Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All

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This manga is so good, and this is not coming from a biased perspective. As someone who loves reading Gyaru x any girl here kind of GL, this one is done so tastefully and so cute. I started reading this manga when it started uploading through Twitter and I am more than elated to see it here, as well as starting to get its own physical copies. I recommend this GL to anyone looking for something light hearted but also feel good. It’s a “feet kicker” as I like to call it. Some of the moments you just have to squeal and roll around, because ... they’re so cute!!

The characters are a solid 10/10 for me. They have a depth to them that just keeps getting better every chapter, and the way two opposing opposites bond over something so meaningful to both of them is so cute!

Plot is done a lot, with a girl thinking another girl is a guy and then forming a crush on the masculine presenting girl, ultimately to figure out said guy was a girl since the start. I kind of love reading these tropes a lot lately, because though it’s a really done over plot, it doesn’t get old. Especially in this story. However, if you are tired of this kind of plot, I wouldn’t recommend this story for you.

Them bonding over music sort of reminds me a little of Given, just in a very much less tragic way. It’s sweeter and fluffier. Overall a solid 11/10. Please give this story some love!

Adorable little manga that tastefully navigates a queer relationship in a very fun, comfy way. Though the trope used to drive the story isn't something particularly new, the musical element that drives the characters' attraction to each other is very compelling, and certain plot developments seem to point toward it becoming an even more important part of the main pairing's life. In a similar way to Bocchi the Rock, the music is not only there to kickstart the plot, as it also becomes the main thing around which the lives of the characters revolve. Characters who are, by the way, very well written and avoid ... some of my most hated stereotype in queer manga (Mitsuki's uncle is a sweetheart and I love him so much). The artwork is lovely, though some panel compositions suffer from what I imagine is a lack of experience from the mangaka. Nevertheless, the artstyle's natural charm and the way facial expressions are drawn often overshadow the mangaka's technical missteps.

Overall, it's a very cute and fluffy manga to read when you want something feel-good that also happens to include a sapphic relationship. My only real problem with this manga is how short chapters are! They always leave me wanting more.

It's not easy to be the first negative review for a series with such overwhelmingly positive reception, but I do believe I have a good reason to write this review.

First, let me say that the artwork at display is exceptional and is definetly a big part of why this series has become so popular. I can't deny that the series does look amazing. It's really unique and definetly stands out in the crowd of other GL manga.

However, I can't really recommend this manga in terms of the story. Every chapter is only 4 pages long which already makes it more difficult at telling complex stories, ... but I don't believe that to be the manga's biggest weakness. The pace of this manga is both extremely fast in smaller scale and extremely slow in the bigger scale at the same time. A lot of the chapters feel episodic and there isn't really a lot of arcs that would span multiple chapters. Because of this, every chapter is a little tidbit of the main characters' life. That is quite a good concept, but to get the point of the chapter across in just four pages, they have to rush a lot. Because of that, a lot of the chapters are over in a blink of an eye and the reader is left wondering what even happend in this chapter.

The dialogue can feel entirely disconnected and often becomes just a word salad that's vaguely related to any given subject. The series itself is also something one could consider a "slow burn". Because of that, and how rambly and fast the chapters are, this is a manga in which nothing ever happens and the little that is happening is often entirely incomprehensive. I honestly can't tell you much about the characters other that they are there. Their personalities are fairly standard in terms of what their archetypes are.

I can't deny that it has some cute moments and the general theme, of both characters growing closer together through their shared love of music is nice, it takes unbearably long to get off the ground. As the title implies, the main love interest, Aya, mistakes the protagonist, Koga, for a guy, and while the audience knows that Koga isn't a guy, it takes an extremely long time, for the women to be open with each other and for that misunderstanding to clear up. It's hard to call this a GL romance if it takes a good few dozen of chapters for the characters to even realize they are both women. In fairness, it's hard to call it romance at all, as they just enjoy each other's pressence but keep all the feelings bottled up and won't talk about being into each other, don't expect more than your standard GL "implied feelings" and "being extremely important for each other but never explicitly romantically".

I'm sure someone could come and say how realistic it is for people not to talk about their emotions because they are awkward, but in the year 2024, I'd love to finally see a series that isn't all about extremely awkward characters that are unable to voice their emotions as that's been plagueing the GL genre for years now. Koga and Aya are not blatantly toxic people, so that's at least a plus over a lot of the other GL series that would either be about unbalanced power dynamics, obssessions and jealousy, or just blatant abuse (the bar is on the floor!).

Ultimately I think this series has good vibes, but because of it's extremely slow pace, incomprehensive dialogue and tropey characters, I can't really recommend this to anybody who likes good romance stories. The GL community is somewhat infamous for hyping up everything that is born in this genre, because of how scarce good yuri is, but we do need to step up our standards in terms of the writing. If you do like cute pictures that you can turn off your brain to, you might enjoy it and I don't mean it in a derogatory way, just be sure you approach this series with the right mindset.