Tomo-chan Is a Girl!
Tomo-chan Is a Girl! is a Japanese four-panel manga series written and illustrated by Fumita Yanagida. It was serialized on the Twi4 Twitter account and Saizensen website, usually as a single-page four-panel strip, from April 2015 to July 2019. Kodansha published in eight volumes. An anime television series adaptation produced by Lay-duce aired from January to March 2023.
The manga follows the everyday life of a tomboy high school student who is in love with her childhood friend, who only treats her as a boy, and her attempts to make him reciprocate her unrequited love.
Plot
Tomo Aizawa is a tomboy who has been head-over-heels in love with her childhood best friend Junichiro Kubota for a long time, even though he only sees her as "one of the boys" and has no romantic feelings for her at all. Hilarity ensues when she tries many times in vain to win his heart, but almost always fails and even ends up getting physical at times.Characters
;Tomo Aizawa;Junichiro Kubota
;Misuzu Gundou
;Carol Olston
;Kousuke Misaki
; Mifune Ogawa
;Tatsumi Tanabe
;Goro Aizawa
; Akemi Aizawa
Media
Manga
Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, written and illustrated by Fumita Yanagida, was serialized on the Twi4 Twitter account and on the Saizensen website from April 7, 2015, to July 14, 2019. Kodansha published the individual chapters in eight volumes.In February 2018, Seven Seas Entertainment announced they licensed the series for an English release.
Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced at Anime Expo in July 2022. It was produced by Lay-duce and directed by Hitoshi Nanba, with assistant direction from Noriko Hashimoto, scripts written by Megumi Shimizu, character designs handled by Shiori Hiraiwa, and music composed by Masaru Yokoyama. The 13-episode series aired from January 5 to March 30, 2023, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme song is "Kurae! Telepathy" by Maharajan. Rie Takahashi, Rina Hidaka, and Sally Amaki performed the first ending theme song "yurukuru＊love" for Episodes 2–9 and 11–13, while Kaito Ishikawa, Kōhei Amasaki, and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka performed the second ending theme song "Jiribaki_love" for Episode 10. Crunchyroll co-produced the series and streamed it along with an English dub.Reception
As part of Anime News Networks Fall 2018 manga guide, Rebecca Silverman, Amy McNulty, Faye Hopper, and Teresa Navarro reviewed the first volume for the website. Silverman, McNulty, and Navarro praised the characters and art, while Hopper was more critical of the plot.In 2016, the series won the Next Manga Award in the web manga category.
Works cited
- "Ch." and "Vol." are shortened forms for chapter and volume in the Tomo-chan Is a Girl! manga as presented in the tankobon volumes.
- "Ep." is shortened form for episode and refers to an episode number of the Tomo-chan Is a Girl! anime.