Manga / Nozo × Kimi

Nozo × Kimi (Nozomi and Kimio in its initial three-chapter publication) is a Lighter and Softer spinoff manga of Nozoki Ana by Wakō Honna. It was published in Shonen Sunday from 2012 to 2015 (following a brief weekly run of the first three chapters in 2011), running for 63 chapters. The monthly serialization ended at nineteen chapters, upon which it transitioned into a weekly serialization, with the shift marked by the characters graduating their first year and moving into their second year. A three-episode OVA adaptation by ZEXCS released from 2014 to 2015, with the Real Song Theme Tune “Tentekomai” performed by mimimemeMIMI^note Known for debuting with “Sentimental Love”, the opening theme of Kimi no Iru Machi’s anime adaptation, which was also used as the theme song for the Ane Log: Moyako Neesan no Tomaranai Monologue OVA series.

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It centers around the titular duo of Nozomi Komine and Kimio Suga, two classmates who happen to live across from each other in the same apartment complex. When Kimio finds himself hiding in the girls locker room and unable to escape, Nozomi is mercifully quiet about seeing him when she opens her locker. However, in return for her secrecy on the incident, Nozomi wants Kimio to let her indulge in a voyeuristic hobby of “showing each other” themselves i.e. letting her flash him in states of undress at school and when they look through their bedroom windows every morning and night. Thus begins Kimio’s new school life of putting up with Nozomi’s antics as she drags him into her experiments of emotional self-discovery, which often involve meddling in the social lives of their classmates.

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This manga provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Haruka Mukai, who mistakes Kimio’s “showing” to Nozomi for him peeping on Haruka herself, and becomes convinced that she and Kimio are fated for each other. She ignores every signal he gives that he’s not interested and engages with him in a manner far more invasive and disruptive than Nozomi’s peeping was.
  • Nanako Yamaki to Ryōji, not because he hates her, but because she’s his cousin and he has no interest in being Kissing Cousins with her.
• Academic Alpha Bitch: Miyako Iwashimizu literally ranks every student based on how well their grades score, and prides herself on her own high position in this hierarchy.
• Accidental Kiss: Michiru’s lips end up pressing on Kimio’s cheek right next to his lips when she runs into him during the ski trip.
• Accidental Pervert: Aside from the numerous intentionally perverted moments foisted on him by Nozomi, Kimio also has a knack for unintentionally colliding with a girl’s chest or seeing girls undressed. In fact, his entire relationship with Nozomi is kicked off by him accidentally getting trapped in the girls locker room.
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• Adapted Out: The OVA covers three of the four arcs from the manga’s first thirteen chapters. The arc with Kana Mitarai (chapters 10-11) is omitted, and her with it.
• All Men Are Perverts: Just about every male student is a Hormone-Addled Teenager, though Kimio is usually too flustered and frustrated by the circumstances he finds himself in to really enjoy most of his Accidental Pervert moments. Still, even he can’t help but let his imagination run wild when Nozomi makes a suggestive offer.
• Almost Kiss: The above mentioned Accidental Kiss is also one of these, since it’s pointedly stated that their lips didn’t actually meet. Additionally, Nozomi ends up kissing him on the same spot later on when they’re hiding in the closet together.
• Alpha Bitch: Michiru Sonoda, who prides herself on being the most popular girl in class and schemes against Nozomi when the latter wins a popularity vote without even trying.
• Always Second Best: Mami has always been in Mahiru’s shadow ever since they were kids, and her resentment is only exacerbated by the fact that every guy she’s ever dated ultimately broke up with her because they were more interested in Mahiru.
• Ambiguous Disorder: It’s never quite understood why Nozomi was such an Emotionless Girl for most of her life. She’s been expressionless and disinterested in everything ever since she was born, to the point of not even crying when she’s hurt. Even after seeing Kimio in her locker sparks her first sense of excitement, her behavior is still quite odd. Furthermore, she’s The Social Expert and can easily deduce how other people feel, but also has No Social Skills and struggles to understand how her words impact people. Her strong attachment to Kimio and obsession with “showing” and peeking at people’s true selves have a weirdly sexual element to them.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For as much as he complains about Nozomi’s antics, Kimio cares deeply about her and is always concerned for her wellbeing when he thinks she might be in trouble.
• Becoming the Mask: Possibly. While Michiru’s efforts to seduce Kimio in her own arc are primarily intended as revenge against Nozomi, she seems to be legitimately invested in getting his attention in chapters 16-17, even after she’s given up on antagonizing Nozomi.
• Beneath the Mask: A subject that is just as prevalent here as it is in the rest of Wakō Honna’s works.
• Big Eater: As the secret weapon of the school’s track team, Saya Hayakawa can pack away a lot of food and burn the calories with ease. Additionally, at the end of her introductory arc, the “anything you want from me” promise that Nozomi got Mahiru to make Saya is treating her to a huge okonomiyaki feast.
• Big Man on Campus: In the first year, Arata Motoki is a popular soccer player who gets a lot of attention. Ryōji Toba and Mahiru Shīna both occupy this status in the second year.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Michiru is quite vindictive when she thinks Nozomi has stolen her status as the most popular girl in class, and attempts to seduce Kimio to get back at her.
  • Mami Watarai puts up a front of being friendly and kind when she’s trying to seduce her target, but is hiding a similarly envious bitterness against Mahiru behind the façade.
• Bleached Underpants: While it’s still quite Ecchi, it’s much softer on the sexual side of things than its predecessor Nozoki Ana, which was Porn with Plot that often turned into borderline hentai.
