A second Navigating With You (which was reviewed here on Okazu in 2025) felt like it came out of left field for me. Gabrielle and Neesha’s whole wonderful journey had come to a narratively satisfying conclusion at the end of the first volume. But our two heroines are not even out of high school yet, they have a lot of life left and a lot of stories to tell.

This means stories from two locations and what the second volume of Navigating With You improves upon the first is with a greater emphasis on community. Very quickly we are introduced to two social circles: Gabby’s old friends back in Florida and all the other students at Neesha’s school who are interested in making their local life better.

The most outstanding part of the second volume of Navigating With You is the same as the first volume. Rich characters who communicate (to the reader) who they are and what they are about. So the addition in particular of Noli (from Neesha’s school) and Cary, Gabby’s ex who dumped her over text way back at surf camp. This makes sense as Jeremy Whitley is also writing this second volume and he continues to make sure every character get’s their moment. This volume it is Neesha’s mother is the MVP of parents who clearly know they are in a teen romance and what they need to do to help their child get through it.

But, you might ask, Gabrielle and Neesha found all of the manga last volume, what could they be reading in their book club now. Sadly I must confess to you that Gabby and Neesha are watching anime using a screen share video call. The anime in question is written by the same fictional author of ‘Super Navigator Nozomi’ and it mirrors the themes of Gabby and Neesha’s stories even better than the first volume. Although the change in art style is not at all as sharp as volume one, making it seem that our protagonists are reading a 2000’s image comic rather than watching an anime.

A change in art is to be expected, Cassio Ribeiro is handling just the cover art now. The comic has been divided up between Falia Hanakata on the art, Linden Cahill & Juancho! handling the colours and Carlos M. Mangual on lettering. The new style is certainly cuter and very correct for the comic. There are so many new characters in this volume and they all stood out brilliantly with very little page time.

It is good that the comic is as lush as it is because, sadly, the central pillar of Gabby and Neesha’s feels underutilised. It is not right to spoil this but anyone, familiar with romance comics, who looks at the cover can probably guess what the two central characters have to deal with. Which is a bit of a shame that a rather boilerplate romantic arc was used after such a unique volume one.

It thus makes it hard to recommend this new volume to its main audience: fans of volume one. Navigating With You, volume two is a tremendous peace of work and genuinely beautiful. I just wish it had a better idea of what to do with the core relationship we all bought it for. It is sad that we get so little time of Gabby and Neesha being a cute couple when we have this brand new art team who know exactly how to put their own spin on them.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 5
Characters – 10
Service – YMMV, but in my opinion 0
LGBTQ+ – 10

Overall – 8