The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy At All (Kinninaru Hito ga Otoko Jyanakatta) is an original doujin manga by Sumiko Arai
. The first issue was posted on 10th April 2022 and has been updated weekly via her Twitter.
Aya Oosawa, a gyaru high school student, frequents a small record store and develops a crush on the clerk, who has dark hair and wears a hoodie and a face mask. There's one problem— as the title implies, the clerk is actually her nerdy female classmate Mitsuki Koga. How will Aya react when she learns her crush is not actually a boy?
The manga contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Mitsuki accidentally calls Narita "Arita."
- Ambiguously Bi: Even while at the height of her crush on "Onii-san", Aya still had a couple moments of blushing and being nervous around Mitsuki at school.
- Armor-Piercing Question: At the end of Chapter 74, Mitsuki asks Aya, "Are you being nice to me just because I'm 'Onii-san'?" Aya is unable to answer that question, and while Mitsuki drops the subject and hangs up, it clearly had an impact.
- Author Vocabulary Calendar: Or at least the translator's vocabulary calendar. In Chapter 15, Mitsuki, a music lover who seems to be of average intelligence (although she later turns out to have good grades in English and Modern Japanese), describes her uncle's record store as "moribund."
- Batman Gambit: Narita, knowing fully well Aya and Mitsuki are music lovers, volunteers himself for after party organiser then picks Aya in the commitee since he claims he needs someone who knows a lot of music. She in turn picks Mitsuki as the third member for the same reason. This was all according to his plan of acting as an indirect Romantic Wingman for Mitsuki to spend more time with Aya.
- Bland-Name Product: In one single-page special, Aya and Mitsuki have to assemble IKEYA furniture.
- Book Dumb: Mitsuki's grades are all over the place- 95 in English, 65 in Modern Japanese, 31 in World History, 29 in Physics and an 18 in Math- but it's clear that the bad grades outnumber the good ones.
- Clark Kenting: Mitsuki is able to disguise her appearance by wearing contacts instead of glasses, a hoodie and a face mask.
- Class Trip: Chapters 53 to 61 focus on the school trip.
- Cool Uncle: Mitsuki's uncle is the owner of the music store where she works, and he dotes on his niece.
- Coordinated Clothes: In one single-page post set in the future, Aya and Mitsuki both wear overalls while assembling IKEYA furniture.
- Defictionalization: Mitsuki and Aya's in-universe Spotify playlist has been compiled and released by the artist herself.
- Distinguishing Mark: Mitsuki took great measures at hiding them to separate herself from the music store clerk such as covering up the multiple ear holes behind her hair, wearing an armband over her wrist tattoo and cleaning the black nail polish from her fingernails. However, the mole underneath her right eye is enough for Narita to figure out she and the clerk were one and the same and had several close calls with Aya before she learned the truth.
- Festival Episode: In Chapter 16, Aya takes her twin younger brothers to a festival, where Mitsuki is running a stall.
- Foregone Conclusion: The bonus one-page specials show Aya and Mitsuki as a couple living together five years down the road so it's a matter of when they would eventually become one in the main story.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: Aya, Mitsuki, and Jo all have a taste in music trending toward American Rock circa '70s to '90s. Jo in particular almost made the trip to LA to try and break into the rock scene there.
- Informed Attribute: Narita claims the easiest thing for him is to get a girl to help him out due to his good looks and "male power". However, the only time he ever used it was on Mitsuki and Aya in his debut with both attempts failing miserably since the former was panicking while reluctant to show her homework and the latter called him out and gave Narita the insulting nickname of "Jerkface", which really gets to him.
- Jo later says that he gets such a vibe off of Narita, and wonders why he doesn't have a girlfriend if that's the case. While he's happy to have his ego stroked, Narita brushes the question off, having found after a bit of Character Development that he prefers being a Shipper on Deck than pursing a relationship of his own.
- Internal Reveal: The viewer knows from the end of the first chapter that the record store clerk is Aya's classmate, but Aya doesn't find out until Chapter 18.
