Let me start by admitting that I think cigarette smoking (in fact, any kind of nicotine inhalation, whether cigar smoking, e-cig vaping, or snuff… uh… snuffing?) is gross. It's not just the myriad of horrific health complications, nor the hideous stench of tobacco smoke, or even the sheer amoral hatefulness of death-mongering tobacco companies marketing their evil filth to children. No, the effects of smoking directly affected my family and loved ones, and I still miss them.

It seems odd that I'd agree to review a manga that's ostensibly about smoking, featuring two characters who interact exclusively while sharing a pack of cigarettes. I admit I was reluctant; however, a mark of good art is that it can make you empathize with and be interested in characters whose actions you disagree with. Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You most certainly succeeds on both counts.

You don't have to be a smoker to appreciate the social aspect of smoking, of sharing something slightly illicit together. Here in Scotland, we've banned smoking inside public spaces (like restaurants and pubs) since 2006. It's not unusual, when on a night out with friends, for half of the group to disappear outside to congregate in little huddles to puff away at their addiction sticks, returning a few minutes later. Sometimes, I wonder if that group may somehow have more engaging, intimate conversations than those less fragrant friends left to commune within the smokeless but noisier pub environs.

There certainly does seem to be something intimate about the sharing of a single cigarette, of passing it between one another's lips, to partake of shared combustion-induced chemical stimulation – it's an unusual example of the anime staple "secondhand kiss" that you don't see too often in middle-school set romcoms, for fairly obvious reasons. However, when the mischievous Tayama tempts Sasaki with such shared intimacy in an early chapter, he recoils like a typical shy middle-schooler.

Author Jinushi mentions in their afterword that part of their motivation for drawing this manga was an appreciation for how smoking is depicted as "cool" in popular media. Tayama, with her long, straight bangs overlying her ambiguously expressionless eyes, dragging on the thin white stick angling lazily out of her mouth, is an unarguably cool image. Sasaki, however, looks tired. (Note – I'm sure it's not deliberate, but this Sasaki bears more than a passing resemblance to his similarly-aged, similarly office-working namesake from currently-running TV anime Sasaki and Peeps.)

Whether you'll enjoy this manga or not won't only hinge on your ability to cope with frequent depictions of smoking but also on the slightly contrived dynamic between Sasaki and Tayama. What Sasaki is so dense to notice is that, of course, the angelic Yamada and the worldly Tayama are the same person. Sasaki has put Yamada up on such a high pedestal that she's almost an untouchable ideal of a woman, while her Tayama personality seems to be the polar opposite. Yamada switches to her Tayama persona by removing her hair clip, letting her tied-up hair out, wearing a black leather choker and matching leather jacket, and allowing her ear piercings to show. Yamada looks like someone a younger Sasaki could take home to show his parents, and the rebellious, almost biker-chic Tayama looks like someone his parents would warn him away from. It's the Superman/Clark Kent effect. Never underestimate what a good hair clip can do for you.

It does help that Tayama is hilarious and thoroughly enjoys messing with the (in her own words) "so weird" Sasaki. She keeps making funny hints about her true identity, but Sasaki never picks up on it. He spends so much time with Tayama, though they discuss his feelings for Yamada for much of it, making it a little emotionally complicated. It's that slightly transgressive frisson of mild subterfuge that Tayama (and the reader) finds is as addictive as smoking itself.

When Sasaki hears from his doctor that his x-ray shows smoking-related lung damage, he's resigned to giving up his habit and never meeting up with Tayama again. In a scene I found to contain the most severe form of emotional whiplash I've experienced in a long time, Sasaki discovers there's been a mistake; his lungs are fine, so he can keep smoking! Hooray…? Maybe they should graduate to chewing nicotine replacement gum together or something? This isn't the healthiest basis for a romantic relationship.

Other chapters explore how modern smokers have become social pariahs when Sasaki's horrible boss accuses him of stinking up the office (probably true, though) and how Sasaki mourns that there's been a massive reduction in socially acceptable places for smokers to light up in public. I have to admit, I had little sympathy for him there.

There's also something to be said about how Yamada feels she needs to have two different personas. Perhaps this is a comment on the expectations of women in Japanese society, but there is an interesting flashback chapter showing her just starting in her supermarket job, struggling to plaster on a smile, and receiving negative feedback from an angry middle-aged man as a result. I wonder if her Tayama personality is the "real" Yamada, or is it perhaps not as simple as that? Hopefully, later volumes will expand on her enforced duality.

Although Jinushi's art is simple and functional, the facial expressions are on point, especially Tayama's wicked smiles. The way Jinushi handles her transformation makes it almost convincing that she's two different people – from how her eyes change under her bangs, they seem hidden and mysterious compared to her more open facial features when she's working. Each character is instantly recognizable, and the addition of vaguely terrifying supermarket boss Goto adds a fun source of chaos in later chapters.

Despite its troublesome, smoky premise, Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You is a sweet, at times devilishly funny, slow-burn romantic comedy. It's best enjoyed by switching off cynicism and without judging the main characters' choices of shared recreation. Perhaps in manga-land, our beloved duo won't have to fear the onset of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or lung cancer. Please don't feel the need to emulate them in the real world.