While reading Shuuzou Oshimi's popular Flowers of Evil manga, I took a look at the rest of his works and noticed recurring themes of adolescent sexuality. Some premises had more of a... questionable nature than others, and after sharing a few with a friend we each decided to read a different one volume work from the author. Curious if the rest of his works would have the same nuance and tact as Flowers of Evil, I decided to give the most absurd premise a shot: Sweet Poolside, a manga about a hairless boy shaving a hairy girl. And thus, my life sank further into the abyss.

The manga's largest issue is not its controversial subject matter, but rather its lack of focus on the motivation behind it. In stark contrast to the Flowers of Evil, Sweet Poolside doesn't use its premise as a means to share philosophy with any depth. For the most part, this is an atypical framework for a typical romance plot. It's organically cute in how embarrassed the two main characters are of their bodily problems and how they learn to support each other in the way that only they empathetically can. This relationship and also the characters' contemplation of their own self-consciousness are the highlights of this coming-of-age story, but what could be further detailed is covered with an overgrowth of hairy exposition. The shaving scenes are given far too much attention to the point where they almost seem fetishized, and as a story element they rarely serve any point other than to demonstrate the boy's nervousness and the girl's shyness. The only point of this is beaten over your head as these scenes are dragged out for far too long. The initial shaving scene was the only thing that needed to be shown in full, and after this the manga should've focused solely on the characters growing up now that they've found someone else to trust. This element is there, but buried under this worn, dull razor blade of storytelling. Seeing multiple pages of shaving and only one of the main female character reflecting on what that meant to her is kind of lousy and a waste of a possibly pure-hearted intent by the author.

Beyond that, the art is decent but frequently cartoonish in a gag manga-esque way rather than the detailed realism of Flowers of Evil. There's also a one-shot manga chapter included in this release entry, but I can't find it anywhere. Fine enough, I suppose, as MAL grouping unrelated stories is stupid anyway. If that bonus chapter exists, please let me know.