Archive for the Takase Umi Category


I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 3

March 11th, 2026

Two people in Japanese style school uniforms, one in boy's uniform, one in girl's uniform, their head on their knees, sit on a school stairway.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

We have now reached the penultimate volume of Umi Takase’s I Wanna Be Your Girl, and having also reviewed volumes 1 and 2 here on Okazu, this one is definitely the weakest of the three. One thing this series continues to excel at though, is portraying teenagers realistically. Hime is still headstrong in her convictions and her determination to protect Akira. Akira, meanwhile, just wants to be treated like one of the girls and be noticed by the senpai she has a crush on. At the end of volume 2, we start to delve into another character’s back story. Hamuro is another student who has a secret of his own. He cross dresses as a maid while working at a cafe near the school, and it’s revealed that he’s not trans like Akira but cross dresses to support his younger sister Momo who was bullied for being too cute.

I don’t really feel Hamuro adds very much to the story, and the whole starting cross dressing because your sister was bullied just seems a little too out there, especially for a seemingly cishet teenage boy. Fortunately, it’s not a big part of this volume. What we get after Hamuro though is something I’ve hoped would happen since volume 1, and that is Sasaki-sensei’s backstory. I mentioned in my review of that volume that “It seems though, that there is more to the teacher than first meets the eye. He sits Hime down for a talk one day, and it’s strongly suggested that he’s gone through something similar regarding identity in the past” He now reveals in a conversation with Akira that he is aromantic, and how he has suffered from not meeting society’s expectations too. I’m glad we got this segment, especially since in the afterword the author mentions that he was only supposed to appear briefly in chapter 2.

The rest of the volume is just more of what we’ve already seen before, Hime and Akira continue to misunderstand each other, side characters are used as sounding boards for the main characters to talk about their feelings and we’re not really any further forward with their relationship either.

I Wanna Be Your Girl is still an enjoyable series and I’m very glad it exists, but nothing new really happens in this volume, especially when compared to the previous two. I’m optimistic though that everyone will get their happy endings in the next and last volume, and I’ll be reading it to find out.

Ratings: 

Story – 6. This would be a point lower if we didn’t get Sasaki-sensei’s backstory.
Art – 6.
Characters – 7 Hamuro and his sister are unnecessary.
Service – n/a
LGBTQ — 10

Overall – 7 but again, probably an 8 if you’re a confused/closeted queer teenager looking for something to relate to.





I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 2

November 14th, 2025

Cover of I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 2, Two young women in sweaters, one red, one pink over Japanese style school uniforms sit in a classroom. Curtains blow from open windows,By Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

Volume 2 of I Wanna Be Your Girl picks up right where the end of Volume 1 leaves off, with Akira declaring that she wants to be the soccer club manager. Compared to volume 1, this volume focuses more on the individual characters rather than their relationships with each other, and it’s nice to learn a bit more about both of them and how they ended up where they are now.

Hime meanwhile, confides in another girl called Yukka about her feelings for Akira and the confusion they’re causing her. Yukka, as it turns out, has her own past trauma around queer love and that’s why she’s able to advise Hime so well. This section was actually my favourite bit of the entire volume because it’s pretty much how I felt about my friend back then too. To quote myself from my volume 1 review:

“When I was in high school, I had a crush on someone who I thought was a boy, but she told me she was actually a girl. My reaction at that point was “huh, that’s a bit weird but ok” and still kept kissing her.”

We then return to Akira and her new job as manager of the soccer team, and reality bites hard when some of the other members start misgendering her and someone makes a comment along the lines of “why isn’t she growing her hair out if she’s really a girl?” One person however, Hasegawa-senpai is utterly supportive, has nicknamed Akira “juice girl” and when others on the team misgender her he gently corrects them. And it turns out Akira might just have a bit of a crush on him. Just normal teenage girl things.

The other thing I liked about this volume is that it shows Hime going through her own kind of identity crisis as well. She’s wearing the boys’ uniform to support Akira, but she is ultimately still cis, and she can go back to wearing the girls’ uniform at the drop of a hat. She talks to her parents, who are thankfully supportive, and ultimately decides she will go back to wearing her uniform and shows up the next day in it.

Where would we be without a bit of teenage angst though? Hime and Akira run into Hasegawa-senpai, who at first doesn’t recognise Hime because she’s in the girls’ uniform, but then he calls her cute and that rips through Akira like a knife to the heart. Hime runs away crying to the rooftop stairs, a mysterious boy appears and invites her to the roof. Turns out, he has a secret of his own as well. He works at Hime and her friends’ favourite cafe, but cross dresses as a girl while he does so, also to support someone he cares about.

Ultimately, the volume ends with Akira resolving to talk to Hime and apologise for lashing out at her, thanks to the support of their friends, and I’m sure we’ll see that in the next volume.

Overall, this is a good continuation from volume 1 which dives more into the individual main characters, and they do still feel like realistic teenagers. However, I hope we get the teacher’s backstory at some point as well though which was hinted at in volume 1. With 2 volumes to go, I’m excited to see where Hime, Akira and everyone else ends up.

Story – 7
Art – 6.
Characters – 8
Service – n/a
LGBTQ — 10

Overall – 8 but again, probably a 9 if you’re a confused/closeted queer teenager.