• Breather Episode: “The Tracksuits’ Whereabouts” (chapters 40-41) is a more easygoing story with fewer personal stakes compared to what comes before it (the arc introducing Haruka Mukai) and what comes after it (the arc about Mami Watarai).
• Broken Pedestal: Kimio initially has a crush on Michiru Sonoda, but this comes to an end after her scheme to turn him against Nozomi is revealed.
• Brutal Honesty: After the incident with Mami Watarai, Mahiru learns to not hide her true feelings and desires behind her perfect reputation. The first instance seen of this is her flatly turning down a love confession without mincing words to let him down nicely, because she’s in love with Kimio.
• Book Dumb: It’s mentioned by Miyako Iwashimizu that Nozomi’s grades are unimpressively average, which belies her intuition for deciphering people’s feelings and predicting how they will act. Kimio’s no ace student either.
• Bookends: The last episode of the OVA and the last chapter of the manga both have Kimio ending up where his relationship with Nozomi started; in a locker at the girls’ locker room.
• Boyfriend Bluff: Mahiru attempts to pose as Kimio’s girlfriend to help him convince Haruka to leave him alone, but they both get too nervous and stop short of actually kissing, which would have convinced her. Kimio later tries it again with Nozomi and she kisses him through a thin candy wrapper to convince Haruka.
  • Kimio tries it again when Haruka comes back, calling Nozomi over to be his fake girlfriend. This time around, she doesn’t bother to lie and flat out tells Haruka they aren’t dating, despite having misled her to think that earlier.
• Buxom Is Better: One of the issues Nozomi and Kimio try to resolve is a case of two friends who are mutually pining for each other, but the girl has A-Cup Angst and the boy thinks too much about big boobs to really find her physically attractive.
• Camera Fiend: Kana Mitarai, who is obsessed with photographing girls’ “eros” and believes Nozomi can provide her the “ultimate eros” she seeks. Notably, her upskirt shots are reportedly taken with full consent from the subjects. When she tries to capture Nozomi’s “eros” in a private photoshoot, she realizes that Nozomi’s best expressions are only visible when she’s around Kimio.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: The main reason Kimio finds Haruka’s peeping more insufferable than Nozomi’s is that Haruka is a blabbermouth with no concern for keeping the arrangement a secret, which leads to her classmates showing up in her room when they open the windows and their neighbors starting to get concerned about a peeper in the apartment.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Saya is very obviously in love with Mahiru, but won’t admit it to her.
• Chained to a Bed: Kimio is subjected to this by Mami Watarai, who uses zipcuffs to restrain one wrist to her bedpost and another to her desk when she’s trying to steal him away from Mahiru.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Arata Motoki from chapters 14-15.
  • Ryōji Toba is quite popular with the girls in his class, to the point that he regularly receives excess amounts of food from them as gifts during lunch.
  • Kimio himself is the Clueless Chick Magnet variant, unknowingly attracting the attention of several girls over the course of his misadventures with Komine. By chapter 16, no less than 3 girls are competing with each other for him, and he has no idea.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Ryōji Toba eagerly accepts the affection and food he receives from his female classmates and is just as much of a Hormone-Addled Teenager as the rest of his male classmates, but he’s always gentlemanly to the girls who approach him and demonstrates a nobler side beyond that, such as his abhorrence to the prospect of being Kissing Cousins with Nanako. He’s also protective of his friends’ propriety, as shown when he joins Kimio and Mahiru in getting people to delete the erotic pictures Nozomi uploaded during the selfie competition, or when he gives a Death Glare to guys trying to look up Nozomi’s skirt when he takes her on a date to ease her worries about Kimio and Mahiru’s budding romance.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Several examples.
  • Yukari Akizuki isn’t too happy when Arata Motoki seems interested in Nozomi.
  • Saya Hayakawa is quite possessive of Mahiru and doesn’t take kindly to others getting too close to her.
  • Nanako Yamaki from chapters 24-27 is one for her cousin Ryōji Toba.
  • Haruka Mukai becomes convinced that Kimio is her fated lover and is quite insistent on the idea. She’s very hostile to any rivals, like Nozomi and Mahiru.
  • Mahiru Shīna of all people unexpectedly shows signs of this, becoming driven to get ahead of her perceived competition once she finds out that Nozomi kissed Kimio.
• Continuity Cameo: In chapter 14, Kimio’s mother is seen watching a romance drama on TV. Depicted onscreen are characters from Nozoki Ana: Yuri (Kido’s first girlfriend) and Mamoru (the guy Yuri was cheating on Kido with).
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Kimio covers Mahiru’s ears and Mahiru tries to cover Nozomi’s ears when Ryōji’s description of his Valentine’s Day fantasy starts getting explicit. Nozomi, being far less innocent than Mahiru thinks, is eager to hear more.
• Covert Pervert: Kimio is not immune to letting his imagination run wild when Nozomi provokes certain imagery for him. In addition, he briefly fantasizes about doing more than kissing after Mahiru confesses her love to him with a Forceful Kiss on Valentine’s Day.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Kimio eventually starts to show shades of this, as he slowly becomes more possessive of his status as Nozomi’s peeping partner and feels discomfort with the idea of her “showing herself” to other people the way she does with him.
• Creator Thumbprint: Amongst the elements Wakō Honna likes to include in her works that show up here are 1. an examination of what lies Beneath the Mask, 2. voyeurism with exhibitionism, and 3. an ending where the main heroine moves away for a certain amount of time before eventually reuniting with the protagonist. That last one differs in Nozo × Kimi compared to her other works, as it only describes the ending of the initial monthly publication. The story continues into a weekly publication after that ending.
