From left to right: Rinna Fukatsu, Mei Haruno, and Sayo Shirayuki
High school first year Mei Haruno has a unique ability. She is able to see "love arrows," arrows going from someone to whoever they're attracted to, an ability that she's had all her life and has given her no end of grief. She decides to go to an all-girls school to get away from all the romance and drama that surrounded her in middle school. Now, if only it worked out that way.
As it turns out, she's surrounded by love arrows pointing between various girls, and two of them are pointing directly at her! Her elementary school friend Sayo Shirayuki, who she wasn't expecting to meet is the first one to show her love arrow, or arrows in this case. For some reason she has multiple arrows all pointing directly at Mei. The second is Rinna Fukatsu, who Mei finds in the bathroom dry heaving, and who falls in love with Mei at first sight, with a big fat arrow pointing directly at her. Mei, who doesn't have feelings for either of them beyond friendship, and in fact has never felt romantic interest in anybody, is now caught up in a love triangle only she is aware of. Even better, both girls who are in love with her are her roommates for the next three years.
If You Could See Love is a yuri comedy Manga by Teren Mikami and Yuuki Najani, focusing on the idea of being able to see love.
If you Could See Tropes:
- Blessed with Suck: How Mei sees her ability to see love arrows. It's caused her nothing but grief, especially when she tried to play matchmaker and made the people she tried to pair up based on mutual attraction mad at her once they got to know each other.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Sayo can get quite clingy and jealous of other girls who show an interest in Mei. At one point her love arrows basically turn into tentacles that wrap around Mei, because a third girl asked Mei out, even though Mei immediately turned her down. Despite this, she insists that she just wants to be friends.
- Crazy-Prepared: When they were in elementary school, Sayo apparently carried around a sleeping bag for Mei to use when the latter fainted. This raised a few eyebrows with Mei, but she apparently appreciated the thought.
- Fainting: Anemia fainting is common for Mei, and she does it three times in a row while trying out for sports clubs, before the fourth just tells her not to bother just because they're worried about her safety. It also happens once at a plot-convenient moment, after asking Rinna out on a date, and ends with her taking her first trip to the school infirmary.
- Furo Scene: Many. Rinna and Mei to take baths together on a regular basis, though after the first day Sayo decided to take her baths separately because her heart couldn't handle having a naked Mei so close to her every day. Still, there's a lot of ship tease and fun Bathtub Bonding in these scenes.
- Happily Married: Mei's parents, apparently. When they send her off to her new boarding school, they both have solid love arrows pointing at each other. This is pretty much the only characterization they get, however.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Rinna is always letting off large amounts of steam after particularly close moments with Mei, such as right after she goes out of her way to tell Mei that she will take her role as assistant class monitor seriously and promises to do her best.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: While Sayo definitely has feelings for Mei, she refuses to pursue a relationship currently because she doesn't want to lose Mei as a friend.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Why Mei tries so hard to make friends. Due to the fact that she's an ill girl who spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid, where it was very hard for her to grow close to other kids, she's afraid of being lonely again and wants to make sure she always has friends.
- Love at First Sight: Rinna falls for Mei the first time they meet, in the bathroom where the former is desperately trying to avoid throwing up. Mei hates this trope, though, seeing it as basically an attraction based on nothing but looks, without a care about anything deeper.
- Love Triangle: Mei is at the center of one, with both her roommates madly in love with her, while she has feelings for neither. On the bright side, all parties are friendly with each other.
- The Matchmaker: Mei tried to be one using her power, but it resulted in a lot of hurt feelings when the pairs she set up would break up on bad terms once they actually got to know each other and get angry at her. Part of the reason for going to an all-girls boarding school was because she thought she could get away from all the people who remembered her.
- Right Behind Me: During Mei's first of many trips to the school infirmary, the nurse walks up right behind her and says she's glad the infirmary meets Mei's high standards. Poor Mei looks to be on the verge of a heart attack when she hears this.
- Rule of Three:
- When Mei tries out for the sports clubs, it's given in a set of three. The first is the track club, where she's shown collapsed. The second is the tennis club, where she's shown collapsed. The last is the swim club, where she's shown to have sunk.
- When Mei tries out for the culture clubs, it's again given as a set of three. This time, though she's shown basically as The Ace, doing incredibly well in each club tryout.
- Stress Vomit: Rinna's stress vomiting in the bathroom over her starting high school and Mei's decision to check up on her is how they meet, and how Rinna falls for her. She does it again after Mei realizes that it was love at first sight for Rinna, and angrily blows her off, because she, Mei, hates love at first sight, considering it shallow and too strongly based on looks over personality.
- Student Council President: The younger Fukuzono twin is the student council president, as revealed in the stinger of the first volume where she says that things are going to get interesting around the school with Mei's ability. She's also implied to be able to see people's self-hatred.
- Twin Test: Done indirectly. Around the midpoint of the first volume a girl, Haruka Fukuzono, approaches Mei and asks her out. Mei rejects her right away and the girl wanders off in search of her next crush, completely unbothered by her rejection. Later an identical looking girl approaches Mei and acts like they met before. Mei figures out she's not the same girl because there are no love arrows coming out from her. Once she points this out, the girl admits she's Haruka's younger twin sister and says that that's the first time that anyone has been able to tell them apart.
