The autobiographical manga by Eisner-winner Akiko Higashimura, the creator of Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls, about her high school dream to become a comic book creator! High schooler Akiko has big plans to become a popular mangaka before she even graduates, but she needs to get much better at drawing if she ever wants to reach her goal. Looking for an easy fix, she signs up for an art class, thinking all her problems will soon be solved. She’s in for a surprise: her new instructor is a bamboo sword-wielding taskmaster who doesn’t care about manga one bit. But maybe this unconventional art teacher is just what she needs to realize her dreams!
This is an autobiographical manga by the author of Princess Jellyfish! I read this in English ages ago and really enjoyed her humorous take on her intense art education, as well as her story of breaking into manga. Now I’m ready to revisit the story in Japanese; I really enjoy reading a good autobio manga and maybe you will too!!
I also really enjoyed watching the episode on her in Urasawa Naoki’s manga documentary series, so you can watch that as well as a supplement!
Pros and Cons
Pros
The full manga is 5 volumes (not too long) if you want to follow her whole story in an offshoot club.
Interesting look at the life of a mangaka with humor and insight into the industry and struggles
Cons
Looks like it’s out of print
If you have school trauma about harsh teachers, I’d probably skip this one The subject is approached with humor but her teacher is very old-school.
Oh man, this has been on my wishlist for years now. I almost read it a few times, but was never in the mood for this kind of story. It’s a shame that it’s out of print though. (It looks like only volume one is out of stock right now though, so here’s hoping it’s just temporary.)
Just a quick cross-post. I’m going to run a book club for 乙女男子に恋する乙女 | L25 over on Natively starting this weekend. It’s technically a 4-koma, but I wouldn’t say it really follows the 起承転結 structure. It’s also wide panel, so not very dense. We’ll be going at a brisk pace, reading one volume every two weeks. Hope some of you join!
The poll will close automatically 2026-04-17T16:00:00Z (probably).
Can I vote?
If you are interested in joining the next book club we run, you can - and should - vote!
Difficulty Scores
Difficulty scores come from Natively (if available). Natively is a large community of language learners where users rate the difficult of books they’ve read against others they’ve read and uses an ELO system to determine the relative difficulty. Because of the rating system the ratings without ?? should be reasonably accurate, but the levels with ?? are just an initial guess that must be taken with a pinch of salt.
How does the vote work?
The poll will close automatically.
You can vote for up to 5 options.
You can change your vote at any time by clicking ‘Show vote’ at the bottom.
The book with the most votes will be our next pick.
If there is a tie for the winner, we will pick the book that has the oldest nomination date.
Have a look at the nominations:
The nomination post for each manga is linked in the poll (the number link [1.]) and is also in the first post of this thread
The Natively link is also in the poll, the “LXX” link
There is also a Natively list of the current nominations
The subject is approached with humor but her teacher is very old-school.