• Date Peepers:
  • In chapter 15, Yukari Akizuki drags Kimio along with her when spying on her crush Arata while he accompanies Nozomi during the school festival.
  • Nozomi and Kimio follow Ryōji after she sets him up on a date with Nanako. He briefly catches onto their presence, but they manage to luck out and not get caught.
• D-Cup Distress: The first story arc introduces Yūki Makino, who has to put up with lecherous stares and unbalanced walking because of her large chest. Nozomi invites her into the “showing each other” arrangement she has with Kimio as part of helping her overcome her insecurities about it.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Kimio has a habit of thinking his embarrassing answers out loud when asked a personal question.
  • When Nozomi asks his opinion on what her breasts felt like compared to how Makino’s felt, Kimio gives his thoughts about it, then freaks out when he realizes what kind of question he answered.
  • In chapter 48, Kimio while half-asleep answers Haruka’s question about what their peeping relationship means to him, and he answers candidly before realizing that not only was he describing his peeping relationship with Nozomi, but that Haruka heard him and interpreted it as him treasuring her peeping.
  • In chapter 53, he starts describing his first crush from childhood to Nozomi before stopping himself.
• Dude Magnet: Several examples. Makino gets a lot of attention because of her breasts, while Sonoda and Mahiru are the most popular girls in their classes. Nozomi also becomes one after she and Kimio start “showing each other” and she comes out of her shell.
• Ecchi: Par for the course with Wakō Honna’s works. Nozoki Ana is still Hotter and Sexier than its successor, however.
• Emotionless Girl: What Nozomi was before she encountered Kimio in the locker room. Her insistence on maintaining the “showing each other” arrangement with him is because it gives her an excitement she’s never felt before, and she wants to keep exploring both her feelings and others’ feelings.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Mahiru and Nozomi each have at least one named female admirer among the groups of schoolmates attracted to them.
• Everyone Can See It: People who know Nozomi and Kimio often see them joined at the hip, and assume they’re dating despite Kimio’s protests that She Is Not My Girlfriend. There’s a reason Mahiru and Ryōji considered it a lovers’ quarrel when Nozomi seemed to be distancing herself from him and them.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: By the time of their graduation, Mahiru is shown to have grown her hair out. Although she claims there’s no special reason beyond having left the track club, she’s noticeably no longer wearing the star hair clip that Kimio gave her. Ryōji gives her a different hair clip as an implicit Love Confession.
• Expy: Nozomi and Kimio are obvious parallels to Emiru and Tatsuhiko from Nozoki Ana, though with different circumstances.
• Fake First Kiss: Played with and deconstructed, in that the kiss itself changes nothing about the relationship, but outside people who know about it understandably make a bigger deal of it than the subjects, which indirectly brings about a change in the relationship that the kiss itself did not. First, it’s exploited by Nozomi to seal the deal on her and Kimio’s Boyfriend Bluff so Haruka will leave him alone without really changing the status quo between them. It comes back to bite her in a later arc, as she has no idea that her genuine support for Mahiru’s feelings for Kimio retroactively comes off as a mixed message at best and a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing move at worst once Haruka tells Mahiru that Nozomi has already kissed Kimio and never told their friends. This heavily influences Mahiru’s hasty decision to kiss Kimio herself, which ultimately brings about a Green-Eyed Epiphany.
• Fanservice: It’s nowhere near as pornographic as Nozoki Ana was, but it’s still very much an Ecchi work with plenty of panty shots and topless scenes.
• First Love: Kimio is very obviously Nozomi’s first (and seemingly only) love, though she’s initially unaware of it due to the question of What Is This Thing You Call "Love"? having eluded her most of her life. When Ryōji asks why she and Mahiru aren’t as caught up in the mood that has everyone else excited for Valentine’s Day, they both state that they didn’t used to have any idea about what falling in love is like, which Ryōji correctly deduces is in reference to both girls having Kimio as their first love.
• Forceful Kiss: At the end of chapter 54, Mahiru follows up her Valentine’s Day chocolate gift to Kimio with one of these, driven by envy over the knowledge that Nozomi had already kissed him first.
• Friendless Background: Nozomi had no friends before she began her peeping relationship with Kimio.
• Funbag Airbag: Happens to Kimio a few times, most notably when Makino is introduced.
• Gainaxing: Makino’s breasts move about exaggeratedly when she tries to so much as walk steadily, which is the source of her D-Cup Distress.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: After Yukari drags Kimio away in chapter 14 to complain about his supposed girlfriend attracting too much of Arata’s attention and starts crying, Kimio imagines an angel and devil urging him to help her or leave her. Despite his reluctance to involve himself with Yukari and Nozomi any more than he needs to, Kimio is quick to shoo the shoulder devil away and offer what little help he can give to Yukari.
• Graceful Loser: Although she’s initially competitive and hostile about it, after coming to view Nozomi as a Worthy Opponent, Haruka indicates that if there’s anyone she’d accept Kimio being with, it’s Nozomi. Once Kimio finally admits he loves Nozomi, she bows out and moves on from her fixation on being his fated love.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany:
  • An indirect example with Mahiru, whose Love Epiphany for Kimio isn’t quite rooted in feelings of jealousy, but rather comes about from the circumstances surrounding a largely failed attempt to invoke such jealousy, namely Kimio expressing Undying Loyalty to Mahiru when Mami tries to steal him from her.
