Awww, I like the dynamic between these two! “Catch These Hands” is a slice-of-life manga that’s sweet and just a little silly but also has girls who like to throw punches, so it was fun to read. ( )

Grim-faced twentysomething Ayako Takebe is a bit of a clueless sad sack. Struggling through life as a part-time job surfer who hasn't married and had kids like all her friends, she takes a notion that softening her street tough image with a new feminine wardrobe might turn around her job and relationship prospects. But the first store she visits, she runs into Kirara Soramori, her main street-fighting rival from high school, and walks out with a fierce leather jacket and a challenge for a rematch.

But it turns out Soramori is more interested in lip-locking than butt-kicking, and through a perfect storm of the ostensibly-straight Takebe's pride, stubbornness, competitiveness and obtuseness, they find themselves in a relationship limbo somewhere between friendship and dating.

It's cute and weird, but I was mostly won over by Takebe's RBF and how it pays off hilariously in a dressing room montage. ( )