Title: The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses Vol. 4
Author: Koume Fujichika
Publisher: Square Enix
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: July 18, 2023
The Story
The fourth volume of The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses continues the episodic trend of Mie forgetting her glasses with a side of character development!
First, there really isn’t anything much that happens. Just the standard episodic fare of Mie forgetting her glasses over and over again. There is one moment where Komura got to see her in a swimsuit, though so good for him! The real story picks up when it’s time for everyone to go on a class trip. It’s suggested that Komura’s group joins up with Mie’s to form one large group. Apparently, both groups had the same idea so it all works out.
While they are on the trip, Mie made extra sure to pack her spare pair of glasses just in case. That “just in case” moment happened when she stumbled and broke her glasses; however, the spare she packed was a novelty fashion pair and not a prescription pair! Komura ends up helping her throughout the trip to which Mie apologizes to him but Komura states clearly that helping her out makes him happy so it’s fine. This leads Mie into thinking she’s becoming a burden.
The ending comes when Asuka takes a phone call from Yasaka. They speculate that she has a crush on Yasaka. Mie notices a peculiar look on Asuka’s face when she saw Yasaka’s name on her caller ID. This makes her curious so while she’s wearing her contacts and can see clearly, she ends up telling Komura that his helping her out makes her happy. That’s when she notices the same look on his face!
Did Mie figure it out? And what of her thoughts on it!? We get an actual cliffhanger at the end of this volume!
Characters
It might be minor but Asuka having a crush on Yasaka is a small piece of development and since this series is focusing heavily on Mie and Komura, I’ll take it… as small as it may be! At least other characters are getting attention!
Now for the main course. I feel as if this volume took a big step forward with Komura and Mie. All of the wishy-washiness of the first three volumes seems to be paying off but since this series has a long way to go, I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. Plus, Komura kind of, sort of, indirectly, and very subtly confessed to Mie. It may not have been a flat-out statement such as “I like you” but when he told her that helping her out always made him happy, it was enough to trigger a response in Mie and make her think.
Mie thinking about it caused her to go through some emotional changes. At first, she thought that she was a burden so she was trying extra hard not to forget her glasses so she wouldn’t have to always accept Komura’s help. Then, after Asuka low-key showed that she had a crush, made Mie think about all of the times Komura helped her and piqued her curiosity. That lead to her getting a good look at Komura’s face after telling him that she wants his help again.
Now that her suspicions are confirmed, what will she do? It seems that she has already made up her mind but it’s not the time of thing where she’s going to just move in on it and pounce. This is probably going to be a slow burn.
Final Thoughts
The gag of Mie forgetting her glasses has overstayed its welcome so this volume finds a way to refresh it and make it interesting. Now that Mie has a good idea of what’s going on, there are a few directions that they could go. Obviously, I don’t think that Mie is going to just jump in and pounce on Komura, otherwise, this series is pretty much over. Instead, I can see Mie trying really hard to bring her glasses so she can observe Komura better to confirm things. I could also see her forgetting her glasses on purpose just to get Komura to help her. After all, with the way she answered her suspicions at the end of the volume, that might be a way for her to indirectly confirm her own feelings.
This was the breaking point we needed to keep things interesting and now that they are, there are a ton of possibilities to develop the relationship. I can’t really see the series going back to Mie just being a complete and total dunce about her glasses anymore. That wouldn’t make any sense based on what happened here. Now that she’s aware of what’s going on, there has to be some sort of follow-through on that… one that makes sense. If the series simply reverts back to how it has been so far and ignores what just happened, it will all be for naught. That will tell me if the author is just artificially extending the series or not.
The development is in place. It’s time to follow through! I guess we’ll see if they do in Volume 5!
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This item was purchased for review.