  • In the Valentine’s Day arc, witnessing Mahiru’s kiss with Kimio and the growing closeness between them following it leads Nozomi to realize that the exciting feeling that gets her heart racing when she’s “showing herself” to Kimio is because she’s in love with him.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Miyako Iwashimizu’s complete lack of athletic ability gives her an Inferiority Superiority Complex over her schoolmates, and she takes it out on them by mentally organizing everyone in a hierarchy based on grades so that she can feel some sense of superiority.
  • Mami Watari envies Mahiru for her popularity and attention, a sentiment that is only exacerbated by the fact that every boy Mami has ever liked eventually left her because they wanted Mahiru more.
  • Mahiru herself becomes one once informed by Haruka Mukai that Nozomi lives in the same apartment as Kimio and they’ve kissed before. Her jealousy throws her into such a funk that she starts behaving out-of-character and hastily kisses Kimio to get ahead in the perceived competition for him.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Mahiru is quite kindhearted and friendly to everyone.
• The Heart: Kimio is this for the “Nozo×Kimi” duo he forms with Nozomi, being able to reach out to people with kindness and empathy that keeps her oddball behavior from driving people away.
• Heroic BSoD: Nozomi goes into one after she witnesses Mahiru kissing Kimio on Valentine’s Day.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Hiroya is a shameless pervert and makes no secret of his intent to ogle the female customers of his family’s bathhouse, but beneath it all he actually does take his job at the bathhouse seriously, and is disappointed that his reputation for being a peeping tom supersedes his sincere effort and the pride he takes in his family’s work. The reason he singles out Nozomi as someone he wants to look at when he’s usually indiscriminate about perving on girls is because her Übermensch attitude inspired him to focus on his pride as a bathhouse employee over the disrespect he gets for his perversions, and he developed a crush on her as a result.
  • Ryōji proves to be far more observant than he lets on and astute about people’s emotions, as he was surprisingly quick to figure out that not only did Mahiru fall in love with Kimio, but that her revealing those feelings could drive a wedge in their friendships with Nozomi and Kimio. He’s not especially known for his smarts, but Iwashimizu’s inner monologue notes that he scores high enough academically for her to bother remembering his name.
• Hopeless Suitor: By the Valentine’s Day arc, Haruka Mukai is still trying and consistently failing to get Kimio’s affection, and her attempts hold absolutely no candle to his existing relationship with Nozomi or Mahiru’s sincere efforts.
• Incest-ant Admirer: Ryōji has one in the form of his cousin Nanako Yamaki.
• Indirect Kiss: When Makino, Watanuki, and Sonoda decide to compete with each other to get Kimio, the former two try to share indirect kisses with him. However, one of them came right after the other and finished his drink before he could get a sip, meaning neither of them got to give him an indirect kiss. Nozomi ends up giving him her half-finished drink when she sees that his is empty, and the knowledge of having shared an indirect kiss with her keeps him up at night.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Several characters show shades of this, such as Sonoda, Iwashimizu, and Watarai.
• In Love with Love: This is the mindset that fuels Haruka Mukai and Nanako Yamaki’s Clingy Jealous Girl behaviors, particularly the former.
• In-Series Nickname: Nozomi was commonly referred to as “Air” prior to her interactions with Kimio, because she was so expressionless and disinterested in everything that she was regarded as beneath anyone’s notice.
  • After getting their help for the first time, Mahiru dubs Nozomi and Kimio to be the duo Team Nozo×Kimi.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Nozomi’s exhibitionism routine with Kimio is referred to as “showing ourselves to each other,” though it’s mostly her showing her body to him and him showing his flustered reactions.
  • Tsuzuri Tobita’s “web novels” that include random line breaks, emojis, and are generally written like blog posts. She hears about Haruka Mukai’s “fated love encounter” with Kimio and decides I Should Write a Book About This.
• Internal Reveal: Although she had visited Kimio’s apartment in a prior chapter, it’s not until chapter 53 that Mahiru learns that Nozomi lives in the same building in the room right across from him, and the fact that they shared a kiss.
• I Should Write a Book About This: Haruka ended up telling one of her classmates about the peeping arrangement with Kimio, and said classmate wanted to write a web novel about it, leading to Haruka coming back into Kimio’s life to cause more trouble.
• It Was a Gift: In chapter 53, Mahiru reminisces about getting her star hair clip. It’s shown that she lost her original one, but was given an identical replacement by Kimio, who downplayed how many times he tried the gashapon machine just to get her a simple trinket. This gesture showed her that they would become close friends, and she would eventually fall in love with him.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • When it becomes apparent that Kimio is more preoccupied with Nozomi than with the competition that Makino, Watanuki, and Sonoda are having for his attention, the former two are more willing to let Nozomi have some space, aware of how close she and Kimio already are and grateful for her involvement solving in their previous troubles.
  • Nozomi is able to convince Nanako to give up on pursuing a Kissing Cousins relationship with Ryōji by appealing to her Thinks Like a Romance Novel attitude and showing her works where the heroine has this mindset.
  • Hiroya gives up on trying to peep on Nozomi in the bathhouse, content to be greeted by her at the front desk and see her smiling with Kimio.
  • Even after her Green-Eyed Epiphany, Nozomi opts not to interfere with Mahiru’s pursuit of Kimio and decides that since Mahiru was the one to work up the courage to confess, she should be the one Kimio’s with.
• Karma Houdini: Michiru Sonoda doesn’t really suffer any repercussions for trying to humiliate Nozomi and steal Kimio, mostly because neither of them are vindictive enough to care about what others think so long as they know the truth themselves, and she stops antagonizing them after that.
