Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers

Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers (瞳ちゃんは人見知り) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Chorisuke Natsumi. It has been serialized on Akita Shoten's online platform Manga Cross since September 2018.

Premise
One day while on his way to school, Yuu Usami meets a new transfer student named Hitomi Takano, who has an intimidating appearance. However, he later discovers she is actually shy. Yuu befriends Hitomi and over time, they start to develop feelings for each other.

Characters

 * Hitomi Takano (鷹野 瞳)
 * Hitomi is a first-year high school student who has a scary appearance, but is actually shy and wants to be more social. She befriends Yuu on their way to school after Yuu realizes Hitomi is far more gentle and friendly than her intimidating presence suggests.


 * Yuu Usami (宇佐見 優)
 * Yuu is a second-year high school student who befriends Hitomi. He is nicknamed "Usa-kun" for being short. While not nearly as athletic as Hitomi or Kaoru, he is a good student and tutors Hitomi in math.


 * Kaoru Usami (宇佐見 カオル)
 * Kaoru is Yuu's younger sister, and Hitomi's classmate. She is much more athletic than Yuu and naturally outgoing. She admires that Hitomi has large breasts and toned abs.

Publication
Written and illustrated by Chorisuke Natsumi, Hitomi-chan is Shy With Strangers debuted on Akita Shoten's online platform Manga Cross on September 20, 2018. Akita Shoten has collected its chapters into individual volumes. The first volume was released on May 20, 2019.

In May 2021, Seven Seas Entertainment announced that they had licensed the series for English release in North America in both physical and digital format. The first volume was released on October 5, 2021.

Reception
In a review of the first volume, Caitlin Moore of Anime News Network called the series a "mediocre iteration of the [romantic comedy] genre." Moore compared the series art and humor to Azumanga Daioh, adding, however, that the characters are less appealing. Moore called the humor repetitive and criticized the "overreliance on fanservice", concluding: "I can only really see two particular subsets of manga fans getting into it: those who have never come across this subgenre before and thus don't know how unoriginal it is and those who love this subgenre and consume everything in it they find. If neither of those describe you, however, this one is better off skipped."