ダメな私に恋してください 1

OL Romance in a Cafe setting

First out of a job because the company she works for goes under, then out of money because the younger guy she's seeing takes advantage of her genorisity, down-on-her-luck Michiko watches her friends get married off one-by-one as she contemplates a life subsisting entirely off of cabbage. Then one fateful night, as she gazes longingly in the supermarket at the meat she cannot currently afford, she runs into her former hard-ass supervisor, Kurosawa. After she nearly faints from hunger, he treats her to dinner and offers to give her room and board of she agrees to work under him again--this time as a waitress/sunflower mascot for his grandmother's café that he's hoping to bring back.

The tension between the two main characters is always hilarious as their fights gradually turn to real feelings, and it's fun to root for Michiko even as she makes some really poor working decisions. Despite the long road to financial independence, she starts determined and cheerful. But I really especially enjoyed the story of a romance centering on working adults rather than junior high schoolers for once, and Michiko manages to build all sorts of bond, even with her romantic rivals who evade the toxic stereotypes typically seen in the genre. There's lots of slang relevant to the age group and a dash of inaka-ben and Kansai-ben in later volumes, but overall not a difficult read.