Not So Shoujo Love Story Volume 1
Writer and Artist: Curryuku
Publisher: Viz (print), WEBTOON (digital)
Layouts & Lettering: Miranda Mundt
Art Assistants: Lavenderice, Smooth_Poser
Design: Michelle Lamb
Copy Editor: Elaine Ou
Editor: Julia Patrick
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
Rating: Teen
Genre: Graphic Novel, Romance, Comedy, Girls Love
Curryuku‘s Not So Shoujo Love Story is originally a vertical-scrolling comic published digitally on WEBTOON. With over 68 million views, 1 million followers on the platform, and a 2024 Ringo Award nomination for Best Humor Webcomic, no doubt it’s a fan favorite! Now, Viz is bringing the series to print, with the first volume to contain chapters 1-15. Here’s a spoiler-free look into the series!
Some say romantic stories are a harmful influence on impressionable young women, causing them to have unrealistic expectations of their partners. This is, of course, not the case, but Rei’s living the dream. The prince charming she’s been reading about in her beloved shojo manga does exist in real life, and he’s her schoolmate! True to his name, Hansum is good-looking, kind, caring, and popular. A bit all over the place, but so charming that no one bats an eye.
It’d complete the picture perfectly if Rei were heroine material. She’s blessed with height but comes short in the temper department, bearing close-cropped hair and a delinquent’s gaze. The only person deserving of the heroine crown is Hanna with her light blue eyes, flowy golden hair and pretty smile. Standing next to each other, she and Hansum seem like a match made in heaven—so why is Hanna constantly up in Rei’s business instead of living her happily ever after with the prince?
Curryuku’s Not So Shoujo Love Story is a comic brimming with energy and love for a demographic that’s been a defining and widely influential force to many of the contemporary manga we love today! Although shojo manga is, by definition, targeted towards young women, these works are read and celebrated by many people across different age groups or genders.
In online discussion spaces, the word “trope” has gained a negative connotation over time. Calling a series “tropey” now is synonymous with calling it “shallow” or “unoriginal”. Works in the romance genre are the targets of this criticism most of all. As a fervent supporter of tropes and someone who considers them nothing more than tools rather than a cheapening, easy way out, it’s always reassuring to read works that embrace, subvert and parody these genre tropes.
The moment you step into the world Curryuku created, you’re enveloped by that familiar feeling Rei’s also a big fan of. The falling cherry blossom petals, a new school year, a brand new page in a young woman’s life, promising new encounters and exciting events. It’s so familiar, but at the same time, it comes with a twist.
The series opens with a bang and keeps the energy going throughout the volume, save for one or two instances. The readers can look forward to lots of meme-able panels, school antics, petals that start falling or flowers blooming out of nowhere, and Hansum’s chin that no panel can contain! That chin is a free spirit, I tell you.
Miranda Mundt is credited for the layout of the print edition. Props to them for making Not So Shoujo Love Story a very comfortable read in the print format! Not only does the pacing and the placement look great, but some of the jokes land in the same way they do in the vertical format. I also fully support Curryuku and Miranda Mundt’s grand plan to make Hansum’s chin go across multiple pages!
What’s with this series and chins, you might ask. For the uninitiated, male character designs in the 1990s and early 2000s Boys’ Love manga have long, pointy or square chins to emphasize masculinity and sharp facial features. One known parody of these chins is Gakuen Handsome, a short anime adaptation of the game with same name that’s possibly poking fun at the Boys’ Love franchise Gakuen Heaven. Behold these chins in all their fame and glory! They can never hold a candle to Hansum’s though.
As is usually the case in high school comics, Rei starts this new chapter with expectations and dreams of her own—she will not settle for less. Hanna is fed up with being put on a pedestal solely because she’s traditionally beautiful. She’s yearning for a connection that can penetrate the surface-level attention others have been pouring over against her will. However, the extent of her conversation skills when she’s in front of her crush, Rei, retreats to elementary school levels. Rei isn’t doing any better than Hanna, and you know it’ll take some time before the two can see eye to eye. Meanwhile, Hansum is… mostly puzzling and weird. That’s your run-of-the-mill high school boy right there. Very in character of him. At least his chin has some tact. Very demure.
Not So Shoujo Love Story is not all sunshine, rainbows, and jokes that chronically online can appreciate, however. Growing up certainly comes with its own set of anxieties, hardships and heartbreaks. Curryuku doesn’t dismiss these fears or sweep them under the rug in favor of comedy or feel-good moments. Towards the end of the volume, the funny chases, over-the-top, scientifically unproven volleyball matches and gracefully failed attempts at flirting leave their places to more complicated matters at school regarding LGBTQ+ matters.
And this brings me to my only criticism. I found the volume to be unbalanced. The jokes, memes, and self-aware panels are laugh-out-loud funny by themselves. However, when every single panel is a joke without any breaks in between, it causes fatigue and the gags that we’re supposed to laugh at, that we know are funny, gradually start landing with less success over the course of the volume.
The same can be said about the points in the plot that the reader should care about. When there isn’t enough time to linger on a feeling or contemplate the events that just happened and the immersion is interrupted too soon with a gag, the heaviness or the implication of the scene is undermined by the joke. Rei’s heartfelt conversation with her dad is a part done right, for example. The talk was grounded, slow, sincere. The pace was eased into the hectic lives of teenagers instead of being immediately thrown into it. Breaks like this here and there would definitely elevate the reading experience.
This fast and dense pace is partly an inevitable outcome of the format shift and something I criticised before in gag manga snippets published on X (formerly Twitter) or Pixiv first, and are brought together for print. Online updates have at least one week between the chapters and give enough breathing room to readers. Publishing cadence itself determines the pace.
However, a volume is meant to be read as a whole. While Not So Shoujo Love Story‘s plot slowly makes itself apparent, bringing the story forward and leaving it at a sweet spot that leaves the readers wanting more, the pace that gets us there at the end of the volume is unstable.
Still, Curryuku’s enthusiasm, love for the genre and attention to detail shine through the pages! Not So Shoujo Love Story offers more than the slowly budding romance between Rei and Hanna. It has the potential to entice romance readers who don’t usually go for slow-burn romances, too.
I’d like to wrap up my review by adding that our main characters’ designs are lovable and cute. The rest of the cast constantly wear comedic expressions or are in whimsical situations, such as Hansum and his, you guessed it, shapeshifting chin or the villainous girl group Four-Am’s no-face faces. When the moment or the emotion calls for it, however, our main characters are quite expressive.
The print format has additional illustrations at the beginning of every chapter and a brand-new short story exclusive to this volume. Lots of perks for fans who have already read the VSC on WEBTOON! Viz recommends Not So Shoujo Love Story to readers who have enjoyed Komi Can’t Communicate, Ouran High School Host Club, and Kaguya-sama: Love Is War and anyone who’s up for going on a fun journey with these eccentric high schoolers!
Not So Shoujo Love Story Volume 1 will be available in print on May 13, 2025, on Viz Media’ website and other retailers.
