapter 11 then opens with Ruka thinking, "I just wanted to mess with her, why's she getting so worked up?! I can't do this!"
- Crossover: The protagonists of Minori Chigusa's last manga, Shino and Rin, pop up in the volume 1 omake. They're dead-ringers for Ruka and Suuna, and even describe themselves as their "ancestors". It turns out to be a dream, and ends with a plug for the Shino and Rin manga.
- Custom Uniform: Ruka just wears a windbreaker over her blouse, without the proper school jacket. She also wears her red tie loose. This is one of the things Suuna calls her out on.
- Expy: Suuna is obviously inspired by Hitori GotÅ, another shy, blubbering, insular nervous wreck. The anime adaptation for Bocchi the Rock! aired six months before Convenient Semi-Friend debuted and was an enormous success for Manga Time Kirara, after the less than stellar reception to some of their contemporary releases. Minori Chigusa released a manga for Kadokawa prior to this one starring two girls who look identical to Suuna and Ruka, but the Suuna equivalent doesn't have any major communications problems, implying that trait was given to Suuna specifically for publication in Kirara.
- Friendless Background: Due to being a Nervous Wreck, Suuna had no friends until she moved into the dorm and met Ruka.
- Friends with Benefits: All of Ruka's relationships are built around making out with sefure, the Japanese term for friends with benefits. The literal translation is "sex friend", but Ruka stresses that she's never actually gone as far as having sex. Mostly it's just heavy petting.
- Gyaru Girl: Ruka and her friends are trendy, flirty fashionistas. When Suuna finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the middle of them, she calls them a "group of gyaru" like they're a herd of wild animals or something.
- Hotter and Sexier:
- The manga is notable for being much raunchier and more sexually-charged than what Manga Time Kirara is known for, to the point the volume 1 afterword mostly consists of Minori Chigusa talking about her astonishment that they let her get away with what she's doing.
- This even extends to the Bland-Name Product the girls use to chat with each other. Whereas most manga refer to Line as "Lime", this one instead opts for "Loin".
- Lustful Melt: Suuna is known for melting like a wax figurine in an oven when she's stressed out. It's not just for effect, either. Ruka keeps telling her not to melt when she's overstimulated.
- Nervous Wreck: Suuna has a plethora of fears, and when she's agitated she completely falls apart. Her mouth and eyes turn into squiggles, her cheeks turn beet-red, and sweat pours off her chin like she's melting.
- No Sense of Personal Space: At the end of the first chapter, when the impassioned Suuna is proposing they become semi-friends, she basically straddles Ruka and gets right up in her face. The caption states Suuna is just "desperate for a peaceful future".
- No Social Skills: Suuna has no friends and no ability to talk to other people.
- Poor Communication Kills: Due to a combination of her own pridefulness and being flustered by Suuna's earnestness, Ruka is completely unable to explain to Suuna — who she describes as being from "planet purity" — what sefure actually means. This leads Suuna to get wildly misinformed impressions (such as thinking it means friends who kiss each other on the cheek in chapter 11), which she then acts upon with Ruka, making the problem even worse.
- Potty Emergency: In chapter 4, Ruka pretends to go to the toilet to get away from Suuna, but she's in there so briefly that Suuna suspects she was faking it. Then, after she comes out, Ruka really does have to go and tries to head back to the bathroom, but Sunna thinks she's still faking it and stops her while telling her not to "hold it in" (her emotions). Ruka mistakes that for some kind of fetish about watching girls piss themselves.
- Really Gets Around: Ruka likes to make out with a variety of girls, without actually dating them.
- Sex Sells: Although the manga in general is fairly risque (by Kirara standards), the special chapter published in Manga Time Kirara Carat to lure in new readers takes place inside the girls' bath and has the kind of erotic nudity you'd find in an ecchi series.
- Skinship Grope: Ruka has a strong desire to caress her "friends with benefits", so naturally skinship abounds in the manga.
- Staircase Tumble: In chapter 6, the flustered Suuna slips and tumbles down the stairs. Since this is a yuri, naturally she falls right into Ruka's arms.
- The Tease: Ruka keeps pretending to flirt with Suuna earnestly, then thinking "I'm just messing with her for fun," and then being reduced to a quivering, sweating mess by skinship with her.
- Thanking the Viewer: As usual, the afterword at the end of each volume thanks the reader for buying it/getting it serialized.
- Wrong Assumption: At first, Suuna takes Ruka's acceptance of her offer to become sefure at face value and interprets her actions as kindness. However, Ruka's inner monologue makes clear she's annoyed by Suuna, going so far as to think of her as "the troublesome girl". Despite that, Ruka seems to get incredibly flustered by doing skinship with Suuna, so she's not wholly put off either.