• Kick the Dog: Michiru tearing up the vote Kimio cast in favor of Nozomi for the class’s popularity poll, which she found and kept in her locker.
• Kissing Cousins: Ryōji’s cousin is a Clingy Jealous Girl for him, much to his chagrin. He requests Nozomi and Kimio’s help in trying to get her to change her mind so they can go back to a more wholesome familial relationship.
• Lighter and Softer: Than Nozoki Ana, which was both more hardcore about the sex and more intense with the drama. Nozo × Kimi’s high school setting offers more lighthearted Ecchi hijinks and the drama covers much less heavy topics.
• Love at First Sight: Finding Kimio hiding in her locker sends Nozomi’s heart pounding in a way it never had before, and from then on she doggedly pursues the same sensation by exposing herself to him. This is subverted when it’s revealed that Nozomi has been aware of Kimio since childhood when he regularly visited her apartment to play with her sister while she watched from afar, and therefore the encounter in the locker room was not the first time she saw him.
• Love Dodecahedron: One that has Nozomi and Kimio’s complicated peeping relationship at the center of it. After meeting Kimio, Nozomi begins to come out of her shell and attracts a lot of attention, including from Kana Mitarai and Arata Motoki (who is popular with many girls, including Yukari Akizuki). Kimio’s old classmate Hiroya Tamamori also has a crush on Nozomi which predates her encounter with Kimio. Besides Nozomi, there’s the rest of Kimio’s Unwanted Harem, all of whom fall for him in the aftermath of his involvement in Nozomi’s activities; Yūki Makino (who briefly joined the peeping relationship), Mirei Watanuki, and the popular Michiru Sonoda (who seems to have an Unrequited Love Switcheroo after failing to steal him from Nozomi) in the first year. The second year adds their neighbor and underclassman Haruka Mukai, who believes she and Kimio are destined for each other and is only temporarily turned away after he attempts a Boyfriend Bluff twice, first unsuccessfully with Mahiru Shīna and then with Nozomi. Mahiru is the object of Saya Hayakawa’s affection and is such a Dude Magnet that all the ex-crushes of her childhood friend Mami Watarai left Mami for her. Mami attempted to get revenge by seducing Ryōji Toba and switched targets when she discovered Mahiru was actually in love with Kimio, something Mahiru herself didn’t realize until the incident with Mami, and wouldn’t act on until Haruka revealed that Nozomi’s Boyfriend Bluff with him involved a kiss. Mami’s latest boyfriend only comes back to her after getting jealous seeing her with Ryōji. Ryōji is another Chick Magnet popular with girls, which unfortunately includes his cousin Nanako Yamaki.
• Love Epiphany:
  • Mahiru’s steadily growing feelings for Kimio reach a turning point of realization in chapter 44, when he repudiates Mami’s claim that Mahiru’s popularity is unearned and affirms that he’ll stand by her side no matter what.
  • After over a year, Kimio finally stops running from his feelings and realizes he’s in love with Nozomi while on a date with Mahiru.
• Love Hotel:
  • While they’re being Date Peepers for Ryōji and Nanako, Kimio and Nozomi end up hiding in front of a love hotel. They barely manage to avoid getting caught.
  • In chapter 52, Mahiru tries to show Kimio a magazine article for a nature trip they could go on together for spring break, but the page flips and she accidentally shows him a suggestive Valentine’s advertisement for a love hotel. They both get embarrassed, but Kimio quickly laughs it off and comments on how she can let her guard down around him.
• Love Hurts:
  • Mami’s resentment of Mahiru is exacerbated by the fact that every guy Mami has ever liked, up to and including her own boyfriend, eventually left her because they preferred Mahiru.
  • The Valentine’s arc shows heartbreak afflicting both Mahiru and Nozomi. For the former, she becomes uncharacteristically distant and insecure after finding out that Nozomi’s relationship with Kimio is much more intimate than Mahiru could have imagined, while the latter experiences the unfamiliar sensation of heartache after witnessing Mahiru and Kimio’s kiss.
• Love Triangle: Within the above-mentioned Love Dodecahedron, the most traditional set up appears between Nozomi, Kimio, and Mahiru, after Mahiru falls in love with Kimio and eventually kisses him.
• Maybe Ever After: After the second Time Skip, Ryōji gives an implicit Love Confession to Mahiru, and she indicates that she’s not disinterested.
• Mistaken for Romance: When Mami decides to pursue revenge against Mahiru, she initially aims to seduce the other half of her Those Two Guys status, Ryōji, under the assumption that they’re into each other. It doesn’t take very long for her to realize that Mahiru’s heart actually belongs to Kimio, something neither of them are aware of yet. Ryōji is also the first person that comes to mind when the female classmates wonder who Mahiru might have a crush on. The final arc suggests and the last chapter confirms that things may not be entirely platonic between them.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Kimio’s surname—Suga—is also the name of the art college that the cast of Nozoki Ana were students of.
  • While being Date Peepers in chapter 26, there’s a moment where Nozomi and Kimio follow them into the theatre and end up watching a showing of a movie called Nozoki Ana. Kimio briefly fantasizes about a Nozoki Ana 2 starring Nozomi (which is what the series essentially is already).
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Kimio’s inspiring words and resolute attitude are undercut when he completely fails to escape the Chained to a Bed situation described above and only manages to chafe his wrists on the zipcuffs.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Just when Kimio and Nozomi’s words are about to break through to Mami, Mahiru makes an unnecessary apology in an attempt to appease her rather than be vulnerable about her true feelings, which reinvigorates Mami’s resentment at her.
