Title: Akira Failing in Love Vol. 1
Author: Shinta Harekawa
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Physical
Pages: 211
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: March 10, 2026
The Story
Here, we have the story of two characters… a boy named Hajime, and a girl named Akira. They went to middle school together; however, Akira ended up moving away. Now a first year in high school, and because talk of artificial insemination in fish has resurfaced, Spring has arrived… and that meant that Akira moved back to town and is now Hajime’s classmate! Hajime instantly blushes; however, he realizes that someone as perfect as her is out of his league, but part of him wonders if she remembers him.
Then, suddenly, she begins to talk to him… or at least she attempts to. Every time that she does, she fails miserably because she has a huge crush on him, but Hajime is way too dense to realize it. Akira is also way too scared to even talk to him, so she has to rely on scripts that she comes up with to try and do simple things like… ask him what his favorite food is, or do something to initiate physical contact. Even though she puts her heart into every attempt, it never succeeds, and this causes Hajime to get the wrong idea every time.
This brings us to sports day. Akira is absolutely terrible at sports, while Hajime is a prodigy who can break every school record, but he never participates in sports because he hates pain. Despite that, he pushes himself beyond his mental limits in an attempt to impress Akira, but he ends up getting severely injured. Feeling terrible for him, Akira visits him in the nurse’s office, but after she leaves, could Hajime be realizing that maybe she’s not out of his league after all?
Characters
First up, we have Hajime Kugayama. The kid is a dunce through and through as he took five exams and mustered an entire single point between them all. He’s super athletic and an actual prodigy when it comes to sports, but he’ll never play because he hates the idea of getting hurt. On top of that, he’s the type of person to rush headfirst into anything without thinking, which adds to his overall stupidity. This also causes him to be loud, obnoxious, and yet, overly apologetic whenever he thinks that Akira hates him and runs away. If this ever got a TV anime adaptation, I know that this would be one of those over-the-top comedies where yelling and screaming your lines every five seconds would be the show’s attempt at comedy, and I would probably drop it after the first episode. Here in black and white form, though… It’s silent… calm… and bearable, although I think Hajime is still way too over-the-top as a character for my liking.
Next, we have Akira Momose, who has a huge crush on Hajime, and it was revealed that this crush went all the way back to when they were in middle school together… or so that’s what Hajime thinks. She revealed to him that she went to a completely different school, but they had the same route home, which is why they always saw one another. Since Akira never talked to him, he never knew that and just assumed she was in a different class at his school. Not being able to talk to him is her main quirk for this series, so she relies on scripts to help her through any conversation that she tries to have. While she’s absolutely terrible at sports, she’s a prodigy when it comes to academics, making this your classic opposites-attract type of romance story.
Next, we have Rendaiji, Hajime’s friend… who is kind of a jerk to him. At first, I thought that he was just a fellow classmate who wanted nothing to do with Hajime’s problems, but it turns out that they’re actually friends. You don’t truly understand this until he asks Hajime if he wants to go play video games together with him. The rest of the time, he’s verbally smacking him around (subtly). For example, when Hajime says, “I’m on the brink of a bittersweet experience of youth,” he replies with “and I’m past the brink of not being interested.” Then, there was the time he admitted that in middle school, all the kids referred to Hajime as “Bullet Train Bob,” because he would rush into things. When Hajime protested that Rendaiji never told him, his response was “Yeah, well..” while sucking juice out of a box through a straw. That’s the kind of person he is… and I love it. So far, he’s provided the best comedy out of anyone in the series thus far.
Finally, we have Tsumugu Kintetsu and Meimei Onimai. Nothing to write home about here as they’re just friends of Akira’s. They do act as her cheerleaders, though, when they find out that she has a crush, but they don’t get directly involved. The most involvement they had in this first volume was explaining to Hajime why her cookies tasted horrible. I’ll leave you to discover why for yourselves.
Final Thoughts
There are a few things I could say about this first volume. The first is that I’m glad that this didn’t fall into the pitfall of overusing the same joke over and over again, although it did start that way. For the first few chapters, it was the same running gag of Akira trying to follow a script only to fail miserably. Then, once it got past that, it settled into a much better pace where that joke was slowly phased out or made less apparent. I guess, a better way to say it is that it felt less episodic and more like a cohesive and connected story. I believe the mangaka was a bit self-aware of this because every chapter began with a joke about how Hajime knew that spring had arrived, and while that joke became a mainstay at the start of every chapter, it was switched up to where it seemed like the joke was aware it was being made too much, and tried to switch it up… and it worked. Instead of rolling my eyes and saying “I don’t need another reminder that it’s Spring,” I actually looked forward to it because the reasons became more and more bizarre!
As I mentioned earlier, this manga is pretty blatant as to what kind of anime it would be should it get adapted, which means that I would definitely pass on watching this. I can’t stand over-the-top comedy with characters screaming and overreacting every five seconds, and judging from the artwork here, that’s exactly how Hajime is portrayed, but since this is in silent black and white still images, it’s tolerable, but it makes me dislike him as a main character. I get it… and I understand him as a character… but his reactions and just overall brainless solutions to imaginary problems just make him very unlikeable. I’m more of a fan of Rendaiji than Hajime. Akira is slightly cute, but because of Hajime, I can’t root for her happiness here. It’s going to take a huge character shift in Hajime for me to truly accept him as someone Akira should end up with, but… It’s not like there’s much of a choice here for her.
With that, I’d say this manga is off to a decent start, and it does make me want to read more, but this is also the type of story that’s not going to make me jump with excitement when a new volume comes out. It’s fine for what it is, so we’ll see if this series can surprise me later on, or if it will just stay the course and ride this gimmick out until the end.
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 provided for review by VIZ Media.
