Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku is a drama and Slice of Life 2018 manga by Umi Takase.
Hime Sakuragaike has secretly been in love with her childhood friend Akira Yonezawa since they were kids, but Akira only recently came out to her as being a girl. Although surprised, Hime offers her full support, and the secret is kept between them for a few years. Upon starting high school with Hime, Akira decides to start living as a girl full-time. However, since Akira garners a certain amount of attention, Hime takes it upon herself to aggressively stick up for Akira whenever necessary. Not wanting Akira to be singled out as an object of ridicule, Hime decides that her only option is to put herself in Akira's shoes and dress as a boy.
The manga finished in 2020, with 50 chapters.
Unrelated to You and Me, also known as Kimi to Boku.
Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku contains examples of:
- Childhood Friend: Akira and Hime are this. Because Akira was often bullied when they were younger, Hime became very defensive and protective of her, to the point where neither of them had other friends.
- Central Theme: Be Yourself, living genuinely as who you are, regardless of what others might think.
- Crush Blush: Hime almost constantly has this when she's around Akira.
- Gayngst: Hime has an interesting variation, where she experiences self-hate because she believes her continued crush on Akira means she doesn't see her as a girl. Yukka assures her that isn't the case, but reveals she follows the more traditional route of the trope, quitting track and field because she fell in love with a fellow team member.
- Good Parents: Both Akira and Hime's moms seem very supportive when she came out and started presenting femininely. Akira's dad, however, subverts the trope by believing that Akira is just going through a phase.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Hime is this when it comes to defending Akira.
- Innocent Bigot: Taneno invokes this when she asks Akira to be her boyfriend. To be fair, she wasn't in the room when the teacher explained that Akira was transgender.
- Meaningful Name: In the Distant Finale, Hime and Hiro ask for Akira to name their son. She names him Makoto, which means "truth", a word that has great meaning for her.
- Shout-Out: A few times, the manga references Simone DeBouvair's quote "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman".
- Shrinking Violet: Akira in the beginning chapters. She hides in the background, accepts others' mockery as inevitable, and apologizes constantly.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Hime purposefully invokes this by wearing the boys' uniform, to take attention away from Akira and make her appear more feminine by comparison.
- Trans Equals Gay: In-universe, most of Akira's classmates gender her as male and call her gay behind her back.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: Hime is confused about her feelings towards her recently-out friend Akira. She worries that she subconsciously sees Akira as a boy, but a friend helps her realize that she does she Akira as a girl (though she wouldn't mind if Akira was a cis boy either).
- Wedding Finale: The final two chapters of the manga are set in a wedding 9 or 10 years after the plot's events. The wedding is Yuuka's and she's marrying an old crush of hers.