• Nosebleed: Kimio has one when he walks into Nozomi’s room and sees Makino lift her shirt to reveal her bare breasts at him. Laughing with him at the ridiculousness of this being his reaction helps her get over her previous embarrassment.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Nozomi is always quick to get way up in Kimio’s personal space.
• Not So Different: Mami Watarai’s envy of the attention and affection that Mahiru gets turns out to be reflective of Mahiru’s own attempts to emulate Mami’s popularity. Admitting that they wanted to be like each other and desired the qualities the other possessed helps them come to an understanding.
  • Mahiru ends up reflecting Mami in another way later on, namely in that she gets resentful and competitive against her own friend when she thinks they’re taking someone away from her. For Mami, it’s her ex-boyfriend and every guy she’s crushed on who she thinks were taken from her by Mahiru. For Mahiru, it’s Kimio who she thinks she has to compete against Nozomi for. For bonus irony points, Mami threatens to give Kimio a "Take That!" Kiss as an act of spite against Mahiru, while Mahiru herself is later driven to kiss Kimio to get one up on Nozomi.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Shortly after receiving chocolate from her on Valentine’s Day, Kimio tells Mahiru that Nozomi feels like Mahiru’s been ignoring her as of late, and that he figured Nozomi was just being self-conscious because she doesn’t know how to deal with Mahiru having called her a friend recently since she has a Friendless Background. What he doesn’t realize is that Mahiru actually has been giving Nozomi the cold shoulder on purpose, driven by envy over learning about Nozomi’s kiss with him, and talking about how it probably made Nozomi happy to know Mahiru considers her a friend is hammering the guilt in with her other conflicted feelings.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Kimio has no idea that Makino, Watanuki, and Sonoda are all trying to hit on him during the ski retreat until Nozomi flat out tells him, and even then he brushes it off as them getting caught up in the heat of their girl talk rather than being actually interested in him. Additionally, even when Mami implicitly refers to him as the object of Mahiru’s affections and explains it as the reason she’s targeting him to make Mahiru jealous, he just gets confused. He’s so oblivious that Mahiru’s Forceful Kiss with him on Valentine’s Day doesn’t register to him as romantic until the next day when she tells him that regardless of the misunderstandings and jealousy that led up to it, she still wanted to kiss him, and she asks him to consider her feelings seriously.
  • Despite her being uncannily astute about everyone else’s feelings, and her blatant flirting with him, Nozomi is so used to being an Emotionless Girl that she legitimately has no idea if her feelings for Kimio are love until her Green-Eyed Epiphany when Mahiru starts actively pursuing him.
• Odd Friendship: Ryōji and Mahiru are both the Big Man on Campus and enjoy a lot of popularity, yet they are often seen in the company of Nozomi and Kimio, both of whom are notoriously average in most areas.
• OOC Is Serious Business:
  • Nozomi is very dedicated to her “showing” routine with Kimio and often teases him for his reactions to embarrassing situations, so whenever she doesn’t call him to open the curtains like she always does and gets so distracted that she refrains from commenting on whatever salacious accident he’s landed into with another girl, it’s a sign that something serious is going on with her.
    • Part of why Kimio doesn’t notice the three girls competing for him is because he’s preoccupied with how uncharacteristically wistful Nozomi has been during the ski trip, which is later revealed to be due to her having to move out of the apartment.
    • The other major instance of Kimio worrying when she doesn’t do her usual peepshow is in chapter 55, when she not only forgets to put on any clothing at all, she actually closes her curtains when she comes to, having been thrown into a Heroic BSoD by the sight of his kiss with Mahiru. In turn, Kimio is also subject to this trope, as people such as Haruka Mukai notice that he’s been acting strangely in the absence of his and Nozomi’s daily routine.
  • Kimio notices that Hiroya’s singling out Nozomi as the one he’s trying to peep on is uncharacteristic of him, as he’s usually indiscriminate about perving on girls. This clues him in to Hiroya possibly having a crush on Nozomi.
  • It does not go unnoticed by others when the ordinarily confident and cordial Mahiru becomes inexplicably nervous and starts giving Nozomi the cold shoulder, which unbeknownst to them is because she learned that Nozomi has already gotten a massive lead ahead of her by kissing Kimio.
• Operation: Jealousy: An unintentional variant. After Mami’s boyfriend dumps her because he likes Mahiru more, Mami decides to get revenge by making Mahiru jealous. Her first idea is to seduce Ryōji, but then she switches targets once she figures out that Mahiru’s actually in love with Kimio. At the end, Nozomi tells Kimio that Mami got back together with her boyfriend, who apparently got jealous when he saw her with Ryōji.
• Panty Shot: There’s an abundance of these throughout the manga. Nozomi in particular is subject to this, which is further exaggerated by the fact that she often intentionally flashes these at Kimio.
• The Peeping Tom: Nozomi enforces a routine of this on Kimio, though unlike Emiru and Kido’s peeping, hers mostly consists of Kimio watching her in states of undress (i.e. they look at each other through the window, rather than having a schedule where only one gets to look at a time on their allotted day).
  • Hiroya Tamamori is eager to peep on the female customers of his family’s bathhouse, especially once they get a surge of business when Nozomi and Kimio’s apartment complex shuts its plumbing down. His family, aware of his perversions, limits his customer interaction when this happens. He is especially looking forward to getting a good eyeful of Nozomi’s naked body.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: This is Kimio’s usual attitude to Nozomi’s “showing” herself to him.
• The Power of Love: What Nozomi does to help Saya to overcome her performance anxiety is to invoke Saya’s love for Mahiru by getting Mahiru to promise that she’ll do whatever Saya wants if she wins. It works.
