Title: Otaku x Gal Vol. 1
Author: 138neco (Story), Souchu (Art)
Publisher: Square Enix
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: February 10, 2026
The Story
Koichi Otakura is just your average Otaku. He’s into plastic models, dressing up dolls, and other unpopular hobbies. One day, a girl by the name of Yua Narumi comes up to him during class and asks his opinion on her fake nails. She tried to copy something she saw on Inste; however, she failed horribly. Since she spied him drawing during class, she figured that he could use his artistic skills to help her achieve the nails that she sought. He’s reluctant at first, but he agrees to help her out, staying up all night to bring her vision to life. She loves the nails, and he thinks it’s over, but it doesn’t stop there.
Next, Narumi asks him to help style her hair. This causes them to hang out more, and this draws the attention of Ruriko (Riko, for short), a girl in Class 1-D who is also Yua’s best friend. She thinks Otakura is a creep and lambastes Yua for hanging out with him, even going so far as to tell her that she better not date someone like him. Yua gets offended and tells her off for her comments!
Things get awkward later when Yua shows Otakura that Riko was getting bullied in class. She knew something was wrong and that Riko would never admit to anything, so she had to see it for herself. She plans to give Riko a complete makeover since that would be like giving her some armor. Otakura mulls it over and eventually agrees, but when Riko finds out he’s involved, things get a bit challenging.
When everything blows over, Otakura and Yua go out to F-Bucks for their new Spring Marshmallow Frappe, where she ironically admits that she needs to lose weight for the upcoming summer; however, a diet plan isn’t in the works… but something else!
Characters
Koichi isn’t as much of an otaku as I thought he would be. While he does recant things from anime and manga, I thought he would be a bit nerdier. Instead, he comes off as someone who’s just useful and easy to take advantage of. You can tell he’s willing to help people out in their time of need, but when he does, he second-guesses his abilities, then relies on whatever knowledge he has of otaku things, coupled with last-minute research, and somehow comes off looking like an expert. It’s almost too perfect a setup every time, so I wish he had made a few mistakes. Having someone like Yua or Riko walk around school due to an error he made in their appearance would have added to the comedy, but he was just perfect every single time he executed anything that Yua asked. Because of that, his character comes off as the “useful idiot” archetype, which can be hit or miss. So far, it’s kind of in the middle. The verdict is still out.
As for Yua… I’ve seen your typical gyaru characters before, but I’m not quite sure what to make of her. I think a lot of it has to do with the way her dialogue was translated from Japanese to English. To be fair, I can’t read Japanese, so I do not know if this was a direct translation or if it was Americanized, but if it was the latter, going with the choice to make her sound like some slang-speaking Gen Z teenager just comes off as super cringe. I rolled my eyes at nearly every line of dialogue she spoke, and it was very hard to take her seriously. More on this in my final thoughts, though.
As far as her character’s personality goes, take away the Gen Z speak, and it’s no different than any other gyaru you’ve seen in a series such as this. There hasn’t been a reason revealed just yet as to why she picked Otakura to help her, but if it truly was because she just happened to see him drawing an anime girl, then that’s about as shallow as shallow can get. I’m hoping for some deeper reasoning here, but given her personality, I don’t think we’re going to get anything deeper than the thickness of a piece of paper.
As far as Riko goes, she has a light tsundere personality. She doesn’t like Otakura, but after he helped with her makeover, she tries to warm up to him, but it’s obvious that she’s digging really deep to admit that she was wrong. Then, when he goes and does something, she scolds him in typical tsundere fashion while running away, blushing like crazy. We know that once her walls crumble, she’ll just become another friend to him, or maybe she’ll remain a tsundere? Too early to tell, but I found her more interesting and cuter than Yua… despite her also falling to the Gen Z speak plague.
Final Thoughts
So, as I mentioned a couple of times in the Characters section, I’m not a fan of Gen Z speak. I thought it would have been limited to just Yua, which would have given her a unique dynamic, but then everyone else in the manga that wasn’t Otakura was using the same slang. Sorry, but that’s a bit too much for my liking. I get that you’d want to appeal to the current generation, which is at the perfect age right now for anime and manga when it’s becoming so mainstream, but this was a bit too much. Every line of dialogue was very cringy and hard to read. It also made it difficult to take any of the characters seriously.
You know how, when adults try to use current slang in an attempt to sound cool, but just come off as embarrassing? That’s pretty much the entire vibe this series gives off with its dialogue.
So, why am I going to continue reading it? Because despite the terrible dialogue, the premise itself is actually quite good… even though it does feel like the Dollar General version of My Dress-Up Darling. Yua is a bit energetic, but you can tell that there’s something more with her and Otakura. Otakura may be an Otaku, but he’s not super over-the-top with it, which makes him endearing and tolerable. Riko is adorable as a tsundere, which can easily make her the best girl in this series.
But it’s painfully obvious that the ship here is Yua x Otakura, so it’ll be nice to see how things evolve. I’m hoping that the time they spend together goes beyond playing dress-up and cosmetics. I would love to see Otakura try to bring Yua into his world, and maybe take Riko along for the ride. There needs to be more than just Yua using him for personal glorification; the series will just remain one-dimensional with that My Dress-Up Darling comparison looming over it like the Damocles Sword. Still, it’s off to a decent start, and it’s decent enough to make me want to keep reading, so that’s a win in my book.
No cap!
You can also check out other Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theouterhaven.net
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was purchased for review
