Ikemen Girl to Hakoiri Musume
Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl

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The Cool Aloof Guy With Long Hair And Icy Eyes is a standard of shoujo romances, and new college student Satomi finds herself immediately susceptible to a classmate with exactly this description. However, this gay little manga decides to ask the burning question: what if the dreamy cool guy was a GIRL?

As pretty much every trope can be improved with lesbianism, I was sold pretty quickly. The cool guy being a girl immediately makes a character archetype I didn't particularly care for 1) funny and 2) unexpectedly super endearing in her moments of awkwardness given the misunderstanding central to her circumstances.

The two women start accidentally ... dating without Satomi knowing that she's dating a girl, and this leads to a lot of awkward hijinks. It's nonsensical of course, but what sells it is that the characters are genuinely likable and really cute. Don't expect anything revolutionary or genre-busting here. This is definitely a feel-good romp through tropes you know and want. But that's why it's good. It gives you what you want in the cute romance department with a twist of situational comedy and heaps of misunderstandings that are more charming than annoying. There aren't any particular surprises, but there also aren't any GROSS surprises so I count that as a win for an enjoyable, comfy read. It's just good romance, folks!

The art is also quite nice. I particularly was endeared by the couple's character designs and how they reflected their personalities.

All in all, not particularly groundbreaking, but I didn't come here for groundbreaking. The grounding of my favorite comfy romance tropes is enough for me to work with, thanks.

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl is pretty good.

It's a yuri series that manages to get the formula mostly right, in that it manages to portray a teen lesbian romance within a framework that could, with some rosy glasses, actually reflect a real relationship. Sure, it's fluffy and a bit cringe at times, but teen relationships are a little cringe, and these characters are mostly mature enough to handle the pitfalls of being with one another.

Another thing this manga does is actually use misunderstandings well, in that the principle mistake Ookuma makes in assuming Kanda is a man is handled fairly maturely. It's not used for ... cheap and obnoxious melodrama, as something like Citrus might do, and it's both used as a source of mild conflict and also doesn't overstay its welcome. Kanda's tomboyish appearance is used as a device from multiple angles, not just her romance with Ookuma, which is mildly refreshing.

Overall, it's cute and fluffy, doesn't stuff itself with terrible/toxic Japanese tropes like other gay series I could mention, isn't completely mindless, and has likeable characters. No one looks like, or is, a literal child. No one is making out with their own mother/father. The English translation was not written by a chimp on a typewriter. In any other genre, this might warrant a 5/10, but in the field of Japanese LGBT works, it's a genuinely respectable and touching effort to consistency.

However, if you want a hard-hitting, tightly written adult relationship with plenty of spicy drama, this is not the work for you. This mostly warranted an 8/10 because it stands out in a sea of rape, abuse and mindless, poorly developed fluff as something with a half-decent romance story and an utter lack of toxicity. Props to the mangaka for knowing what a binder is, and how to draw one, by the way.

I've seen this recommended so many times when folks are looking for yuri with butch/masculine characters, but I found myself a bit disappointed.

There are many things I liked about the story, the art is lovely and both of the main characters are designed nicely. However, while the romance is sweet, the misunderstanding about gender feels like it lasts too long in some ways. And when Kanda does share that she identifies as a girl it involves taking off her clothes to show her body. The idea of "proving" one's gender by showing one's body doesn't land great and comes off as transphobic. This was ... especially a bummer because throughout the story Kanda's experiences and presentation align a lot with someone who might be AFAB and non-binary or trans masc.