Is Once More Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Quick facts
Format	Manhua (shoujo), 170 chapters, 3 volumes
Run	2019–2023 · completed
Community score	AniList 7.8 · MangaUpdates 7.5
Where to read	Tapas — official

Overview

Xun An and Yang Muli almost had something back in high school, before a misunderstanding quietly ended it before it started. Years later, they both end up back at their old school as teachers — he's the blunt, unreadable P.E. teacher, she's the sharp, scheming-but-secretly-soft math teacher. Neither one immediately clocks who the other used to be. As they're forced into each other's orbit through work, old feelings resurface, and the secrets behind their high school falling-out start coming apart at the seams.

It's a familiar shoujo setup — exes reunited, one big unresolved misunderstanding, workplace proximity doing the plot's heavy lifting — but the manhua leans into the strengths of that formula rather than trying to reinvent it.

What it does well

The art is the first thing anyone brings up about this manhua, and it earns the reputation. Han Xu's character designs are clean and expressive, the coloring is confident without being oversaturated, and panels of the two leads just talking carry a surprising amount of visual interest. For a story that spends most of its time in hallways and classrooms, it rarely feels visually flat.

The reunion-as-coworkers setup is a smart structural choice. Instead of leaning on repeated flashbacks to remind you what happened in high school, the story lets the past sit physically present in the school hallways the two of them now walk through as adults. That grounding helps the central romance feel less like two strangers falling for each other and more like two people finishing something they started years earlier.

And the leads themselves have real chemistry in the present day, not just nostalgic chemistry borrowed from their past. Xun An's dry, guarded exterior against Yang Muli's sharper, more openly emotional style gives their scenes together an actual dynamic instead of just mutual pining.

Where it falls short

The story's biggest weakness is that it's built almost entirely around one misunderstanding, unpacked slowly over more than a hundred chapters. If you're the type of reader who wants a plot with more moving parts, you'll notice the story returning to the same emotional territory more than once before it's ready to resolve things. Side characters mostly exist to react to the two leads rather than carry weight of their own, so the world around the central couple can feel thin.

Ultimately, this is a manhua that lives or dies on whether you're invested in Xun An and Yang Muli specifically. If their dynamic clicks for you early, the slow pacing reads as a satisfying burn. If it doesn't, there isn't a strong secondary plot to fall back on.

Verdict

Once More is a good pick if you want a visually polished, adult-leads romance that takes its time getting the two people back together instead of rushing it. It won't surprise you with plot twists, and it doesn't try to — it's confident in its central couple and lets the art and the chemistry do most of the work. Worth it for the romance and the art alone, even with a fairly simple story underneath.