When my copy of The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All, Volume 4, arrived my wife whisked it out of my hands and read it before I did. In all our years together as I have read Yuri manga, this is the only series she’s really fired up about. 

This volume brings us to the moment at which Aya and Mitsuki have to navigate their feelings, the Prom,  Joe’s relationship with Kanna and a well-meaning younger student who put a lot on the line to make space for Mitsuki’s career…all colliding at once.

Resolutions come, thick and fast. Some are wonderful, some are fraught. Like real life, opportunities come and go. There is a phrase you may have heard of – “when one door closes, a window opens.” The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All reminds us that life isn’t always that neat. Sometimes windows and doors open and close in chaotic rhythm. 

Eventually graduation forces change…for everyone in the story. There is a time skip that bring us from tentative high school romance, to college life. Mitsuki and Aya have a whole new set of hurdles small and large, to deal with. For Aya, balancing life and school and keeping herself focused on the goal. For Mitsuki, finding a place to be herself and the shock when she realizes that she’s compromised on something essential. 

Paneling has become a little less intentionally disordered. I don’t know if that is meant to be symbolic or not, but it’s impossible to read otherwise. As we age, life becomes – out of necessity – more constrained. When a panel breaks free of its border, it feels like an act of rebellion. And we are reminded that a place where you belong may actually be a physical space…and it may simply be a community you share. 

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Not really (unless you count punked out college Mitsuki…)
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

Volume 4 is hitting shelves this coming week.  My very sincere thanks to Yen Press for an advanced review copy with the Kinokuniya exclusive cover of Mitsuki and Aya at prom!  

Another fabulous volume of this emotionally involving contemporary F/F romance. Volume 5 is is hitting JP shelves the same week as the premier of the anime this January and will be streamed on Crunchyroll. OMG, we’re getting an anime and it is going to…rock. (Yes, I said it. I’m officially a old dork.)

We left Mitsuki and Aya at the end of Volume 2 (which I apparently never reviewed in English, sorry!), becoming closer, in a charmingly awkward way. Because of Mitsuki’s rescue of Aya’s previous relationships, her fashionable friends Mau and Chizuru have not dumped Aya. As a result, Mitsuki has found herself adopted by a bunch of fashionable girls, and Narita, who is the nicest narcissist we’ve ever met. It’s all good, but exhausting for an introvert.

Volume 3 of The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All, will encompass the school trip, a music festival, the school festival, exams, and a surprise prom. More importantly, bolstered by Aya and her friends, Volume 3 will give us Mitsuki coming out as the butch she is, in one of the finest comic chapters of the year. ^_^

Sumiko Arai’s manga about two girls bonding over “Dad rock” is absolutely grin-making for this Gen Xer. I don’t have the least bit of nostalgia for the music of the 90’s and 00’s, but I’m enjoying the ongoing soundtrack of this series, and the quiet ways it’s stomping on tropes of coming out in school. 

There are a number of laugh out loud moments as well. “Narita Geographic” make me giggle in Japanese and I was looking forward to reading it again in English. I also just loved the retrospective of Chizuru giving relationship advice without really caring what she said. ^_^

Quick shout out to Brandon Bovia for fantastic lettering.

I imagine that many of use are also following the manga online, so I don’t need to tell you what happens, but I will tell you that Volume 4 will be released in Japan in February and I am ready. In the meantime, it was wonderful that this volume made it in before the end of the year.  This manga is definitely a bright spot in this dark winter. ^_^

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Yes, Mitsuki in the lesbian uniform of slacks and vest is 100% service
Yuri – 7…8…9…

Overall – 9

We are about to embark on our Okazu Top Yuri list journey and this and a few other titles have been so extraordinary, they will get their own list! Keep your eyes peeled for both lists. ^_^