Momokuri: Complete Collection

Derived from a Japanese web-based comic, Momokuri is a basic first-love adolescent comedy that is almost sublime in its simplicity (essentially, it's a talkfest). Left alone much of the time by his publishing-industry parents, schoolboy Shinya Momotsuki agrees to the request of classmate Yuki Kurihara to become boyfriend and girlfriend. The only obstacles to their happiness is his timid formality—the pair spend an entire episode debating whether or not they have reached the point of being able to call each other by their first names—and her clingy, borderline-stalker obsession with him. Comrades watch with alarm as Yuki hoards every item associated with "Momo" (even uneaten food), and the most trivial incidents register as monumental in her eyes. Compiling all 26 episodes from 2015 in separate Blu-ray and DVD editions, rated TV-14, and presented in Japanese with English subtitles, this engaging series about adolescent courtship that addresses some painful and amusing truths about young crushes and anxieties is highly recommended. (C. Cassady)