Title: The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All Vol. 2
Author: Sumiko Arai
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 165
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Yuri
Publication Date: February 18, 2025
The Story
We open up this volume with a new character named Kanna. She appears at the music shop and announces that after a six to seven-year absence, she has returned to Japan; however, she’s only visiting. She left to go make a career for herself in Los Angeles and has been living abroad ever since; however, she has a daring proclamation to make… she wants to take Koga back to L.A. with her!
Once they get that mess sorted out, it’s time for a school trip. This chapter is divided into a couple of parts where the first part sees Koga, Osawa, and Narita going on a bit of a sightseeing tour. Of course, Koga was scared about the trip since she hates group activities being an introvert and all. At the end of the day, Osawa fakes being tired and ends up in their room alone with Koga. There, they stay up listening to music until 3 AM. The next day, they head to an aquarium where poor Narita gets compared to a fish.
Lastly, Koga needs some help studying but despite her efforts, she still flunks her tests, although, her grades were better than the 2 that she had previously received. One of the reasons she doesn’t fare well academically is because she cannot connect to studying like she can to music. This is accented more when she invites Osawa out to a club and when she arrives, she finds Koga up on stage, guitar in hand!
Characters
Kanna is our newest character for the first third of the manga focused on her. She moved to Los Angeles where she became a stylist. She came back to visit and shocked Osawa when she and Koga began speaking English to one another. Turns out she used to be Joe’s (Koga’s uncle) girlfriend and they broke up because Joe got cold feet when she wanted him to move to Los Angeles with her. She is nothing more than a tease; however, there are times when you end up taking her seriously. She has this fearless attitude that she exudes that is a bit infectious but she’s also a bit playful in her own way. She’s an interesting character, though but since she’s only here to visit, I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of her.
Koga’s introverted nature takes the stage in the second chapter. The school trip really does a number on her; however, when she ends up alone with Osawa, it’s as if all of those fears and all of the stress just melt away and she can just be herself… someone who gets lost within music. Even though the group activities drain her, she does end up surviving the trip and even gets surprised by Osawa when they go out to do some karaoke! This spills over into the third chapter where she reveals her struggles with studying and, therefore, enlists Osawa’s help. The thing is, she’s great in English but abysmal in math. Despite her efforts, her make-up exam scores were still pretty bad but this is where Osawa learns that when it comes to listening to music, she and Koga are worlds apart. She can interpret music pretty easily from chords, meter changes, etc. Osawa even wonders if they were listening to the same song after hearing her breakdown of it.
The message they were trying to convey with Koga is that you don’t have to excel at everything if you want to excel at something (although to understand music you kind of need to know some math and Koga is pretty weak there so that’s a bit of a conflicting plot point). Everyone has their gift that they are good at and music just happens to be Koga’s. Besides, with the way she spoke English before, she’s already captured Osawa’s eye (and heart).
As for Osawa, there hasn’t been much of a change with her. She’s still going along with whatever scenario is happening but she does keep referring to Koga as her fan girl crush. Of course, this is a Yuri series so we all know it’s not going to stay that simple! The one thing I can attribute to her development is she is learning more and more about Koga with each passing day. It’s those little things that are going to add up to something big!
Final Thoughts
I will say that the second volume slowed down a bit; however, it did so in order to do a bit of world-building and character development. Here, we expanded on Koga’s (and Joe’s) world by introducing Kanna, then we explored Koga’s personality with the school trip and then discovered how she differs between academics and music. All of this drops pieces of Koga’s puzzle into place although I’m sure that there are more things we have yet to see and come to know about her.
What I did like is how we, the readers, were right there alongside Osawa. I felt as Osawa learned things about Koga, we did, too. Putting us in the perspective of one of the main characters is a nice way to relate yourself to them as you feel as if you’re standing alongside them and experiencing everything with them. It’s better than having the main character point it out like “Oh, didn’t you say you were bad a math, Koga?” or “Ah, you always were good at breaking down music, weren’t you Koga?” When you do it, it’s as if the main character already knows and they are explaining it to the reader. This way, there is no explanation, it’s a mutual discovery and it’s more fun like that. When they get surprised, so do you. You get to share the same reactions and that makes reading a manga like this fun!
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