With all the yuri manga we're getting these days, it's hard for any title to make much of an impression. That's why I was surprised by all the hype around this particular one, the sort I haven't seen since the days of Girl Friends.
Naturally I had to check it out.
THE GUY SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WASN'T A GUY AT ALL (Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta), by Sumiko Arai. First published in 2023 and first published in North America in 2024.
PLOT:
Aya is a trendy, popular girl with a secret love of 90s American rock bands. One of the few places where she can indulge in this interest is a local CD shop. It helps that there's a mysterious but totally cool dude working there, who shares her interest. She would never guess that the cool dude with the face mask, dark clothes, and hoodie is in fact Mitsuki, the quiet girl who sits next to her at school. She just wants to get through school unnoticed, and she's afraid that Aya will be let down if she learns the truth. Things might have continued like this forever if not for a curious classmate, a class committee assignment, and a concert.
STORY:
Having read this now, I completely understand why there has been so much hype around this series. It's punchy, funny, and it gets teenagers in a way few manga (yuri or otherwise) do.
Even the structure of the manga is kind of unique. The chapters are quite short - in most cases, less than half a dozen pages. They alternate back and forth in perspective from Aya to Mitsuki, with only the occasional aside from outside characters. The closest analogue I've found to this is Monthly Girls' Nozaki-Kun, although that series was a little closer in style and tone to a traditional 4-koma. This back-and-forth obviously keeps things from getting stale, but it also maximizes the time we spend with both Aya and Mitsuki, allowing Arai to fit a lot of great character moments in comparatively little space.
Like a lot of couples in yuri manga, Aya and Mitsuki are seeming opposites in personality and style, and yet they have so much (beyond the music) in common. For example, both of them are racked by all too relatable teenage insecurities. Aya is fearful that her trendy friends will reject her for being into something as decidedly un-trendy as old American rock bands, which part of the reason she ended up fixating on the mystery "guy" at the music store in the first place. For Mistuki, her issue is the mortification of being known (and the expectations that come with it). She had a similar issue to Aya in her youth, and her response was to go stealth at school and compartmentalize her life. While she's more comfortable with her identity and taste, she still spends most of this volume afraid that she'll let Aya down if she learns the truth. That doesn't stop her from involuntarily dropping the smoothest lines and the odd kabedon from time to time, to the confusion of them both. That's another thing it shares with Nozaki-Kun, come to think about it.
As funny as it is to watch these two stew in their respective anxieties (because in true teenaged fashion, neither of them would do something as sensible as talk directly to one another), but there are a couple of characters who help to keep this story from spinning its wheels. The first is Osawa, who seems like he'll be competition for Aya at first glance but ends up being the only person sensible enough to connect the dots between Mitsuki and the mystery store clerk and ends up bringing the two together. The other is Mitsuki's uncle, who runs the music store. It's never specified if he's her guardian as well, but he certainly acts like a father and does his best to encourage his niece when she's in the doldrums. They are equally as fun as our main couple, so their presence doesn't feel like a distraction. It's a small cast, but a well-balanced one.
ART:
It's rare to find a manga known for having a signature color, but this manga is known just as much for the shade of lime green as anything else. It's present not just on the cover but in many of the backgrounds, the interior of the music store, and sometimes it's even reflected in the character's eyes. It's a curious choice, but you can't argue with how it's given this series a sense of identity that few others possess. It's also likely the reason why this volume costs nearly twice as much as your average volume.
It has more than just some fancy colored ink going for it, though. Most yuri characters are designed purely for cuteness (and sometimes lewdness), but this cast is designed more with personality in mind. Arai gets so much out of their gestures and poses. Even the fashion choices help to inform their personalities. This is most evident with Mitsuki. When she's in her hoodie and baggy pants, with black polish on her nails and multiple piercings in her ears, she radiates confidence and coolness beyond her years. Compare that with her schoolroom look, which is more ostensibly femme but also far more colorless. Her posture is more awkward and hunched, and she wears it more like a disguise than a uniform. The story never points it out, but it's clear to any observant reader which is her true self
I also must point out the faces. I haven't seen a manga with such wonderfully drawn expressions since I first read Delicious in Dungeon, and Arai has a similar knack for using good ones to add to a punchline. They get such a wonderful range of emotion out of them, and it's a big part of what gives Aya and Mistuki such nuance. I cannot rave enough about this art.
RATING:
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to shrivel to dust after reading a manga starring girls born during my college years who are obsessed with rock bands that I literally grew up with.
This manga is published by Yen Press. This series is ongoing in Japan with 2 volumes available. 1 volume has been released and is currently in print.
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