Is Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Quick facts
Format	Manga (seinen), 5 volumes
Run	2022–present · ongoing
Community score	AniList 8.1
Content	Smoking
Where to read	Manga UP! (Square Enix) — official

Overview

The setup is simple and it's all in the title. Sasaki is a worn-down salaryman whose one small comfort is the cheerful service of Yamada, a cashier at his local supermarket. Working late one night, he ducks out for a smoke and meets a blunt, sharp-tongued woman in the smoking area behind the store who calls herself Tayama — and who is, of course, Yamada with her polite work mask off. She keeps inviting him back for a cigarette and some honest talk, and a quiet romance grows out of those after-hours conversations. It's written and drawn by Jinushi, who started it as a webcomic before Square Enix picked it up.

What it does well

The hook does more than power a running joke. The gap between daytime Yamada — bright, deferential, all customer-service polish — and nighttime Tayama, who swears and slouches and actually says what she thinks, is the heart of the book. Sasaki is slowly falling for a whole person he's seeing from two angles, and because you're in on it from the start, every scene has a gentle little charge of dramatic irony under the small talk.

More than the gag, it's the mood that lands. This is a book about being tired. The smoke breaks, the end-of-shift quiet, the low-key relief of talking to someone who isn't performing for you — Jinushi captures the specific feeling of an unexpected connection when you're too worn out to keep your guard up. It's warm without being saccharine, and it trusts small moments to carry weight instead of piling on drama.

The art supports all of that. It's clean and readable, and it does a lot of quiet work through body language — Yamada's whole posture changes between her two modes, and you can read her comfort level in a single panel. The chapters are short and easy to sit with, which suits a story that's really a series of nice, low-stakes moments between two people.

Where it falls short

The flip side of that focus is that the book is narrow. The premise is essentially one situation, and once the central reveal is out of the way, a lot of the chapters are variations on the same beat — another shift, another smoke, another small step closer. It's pleasant, but if you're looking for momentum you may find it drifts.

There's also just not much plot here, by choice. Don't come expecting conflict, a large cast, or a story that goes anywhere surprising; the appeal is entirely the two leads and the atmosphere. And the whole thing is built around smoking, plainly, which is going to be a hard sell for some readers no matter how well it's done.

Verdict

Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You is a small, cozy, grown-up romance that knows exactly what it is. It won't give you plot or stakes, and its one idea can start to feel repetitive, but the mood and the chemistry between its two leads are lovely enough to carry it. If you want a warm, low-key read about two tired adults slowly letting their guard down, this is an easy one to unwind with.