The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl

What's It About? 

A case of mistaken identity blossoms into love in this lighthearted yuri/Girls' Love manga!

When Okuma Satomi's friend seeks her help wrangling guys for a crossdressing cafe, Satomi winds up with a boyfriend! Sort of. After asking her handsome and aloof classmate, Kanda Mizuki, to help out in the cafe, Mizuki agrees, but on one condition: the two of them must go on a date. Satomi eagerly agrees, delighted to have such a good-looking guy interested in her, but Mizuki realizes that Satomi has completely misunderstood something crucial: Mizuki is a girl!

Will this case of mistaken identity blossom into something beautiful, or will the truth leave both girls brokenhearted?

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl has a story by mocchi-au-lait and art by majoccoid. Adapted by Kim Morrissy with an English translation by Cerridwyn Graffham. This volume was lettered by Erika Terriquez. Published by Seven Seas (September 24, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl is a romcom centered around a crucial misunderstanding: the sheltered girl thinks the handsome girl is a handsome boy. Even though it takes ages to clear up the confusion, somehow it's not frustrating at all. These characters' undeniable chemistry dispels any discomfort about the secret that one is hiding from the other because it's obvious to all that this refreshingly quirky couple is primed to overcome all the odds. Better yet, this is a complete collection comprising both volumes, so there's no long “will they or won't they” wait. With laugh-out-loud comedic timing, this sweet and silly romance is my title to beat in the Fall Manga Guide.

In a lot of romance manga, one character is designed to be a reader avatar while the other is a fascinating object of attraction. Here, both characters are unique personalities in their own right. Okuma Satomi's parents have sheltered her all of her life, so it's only in college that she falls for her first crush: the handsome, androgynous Kanda Mizuki. When Okuma asks if Kanda can participate as a maid in a crossdressing café, Kanda thinks she's kidding and jokingly agrees if Okuma will go out to her. A heart-eyed Okuma instantly agrees, and Kanda is stuck in a conundrum. She keeps missing her chance to tell Okuma she's really a girl and can't date her—and as the pair grow closer she's not sure she even wants to. It's this undeniable progress that keeps the confusion from being frustrating; despite everything, there's still progress being made. What really makes this story work is that the comedy doesn't even come primarily from the gender mixup but from these wacky lesbians' chemistry with each other. For example, Kanda calls Okuma because she wants to hear her voice; in response, Okuma literally SCREAMS into the phone. Okuma is weird in all the best ways, and it's heartwarming and hilarious to watch Kanda only fall more deeply for her the more she lets her freak flag fly.

With artwork that flatters the characters, this manga walks the line between sweet and silly without veering too far in either direction. Its feel-good vibe allows me to laugh at every misstep and realize that no matter how mixed up things might get, it's not going to result in Consequences. It's such a welcome and needed depiction of upbeat queer joy and I was absolutely rooting for these girls the whole time.

I'm always a little leery of complete series in volume releases. Not because there aren't good single-volume titles, but because at least half the time, it feels like two books are released in omnibus format to guarantee that both sell – in other words, it feels like the publisher doesn't have faith in their product. But that was proven to be not the case with this one. Having the second volume packed in with the first one in this case allows the story to feel more complete and to reassure us that there will be a happy ending because most of this duology takes place under the misunderstanding that this isn't yuri.

Both Satomi and Kanda are at fault there, and rather than a source of endless frustration, it actually makes the book a yearning tale instead of a standard one. Satomi, who admittedly is very, very close to crossing the line into Too Stupid To Live territory, falls hard for Kanda, believing her to be a handsome guy. But Kanda's a girl, and at first, her only thought is to fend Satomi off. When that backfires, she finds herself, to her mild horror, dating her, all while Satomi thinks she's a young man. Kanda's emotional arc is finding herself falling more and more in love with her girlfriend while feeling increasingly trapped in a relationship that's based on deception. She needs to find the strength to tell Satomi the truth, but she's desperately afraid that she'll lose her if she does. It's the sort of plot that sounds kind of silly on paper, but the execution is everything. It's easy to feel for Kanda as she struggles with her worries and feelings, and by the time the truth finally has to come out, it doesn't matter that “Girls' Love” is written on the back cover – I was genuinely concerned that things still might not work out.

Satomi is probably the biggest barrier in the story. She's adorable and sweet, but “sheltered” begins to feel like a very mild description pretty quickly. Her wide-eyed naivete is close to being unbelievable at best and annoying at worst. Fortunately, her love for Kanda grounds her, and by the time we reach the end of the omnibus, it's clear that she may be innocent, but she's not stupid. Her emotions are the real deal, and the scene where secrets are revealed is joyful. The soft art enhances the emotional (and sexual) payoff without going overboard, and in the end, it's a beautiful story of two people finding that their love is stronger than they thought. It isn't displacing Farewell, My Rose Garden as my favorite yuri, but it's definitely a top contender for number two.

There's some mild suspension of disbelief at the outset of Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl, at least there was for me. The power of androgyny and mistaken gender is often a driving factor in stories like this. While I can understand the "sheltered" Satomi seeing Kanda as a guy at first, I got a little incredulous at the idea that absent any presentational effort by Kanda, everybody in her class was apparently under the impression she was male. It's an element that hangs around since it's not an inciting misunderstanding that gets cleared up, this is the main premise of the entire book. Author mocchi-au-lait is crafting a story here where the unintentional secret of Kanda's gender is the primary drama-driving misunderstanding potentially undermining her and Satomi's otherwise happy relationship.

To Mocchi's credit, this setup does work to lend complications to what would otherwise be some of the sweetest, fluffiest girls-dating material I've seen put to page in a minute. Part of the gimmick is that, despite being a girl, Kanda is the perfect boyfriend—she's caring, considerate, and communicative about everything except her gender. It helps that she is, yes, smokin' hot as well. Artist majoccoid can draw the crap out of this attractive androgynous girl (and Mizuki is pretty cute herself). I can 100% understand getting carried away with one wild misunderstanding and not being able to find the right time to clear things up. Regardless of gender, awkward conversations are the hardest part of any relationship, and it quickly becomes clear that Kanda's hesitance isn't just about wanting to spare her new girlfriend's feelings. She's genuinely come to fall in love with this girl she started dating under the most unconventional of pretenses.

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl's interest factor may also be upped, depending on your experience, by at least some interpretive subtext around Kanda's gender and her experience with it. She unilaterally identifies as a girl but struggles with figuring out she's supposed to present that way "socially" so that she might clue Mizuki in. She starts wearing a binder at one point to maintain her secret, and the whole premise of loving someone but knowing you need to tell them "who you really are" will certainly resonate with some readers from other angles. As someone who's always tended to be frustrated by gender essentialism, it was interesting to see this book pry at ideas of what constitutes appeal for "guys" or "girls" and, without giving too much away, ultimately land on an uplifting idea that the categories don't matter. As a double-volume complete collection, there is a ton more to dig into about Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl, but I can earnestly recommend checking it out to discover for yourself, alongside the advisement that if the setup seems a little askew at the start, it's worth just rolling with.