While manga often spreads out into series, HIMEYUKA & ROZIONE’S STORY is a stand-alone collection of four vignettes.

The first vignette in the collection lends its name to the entire manga’s title. Seventeen-year-old Himeyuka, though still a high school student, is living on her own and enjoying her freedom. She gets annoyed by her mother’s phone calls and wants to prove she’s an autonomous, independent young woman. She’s especially irritated when her mother sends her a box of things from her childhood. Himeyuka decides to throw it away.

After that, she’s visited by a strange boy who’s drawing all over everything, including the inside of her apartment. The boy acts as if he knows her, though she doesn’t know him. To make it all the more bewildering, he seems to have magical powers.

It isn’t until later she realizes he’s one of her childhood toys come to life. She regrets trying to get rid of the box, and when she loses the boy, she wants to get him back.

The second vignette, “The Princess of Kikouya District 1,” is about the daughter of a yakuza. She’s arranged to be married but is interested in another boy. However, she doesn’t want to admit that she’s part of a crime family, for fear of what he’ll say. Yakuza show up in manga a fair amount, and of course forbidden love is a universal story predicament.

The third vignette, “My Very Own Shalala,” is about a witch named Shalala. Well, okay, she’s a half witch. She’s the kind of storybook witch who flies on a broom, but she has none of the negative connotations sometimes seen in fairytale stories about witches. Her father was human, and because of that, she only has half the powers of a normal witch. Wanting to change that, she decides she’ll have to get the tears of a young human boy. Supposedly that will make her powers grow.

And it has to be the very first boy she sees. It turns out to be a brooding, antisocial high school student, and Shalala will do what she can in order to gain magical skills. Nevertheless, she starts to question the whole idea of it.

The fourth and final vignette, “ROBOT,” is a futuristic tale taking place after a horrible war. It’s called the “last war.” Now the world is peopled by clones, and no one has a name anymore. While some vignettes might be more touching to readers than others in this collection, all of them are pensive and contemplative in their storylines.