Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 気になってる人が男じゃなかった

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: Apr 19, 2023 to ?

Genre: Girls Love

Theme: Music

Serialization: None

Authors: Arai, Sumiko (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.41¹ (scored by 10,161 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #212²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #598

Members: 31,255

Favorites: 1,735

Resources

Wikipedia

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Synopsis

The black-clad boy that Aya Oosawa likes is perfect: he is effortlessly nonchalant, has a sharp sense of style, and listens to the best music. Ever since the trendy Aya stumbled upon a small CD store to enjoy the rock classics her friends are not familiar with, the mysterious employee behind the counter has been on her mind. Meanwhile, the quiet and aloof Mitsuki Koga listens to her popular classmate Aya rave about her crush, tormented by a nagging thought: how to tell Aya that the guy she is interested in is not a guy at all!

In reality, when Mitsuki sheds her plain high school uniform, she is the one manning the counter at her uncle Joe's CD shop. She wrestles with how to reveal her identity, but flirting with the stunning and clueless Aya is just too tempting. As music becomes their shared passion, it seems that Aya's feelings will remain unchanged—even when Mitsuki's secret comes to light.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta began as a web comic released on the author's Twitter account since April 10, 2022, and published in print by Kadokawa since April 19, 2023.

The series has been published in English as The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All by Yen Press since October 22, 2024. It has also been released in Polish by Waneko since June 28, 2024; and in Italian by Edizioni Star Comics since July 9, 2024.

More characters
Characters

Koga, Mitsuki

Main

Oosawa, Aya

Main

Joe

Supporting

Narita, Kei

Supporting

Kanna

Supporting

Chizuru

Supporting

Mao

Supporting

Reviews

Aug 18, 2024

Advenathenorn

Recommended

Preliminary (93/? eps)

Well, I am a sucker both for music AND lesbians, so this is a perfect pick for anyone with similar tastes!

Let me start by saying I love, love, LOVE THE ARTSTYLE!!! I'm a huge fan of mangakas using one leading colour (like in Nagata Kabi's memoirs), it really captures your attention from the get-go. Character designs are also top-notch, I'm very pleased that I never encountered the oh-so-known problem of not being able to recognize even the main cast when presented with some new characters. All in all, I think it's one of the best looking GL's on the market to date, right next to ...

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Mar 13, 2024

andydivide

Recommended

Well-written

Preliminary (77/? eps)

Every now and again you come across a manga that really feels like it breaks the mold, either in the art style that it uses, or the kind of story it wants to tell, or the way it wants to tell it. Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta seems intent on doing all three.

The art style is extremely distinctive - possibly even off-putting if the front cover is all you've got to go on - but it's really worth bearing with because it's actually beautifully drawn and suits the story perfectly. Characters are expressive and fluid, backgrounds are nicely detailed, the use of lime green ... highlights makes scenes pop (eyes especially), and the overall slightly chaotic layout really adds to the feel of what's going on. Our main pair are so well drawn, the visual storytelling from their expressions and movements is top notch.

Speaking of our main pair, they're both great characters. Aya is not your run-of-the-mill gyaru, and Mitsuki is not your run-of-the-mill introvert. Both have a lot of depth to them and feel like real, fleshed out people. I'm a big fan of gyaru x [otaku/neet/introvert/etc] stories in general, but this is a particularly good one. It feels more believable than usual because we're immediately given a good reason as to why Aya and Mitsuki would be drawn to each other, it's not some contrived situation where you have to just suspend your disbelief in order to accept the story. The tropes that you might expect in this kind of a story only ever serve as a starting point, and so in the end we get a good balance between the comfortable familiarity of tropes, and fresher, more innovative storytelling.

Watching the development of things between these two slightly awkward teens is really lovely, you can't help but root for them. Which just happens to be exactly how a lot of the supporting cast feel too. Uncle Joe and Narita are both fantastic supporting characters - Joe especially - who act as a great proxy for the reader in the way they do their best to help our MCs as they struggle to work out what's going on between them. The development doesn't feel rushed, but the 4 or 5 pages per chapter format means we get through quite a lot in a seemingly short space of time.

It's also very obvious that the mangaka is a big fan of the kind of music our characters both love. If your own musical tastes are the same then you either get to join in with them in nerding out over albums you love, or else you'll get some recommendations for things you might not have listened to before (I've had both experiences with this manga).

All in all this is a great manga that more people need to read. I don't think you have to be a yuri fan to enjoy it (though if it serves as your gateway to the world of yuri then all the better), and I would happily recommend it to anyone.

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Oct 19, 2024

Marleonka

Not Recommended

Well-written

Preliminary (103/? eps)

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.

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Poll: Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Chapter 92 Discussion nirererin - Jul 7, 2024	3 replies	by KingYoshi »» Dec 1, 2024 5:37 AM
Poll: Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Chapter 91 Discussion Tamer2002 - Jul 1, 2024	1 replies	by KingYoshi »» Dec 1, 2024 5:32 AM
Poll: Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Chapter 90 Discussion Nidhoeggr - Jun 23, 2024	3 replies	by KingYoshi »» Dec 1, 2024 5:28 AM
Poll: Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Chapter 89 Discussion ReaperCreeper - Jun 17, 2024	2 replies	by KingYoshi »» Dec 1, 2024 5:21 AM
Poll: Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta Chapter 88 Discussion ReaperCreeper - Jun 9, 2024	5 replies	by KingYoshi »» Dec 1, 2024 5:17 AM

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