• Protagonist Title: The original name that the manga went by was the names of the two leads.
• Pun-Based Title: Nozo × Kimi is a homophone for “peeping.”
• Put on a Bus: Come chapter 20, all the old classmate characters are gone and the two protagonists have a new class of students to interact with.
• Real After All: The OVA adaptation of chapters 12-13 shows that there really is a ghost haunting the school swimming pool, revealed only after the fiasco with Mirei Watanuki spreading stories about one.
• Red String of Fate: The opening illustration of chapter 53 depicts Nozomi’s body tangled in one of these, with the ends of the string tied around the left pinkies of a male and female student, presumably Kimio and Mahiru, the latter intending to give the former some Valentine’s Day chocolate and asking Nozomi for permission to do so in said chapter.
• Sacred First Kiss:
  • Parodied with Yukari, who hugs Kimio in a moment of gratitude and then immediately panics as if she had just given one of these to him when she was saving her first hug for Arata.
  • Played straight in the Valentine’s Day arc, when Mahiru’s decision to kiss Kimio is motivated by envy and insecurity over the knowledge that Nozomi had already taken his first kiss.
• Samaritan Relationship Starter: Downplayed, in that the feeling it sparks is initially platonic and didn’t become romantic until much later (after witnessing multiple demonstrations of similar kindheartedness), but chapter 53 shows Mahiru reminiscing about Kimio finding a replacement for her star hair clip and humbly understating the amount of effort he put into doing this favor for her, a classmate he barely knew at the time.
• Secret Keeper: The main characters share and hold onto several secrets between themselves and for others.
  • First and foremost is that Nozomi is keeping secret the fact that Kimio was in the girls locker room and hiding in her locker, and she’s using this secret to blackmail him.
  • Makino is aware of Nozomi and Kimio’s “showing each other” relationship and even showed Kimio her bare chest when she was part of it, as well as the circumstance that led to Kimio being roped into it. All three of them keep what happened between themselves.
  • Kimio reluctantly decides on Taking the Heat for the ghost instead of ratting out Watanuki being the culprit under the bedsheet. Even after his name is cleared, he and Nozomi don’t share with anyone the ghost’s true identity.
  • Michiru Sonoda’s Bitch in Sheep's Clothing personality remains unknown to anyone else except Nozomi and Kimio, who are largely disinterested in getting back at her for what she did and mostly content to let people believe whatever so long as they know the truth about each other. Mami Watarai’s actions are similarly kept under wraps and dealt with quietly.
  • In addition to being a Secret Secret-Keeper as described below, Ryōji also keeps silent about Nozomi’s Green-Eyed Epiphany from witnessing Mahiru and Kimio’s kiss for her.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: In chapter 57, Ryōji reveals to Nozomi that he already figured out Mahiru had fallen in love with Kimio even before she kissed him on Valentine’s Day, and was worried about how it might affect the group’s friendship if he told Kimio.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Nozomi being one of these to Kimio is the crux of their relationship with each other. Besides him, she’s also been known to feel up other girls and look under their skirts without a hint of shame or embarrassment.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Kimio has to make this clear about his relationship with Nozomi when pressed about it. Few people believe him, though. Kimio also tells Hiroya this when the latter sees Haruka Mukai being affectionate to him.
  • Nozomi will also say this about her relationship with Kimio, though with much less embarrassment, as she herself is uncertain of how to describe it. Specifically, she tells this to Haruka Mukai when asked directly about the Boyfriend Bluff, and to Mahiru when she wants to check if Nozomi’s okay with her giving Valentine’s Day chocolate to Kimio.
• Ship Tease: Loads of it between the eponymous duo, of course.
  • After moving up to the second year, Kimio starts getting substantial teasing with Mahiru, who grows closer to him over several chapters and begins to fall in love with him.
  • The final arc drops increasing hints that Ryōji has feelings for Mahiru, and suggests a Maybe Ever After ending for them.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Like Emiru Ikuno before her, Nozomi only has eyes for one guy, and at most takes an academic interest in others’ psyches.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Most of the girls who fall for Kimio do so because of the kindness he shows them when he and Nozomi are trying to help them with their problems. There are moments over several chapters where Mahiru in particular falls in love with him as she witnesses his kind heart at work while he helps her and others.
• Sleepwalking: In chapter 47, Nozomi ends up sleepwalking into Kimio’s bed while she, Haruka, and Tsuzuri have pressured Kimio into letting them sleepover at his apartment.
• Slice of Life: Compared to Nozoki Ana, where the peeping relationship’s effect on Kido’s love life was the driving force of the plot, the peeping relationship in Nozo × Kimi is mostly a pretense for the protagonists to have any sort of relationship, and the bulk of the story is episodic, consisting of their work in solving their other classmates’ social and emotional troubles in their daily lives.
• The Social Expert: Despite her seeming lack of social skills and self-awareness, Nozomi is quite adept at reading other people and understanding the hidden feelings that motivate their actions. This, combined with Kimio’s status as The Heart, is what allows Team Nozo×Kimi (as Mahiru calls them) to deal with people’s emotional problems so expertly.
• Spiritual Successor: To Honna’s previous work, Nozoki Ana. Like its predecessor, it centers around the male protagonist’s blackmail-induced voyeurism/exhibitionism relationship with his female classmate/neighbor, only this time, they’re high school students living across from each other rather than college students living next door.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Nozomi’s personality prior to meeting Kimio was all ice. As she spends more time with him, she cultivates a sugar side to it that soon becomes more visible to others.
