Title: The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses Vol. 9
Author: Koume Fujichika
Publisher: Square Enix
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: April 16, 2024
The Story
The ninth volume of The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses sees Mie switch to contacts; however, something is off about her. Komura continues to try and walk home with her after school but she always says that she has a thing to do (it’s learning how to wear contacts.) While this is happening, the school is ramping up for sports day. They hold practices after class and there’s a moment when the two of them are together; however, before they can say or even do anything, they are interrupted.
One day, it begins to rain and, like she has done this whole volume, Mie says that she has a thing. Someya forgets her umbrella so Komura lets her borrow his then makes a mad dash in the rain back to his house; however, this leads to him catching a cold. After school, Someya wants to return his umbrella but heavily suggests that Mie does it instead. When she arrives, she’s greeted by Komura’s mother who offers her some hot chocolate and then dashes out to get her jinbei that Komura borrowed over summer break. Mie uses that opportunity to sneak into Komura’s room while he’s sleeping and a nice little tender moment happens.
After that, Komura, again, struggles with how to tell Mie that he likes her. All the while, Mie is beginning to wonder if Komura likes her, too. You’d think these two would be close to colliding; however…
Characters
This is an odd volume from a development standpoint. Mie and Komura haven’t truly changed at all. Mie did; however, decide to start wearing contacts because she wants to see clearly every day. She figures that it will help her since she’s always forgetting her glasses but if you read in between the lines, it’s so that she can see Komura every day. She’s making an effort to realize her feelings for him (although she already has) but also doing so in a way in hopes that he can pick up on the subtle hints that she’s dropping. This tells me that she doesn’t want to be the one to ask him out. She would much rather hear those words from Komura himself.
Outside of that, just when you think things are heading in the right direction, Komura, again, pulls back on the reigns… especially when Mie states that she wants to get to her ideal future. Rather than spoil her plans or off-put her by confessing, he feels the need to keep it to himself without even realizing that HE is the future she’s referring to. And now, because of that misunderstanding, all of the development seems to have been artificially reset and we’re back to wondering when the confession is going to happen and that… honestly… is kind of annoying.
Final Thoughts
This is probably the first volume that I had a real issue with and that’s due to the entire “pushing the reset” button that I mentioned in the Characters section. Now, I’ve read plenty of romance series to know that one of the key plot points often used is that build-up of suspense and frustration. “When are they going to ask each other out!?” You know that it’s probably going to happen close to the series ending which is why the build-up, if done correctly, can make that moment either flop or pay off in spades.
A great example of proper build-up and good frustration is The Dangers in My Heart. A really bad example of improper use of frustration is I Belong to the Baddest Girl at School. In Dangers, Anna and Kyoutaro slowly come together. Their feelings naturally develop until they overflow and they press ahead and confess, making the moment powerful and satisfying. In Baddest Girl, unnecessary plot elements are introduced right when you think Unoki and Torumaru are about to finally hit it off, thus pressing a reset button.
Here, we have the same situation where you’ve been building up the confession for nine volumes… and every time when you are about to pull the trigger, you reset. This is the wrong kind of frustration as it truly kills the mood and pacing of the romance. At first, it was cute when Mie and Komura were trying to discover their feelings. The whole “Should ?” or “Does she feel the same way?” aspect was well-played but now were at the point where it’s painfully obvious that they know that they like each other. Instead of taking the Dangers route and giving us cuter and cuter moments until their feelings overflow, it has now pushed the reset button twice and it feels like all of the development comes to a screeching halt.
I know, overall, it’s still building but these hard stops are frustrating and not in a good way. Overusing this technique can cause people to stop caring about the relationship. In Baddest Girl, that’s exactly what happened to me. Their confession had zero impact on me because it was stupidly obvious they liked each other and their confession was artificially delayed all for the sake of adding a character that did absolutely nothing to help the plot.
We’re close to the end here, though. There are only three more volumes to go so if this reset is the last one, it’ll save the score but it has to be the final build-up from here on out. No more holding back… no more wishy-washy BS. One of them needs to commit and go for it to close this series out properly. The only thing that would absolutely destroy this score after two resets like this is if they leave it open to interpretation on whether or not they got together. Oof, don’t come read the review of Volume 12 if that happens. It won’t be pretty.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!
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This item was purchased for review.
