The story follows Kazuhiro Migiwa, who falls in love with the cross-dresser Ren Takano under the belief that he is a woman, and their romantic relationship.

Sazanami Cherry is an otokonoko romance manga following Kazuhiro Migiwa, who falls in love with Ren Takano on first sight.

One day while on a date they are confronted by Ren's older sister Kai, who disapproves of how he cross-dresses and pretends to be a woman, and tells him he will have to stop eventually.

[2] Sazanami Cherry was written and illustrated by Rika Kamiyoshi [ja],[3] who was helped by her assistants Shiro and Mugicha with the background art and screentones.

She designed Ren to be cute in a feminine way when wearing men's clothes and even more so when cross-dressing, while contrasting this by writing him as mischievous.

A key point in his design to make him come across as charming was the addition of pigtail hair extensions that shake as he moves around.

The main characters' names were chosen to carry meaning: "Ren" is written with the same kanji character as sazanami (漣, "waves"), and Kazuhiro's family name "Migiwa" (汀) means "shore", representing how Kazuhiro supports Ren.

Because of the cross-dressing theme, the magazine staff focused on ensuring that the cover artwork for the collected volume would not cause embarrassment for potential customers and cause them to avoid bringing a copy to the book store check-out.

[3] Sazanami Cherry was well received both critically and by readers;[1][8][9] Bukumaru and Honcierge both considered it a must-read otokonoko manga, the latter calling it among the best written.