Girlfriend, Girlfriend

Girlfriend, Girlfriend (カノジョも彼女), also known as KanoKano (カノかの) for short, is a Japanese romantic comedy manga series written and illustrated by Hiroyuki. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine from March 2020 to May 2023, with its chapters collected in sixteen volumes. The series focuses on a high school student who engages in a polyamorous relationship with his childhood friend and another girl who confessed her feelings for him.

An anime television series adaptation, produced by Tezuka Productions, aired from July to September 2021 on the Animeism programming block. A second season, produced by SynergySP, aired from October to December 2023.

Plot

Naoya Mukai is a high school student who has recently begun dating his childhood friend Saki Saki. One day, another classmate of his named Nagisa Minase, who is in love with him, decides to confess her feelings to him. Initially, Naoya was not going to date Nagisa, but after some initial hesitation, he eventually accepts her request to be her boyfriend if Saki agrees. Naoya decides that he will have both Saki and Nagisa as girlfriends at the same time.

As Naoya currently lives alone due to his parents living elsewhere for work, Saki and Nagisa decide to live with him. The series follows their daily school life, as Naoya, Saki, and Nagisa experience difficulties and challenges in maintaining their non-monogamous relationship, which is only worsened by the arrival of Rika Hoshizaki, whose extreme obsession of Naoya constantly terrifies him. Before long, another girl named Shino Kiryū also gets involved as she too has unrequited feelings for Naoya.

Characters

• Naoya Mukai (向井 直也)
• Naoya is Saki's childhood friend. He confessed to her every month until she accepted, but also agrees to take Nagisa as a girlfriend as well as he found her to be cute, even though he initially did not like her in a romantic way. He is an only child; as such, he hopes to have a girlfriend who has siblings. While he loves Saki and Nagisa, he shows no romantic feelings for Shino and Rika at all, but reluctantly accepts Shino as his third girlfriend for Saki's sake, even though he does not want to. Rika on the other hand is given a challenge to win over Naoya before a deadline, or else she will have to stop trying.
• Saki Saki (佐木 咲)
• Naoya's childhood friend and first girlfriend. She shares a first and last name as her parents thought such a name would be cute. While initially not romantically interested in Naoya and constantly rejecting him every month, she eventually accepts and starts to genuinely fall in love with him. She has a complex about her small chest, especially when compared to Nagisa. Although cheerful and kind, she is very hot-tempered and has a tendency to be violent and aggressive, even towards Naoya. She is a member of their school's basketball club.
• Nagisa Minase (水瀬 渚)
• A classmate of Naoya, who becomes his second girlfriend after confessing to him. She was previously a shy girl who felt that she was not good at anything, then fell in love with Naoya as he inspired her to pursue skills that she was good at. Naoya initially did not like her at all and rejected her on the spot, but once she finally proved herself to him, he realized he is in love with her as well and accepts her alongside Saki.
• Rika Hoshizaki (星崎 理香)
• A schoolmate of Naoya. She is secretly a popular vlogger who goes by the online alias Milika (ミリカ). She becomes extremely obsessed with Naoya, and desperately wants to be his third girlfriend, going as far as stalking him and his girlfriends, camping outside his house to get his attention, as well as nearly raping him against his will. Her obsession with him slowly takes a toll on her sanity, which makes the group even more terrified of her. Despite this, Naoya constantly rejects her, since he has no romantic feelings for her at all, and often tends to stay away from her out of fear. In spite of this, she eventually becomes a part of the group, but it is only so she can be given a chance to make Naoya fall in love with him before the end of the year or else she will have to leave him alone for good.
• Shino Kiryū (桐生 紫乃)
• Saki's best friend and classmate who comes from a rich family. She is at the top of their class academically. She discovers Naoya's romantic arrangement with Saki and Nagisa and she disapproves of it. It is later revealed she is secretly in love with Naoya as well, although he does not show any romantic feelings for her at all. Eventually, he does accept Shino as his third girlfriend, but he only does it for Saki's sake, and not because he actually loves her.
• Mr. Hoshizaki (ミリカ父)
• Rika and Risa's father.
• Risa Hoshizaki (星崎 理沙)
• Rika's younger sister.

Production

Girlfriend, Girlfriend is based on Seiseidōdō, Futamata-suru Hanashi (正々堂々、二股する話, "A Story of Two-timing but Fair and Square"), which Hiroyuki had uploaded on Twitter[12] and later published in Comiket 86 in August 2019.[13][14]

Media

External links