The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All (気になってる人が男じゃなかった) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sumiko Arai. Originating as a short story posted on Arai's Twitter account from July to September 2021, it started its current weekly run in April 2022, before being serialized on Pixiv Comic in April 2023. Kadokawa Shoten published the series in print, with its first volume releasing that same month.

The series has been a critical and commercial success, with critics praising the story, artwork, and characters. It won the 2023 Next Manga Award in the web manga category.

Plot
Aya Oosawa has developed a crush towards the clerk of the CD shop she frequents recently. Unbeknownst to her, the store clerk is her classmate Mitsuki Koga. The manga follows the budding relationship between Aya and Mitsuki and their shared love for music as they experience daily high school life.

Characters

 * Aya Oosawa (大沢綾)
 * A gyaru high school girl who has an interest in rock music. Aya first gets acquainted with Mitsuki through stumbling on the CD shop by chance and develops a crush on her workplace persona as she continues to frequent the shop, not knowing that she’s her classmate through her school persona.
 * A gyaru high school girl who has an interest in rock music. Aya first gets acquainted with Mitsuki through stumbling on the CD shop by chance and develops a crush on her workplace persona as she continues to frequent the shop, not knowing that she’s her classmate through her school persona.


 * Mitsuki Koga (古賀美月)
 * A high school girl and classmate of Aya who also has an interest in rock music and works part-time at the CD shop. To maintain her anonymity during work, Mitsuki wears unisex clothing, face mask, and contacts in place of her glasses and school uniform, causing instances of her being mistaken for a boy and being dubbed by Aya and her friends as Onii-san (おにーさん). After Aya falls for her workplace persona, Mitsuki takes measures for Aya to not connect it with her school persona.
 * A high school girl and classmate of Aya who also has an interest in rock music and works part-time at the CD shop. To maintain her anonymity during work, Mitsuki wears unisex clothing, face mask, and contacts in place of her glasses and school uniform, causing instances of her being mistaken for a boy and being dubbed by Aya and her friends as Onii-san (おにーさん). After Aya falls for her workplace persona, Mitsuki takes measures for Aya to not connect it with her school persona.


 * Joe (ジョー)
 * Mitsuki's uncle who manages the CD shop and serves as her parental guardian.
 * Mitsuki's uncle who manages the CD shop and serves as her parental guardian.


 * Megumu Narita (成田恵)
 * An acquaintance and classmate of Aya and Mitsuki who was the first to connect Mitsuki’s workplace and school personas after noticing similarities between the two.
 * An acquaintance and classmate of Aya and Mitsuki who was the first to connect Mitsuki’s workplace and school personas after noticing similarities between the two.


 * Chizuru (ちづる)
 * A friend and classmate of Aya.
 * A friend and classmate of Aya.


 * Mao (まお)
 * Another friend and classmate of Aya.
 * Another friend and classmate of Aya.


 * Kanna (カンナ)
 * Joe's ex-girlfriend and acquaintance of Mitsuki who moved to Los Angeles.

Production
In an interview with Shuko Yokoi, Sumiko Arai shares that the concept of The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All originated from her being drawn to stories about individuals from differing backgrounds connecting and wanting to tell a story about girls, so she drew short stories featuring no dialogue which are posted to Twitter, as Arai believed it can resonate with international readers. One of these short stories, uploaded between July to September 2021, served as the inspiration to the series.

Since Twitter only allows four images per Tweet, chapters of the series were limited to four pages. As a result, the interactions of Aya and Mitsuki had to be depicted concisely. The series' editor commented that the character's faces are illustrated to be detailed enough to understand the story without the dialogue, which made the series more accessible to Twitter users not from Japan. The yellow-green color which complements the black-and-white illustrations was stated by Arai to be a late addition before the first chapter was uploaded.

Manga
Written by Sumiko Arai, the series originated on the author's Twitter account on April 10, 2022. It later began serialization on Pixiv Comic on April 29, 2023. Kadokawa Shoten began publishing the series in printed tankōbon volumes in April 2023.

Yen Press will be publishing the series in English.

Other
Apple Music and Spotify released an official playlist containing songs that Mitsuki and Aya listen to throughout the series.

A pop-up store selling merchandise from the series was open in Ikebukuro from September 15–24 and in Nagoya from September 30 to October 9, 2023.

A drama CD adaptation was released on March 27, 2024.

Reception
The first volume sold 150,000 copies within a week of its release. By September 2023, the series had 200,000 copies in circulation.

The series won the 2023 Next Manga Award in the web manga category. The series ranked second on the 2023 "Book of the Year" list by Da Vinci magazine. The series ranked second on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2024 for female readers.

A columnist for Animate Times praised the artwork, particularly its use of color, and the story's progression. Momo Tachibana of Real Sound praised the main characters and their interactions, describing them as understandable. Erica Friedman felt the story was "not the first of it's [sic] kind" but that it handled its subject better than similar series. Friedman also praised the artwork and its use of black, white, and green.