- Japanese Sibling Terminology: Aya refers to Mitsuki in her record store clerk persona as "Onii-san," not because she's her brother or anything close to the equivalent, but because she seems to be a young man whose name Aya doesn't know.
- Jerkass: Narita, who's nicknamed "Jerkface" by Aya (and the fandom), earns this nickname by initially coming off as one of these. He asks Mitsuki for her homework, then insults her when she claims that she didn't do it. He seems to be developing into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold over time, though.
- Likes Older Men: Aya is attracted to older guys and thinks that Mitsuki is one.
- Love Epiphany: In chapter 59, as she watches Aya get incredibly pumped up singing american rock songs at Karaoke, Mitsuki realizes that the feeling she's getting seeing Aya so happy is actually love.
- Loves My Alter Ego: Aya is in love with the clerk, but is relatively indifferent toward Mitsuki.
- Old Flame: Jo's ex-girlfirend Kanna pops back up, with the intent to bring Mitsuki to Los Angeles with her, a trip Jo balked at taking himself in order to raise Mitsuki.
- No Name Given: Aya and Mitsuki's male classmate remains unnamed until Chapter 23 when he introduces himself as Narita. The fandom nicknames him "Jerkface," since that's the insult Aya makes toward him.
- Promoted to Parent: Mitsuki lives with her Uncle (who has apparently been raising her since she was a child) with no reference to her parents. He even turned down moving to Los Angeles with his ex-girlfriend in order to focus on raising Mitsuki.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Narita asks Mitsuki for her homework in the optional subject, only to find that she apparently hasn't done it, prompting him to mockingly say that he thought she was supposed to be smart. Aya then delivers a short but succinct response that ends up getting to him.Aya: Someone who asks for help and then disses... Jerkface.
- School Festival: Aya and Mitsuki have to work on preparing for one. During their preparations, Aya finds out about Mitsuki's identity as the record store clerk.
- Secret-Keeper: Narita knows that Mitsuki is the girl in the record store.
- Second Year Protagonist: Aya and Mitsuki are 17 at the start of the series, which seems to begin a few months into the school year(since the protagonists wear short-sleeved summer uniforms), so they seem to be second-years.
- Shout-Out: The series wears its musical influences on its sleeves to an almost literal degree. There are accurate recreations of album covers and t-shirts, as well as specific artists and songs namedropped to a liberal degree.
- Title Drop: In Chapter 22, Aya has an Internal Monologue angsting about learning the clerk's true identity.Aya: I get it already. Looks like the guy I was interested in wasn't a guy at all.
- Title Drop Chapter: Chapters 1, 2 and 18 all have the same name as the series.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mitsuki dresses boyishly when not in uniform, such as preferring pants over skirts, which results in her being mistaken for a guy. Aya, on the other hand, is a fashionable gyaru who dresses in a girly manner and wears makeup.
- Tsundere: Aya shows shades of this towards Mitsuki when the latter is unknowingly showing off her "Onii-san" vibes or showing up while Aya is boasting about their friendship. In one chapter Mitsuki asks for a towel to dry off and Aya yells at her to remain soaked forever, and in the next panel (lampshaded by the narration) Aya is carrying towels for Mitsuki to use.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Subverted. While Aya is not happy when she finds out that the guy she has been crushing on was her female classmate, Mitsuki, she is not upset by the mere fact that she is a girl. Rather, she's upset by the fact that Mitsuki had been deceiving her and lying to her about her real identity.
- Wall Pin of Love: Mitsuki does this to Narita in the record store after he figures out her identity, and demands that he keep it secret from Aya.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 18. Mitsuki leaves her phone on the desk, and Aya happens upon it, noticing that she has the same playlist as the record store clerk.
- Wham Line: In Chapter 18, Aya finds a clue that reveals Mitsuki's identity as the record store clerk.Aya: This is the playlist I sent... to Onii-san...?
- Yuri Genre: While Aya and Mitsuki haven't gotten together yet, the story seems to imply that they will eventually once Aya gets over the shock of her crush turning out to be a girl.