• Suggestive Collision: Kimio is quite prone to this, often a Funbag Airbag or a Thanks for the Mammary, with many girls. Nozomi sometimes invokes this on purpose, to his dismay.
• "Take That!" Kiss:
  • After discovering that Mahiru’s in love with Kimio, Mami contemplates pulling one of these on him.
  • Ironically, Mahiru herself admits that her Forceful Kiss with Kimio on Valentine’s Day was on some level one of these to prove her resolve for Kimio was stronger than Nozomi’s.
• Taking the Heat: Kimio ends up shouldering the blame when he and Nozomi attempt to catch the ghost haunting outside the girls locker room. The actual culprit Mirei Watanuki had fled the scene and left him with the bedsheet when he tried to apprehend them, leaving him to take the girls’ scorn when they find him. Nozomi manages to clear his name by having Mirei lure classmates back to the pool and posing as a more convincing ghost when they arrive.
• Tamer and Chaster: While Nozoki Ana was practically Porn with Plot (albeit without illustration of exposed genitals), Nozo × Kimi is comparatively lighter with the ecchi elements (for example, Nozomi often pushes Kimio into Accidental Pervert moments but is never seen masturbating like Emiru did). That said, the nudity and fanservice is largely at the same level, the main difference is that in the former, Everybody Has Lots of Sex was in full effect.
• The Tease: Nozomi’s whole schtick with Kimio.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Nanako Yamaki’s ideas of the love between her and her cousin Ryōji come from reading too many Kissing Cousins works. Nozomi figures out that the solution to this is to introduce her to a new set of readings that satisfies her In Love with Love attitude while also reframing her perception of love into a less romantic lens.
• Those Two Guys:
  • Tomita and Murakami, the two perverted male classmates whose intrusion in the girls locker room is the reason Kimio got stuck there in the first place.
  • Ryōji Toba and Mahiru Shīna take up this role when the characters enter their second year.
  • Nozomi and Kimio themselves are considered this from the perspective of the rest of their school.
• Threesome Subtext: During chapters 4-6, when Makino temporarily joins in on Nozomi and Kimio’s “showing each other” arrangement.
• Time Skip:
  • A month passes at the end of chapter 19, between Nozomi’s family moving out and moving back in to the apartment. Chapter 20 begins with their second year of high school shortly after.
  • Another skip occurs at the end of the series, between Kimio’s public Anguished Declaration of Love for Nozomi at the apartment and the class’s graduation from high school.
• Title Drop: After they first help her, Mahiru coins the name “Team Nozo×Kimi” for Nozomi and Kimio, describing them as the pair who peek into people’s hearts.
• Tsundere: Kimio has no shortage of complaints for the things Nozomi ropes him into, but he can’t deny to himself that he finds her attractive, and she appears to be his closest friend. It’s not helped by the fact that she often confuses his feelings further by reminding him of the peeping arrangement he’s been forced into whenever he seems to be reaching some clarity about their relationship.
• Übermensch: Nozomi Komine is quite unconcerned with societal standards and how others view her. The only person whose opinion really matters to her is Kimio, so when Michiru decides to turn the class against her, she only makes the effort to set the record straight with him and no one else. Kimio starts taking on this attitude as well when Michiru threatens to ruin his reputation if he blabs, as he’s neither interested in spilling her secret nor concerned about what everyone else thinks as long as Nozomi knows the truth.
  • It’s later shown that Hiroya fell for Nozomi because meeting her and adopting her attitude about not caring what others think helped him get past the shame of his reputation for being a pervert and focus on his personal pride as a bathhouse employee.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: No points for guessing who it’s between.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: At first, Kimio has a crush on Michiru, which seems to grow when she feigns interest in him to get back at Nozomi. While his crush on her ends once her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing nature is exposed, she appears to be genuinely interested in him come chapter 16, seemingly out of gratitude for not spreading her secret to everyone even though he had every reason to.
• Unwanted Harem: When he isn’t being outright Oblivious to Love, Kimio is usually less than receptive to the romantic attention he receives from girls, mostly because said attention comes from girls who bring a lot of trouble to him (i.e. Haruka’s inability to keep the peeping a secret, Michiru’s previous scheming to turn him against Nozomi, and of course Nozomi herself blackmailing him).
• Villain with Good Publicity: Michiru Sonoda and Mami Watarai are the “Alpha Bitch in high school” variant of this.
• What Does She See in Him?: When Mami pursues revenge on Mahiru, her initial conclusion is that Mahiru would likely be into Ryōji, a Chick Magnet and fellow Big Man on Campus who she regularly hangs out with. She’s then left wondering this when she discovers that it’s Kimio who Mahiru’s in love with and not Ryōji, since he’s comparatively average, unpopular, and Oblivious to Love, and therefore much less fun and more difficult to seduce than she hoped.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: The crux of Nozomi’s “showing ourselves” routine with Kimio is her unfamiliarity with emotions, and most of what she does is an attempt to better understand what she feels and why she feels it. This is made especially apparent in the Valentine’s Day arc when Ryōji asks if she’s ever had a first love and she cheerfully answers that she has no freaking clue.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: While she’s willing to help other people deceive nonverbally, Nozomi prefers to answer a question honestly if directly asked herself, which is how Haruka Mukai finds out she isn’t actually Kimio’s girlfriend.
• Worthy Opponent: Haruka eventually comes to regard Nozomi as a worthy rival for Kimio’s love. By contrast, she does not acknowledge Mahiru with such respect and is extremely miffed when she learns that Mahiru’s pulled ahead of both of them by asking him out on a date.