Akira Failing in Love, Vol. 1 by Shinta Harekawa: Adorkable to the nth Degree

Akira Failing in Love, Vol. 1

by Shinta Harekawa, translated by John Werry

DETAILS:
Series: Akira Failing in Love, #1
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Publication Date: March 10, 2026
Format: Paperback
Length: 216 pg.
Read Date: September 19, 2026

What’s Akira Failing in Love, Vol. 1 About?

Years after they used to walk home from school together, Akira, moves back to the area for high school. Not only does she have plenty of academic goals—she has a detailed plan to get Hajime to fall for her. Sadly, she’s fairly incapable of carrying off any of her goals related to him (to comic effect).

Hajime has been carrying a torch for her for at least as long, and can’t believe she’s back in the same town—and the same school. He can’t figure out why she can’t stand him, but is always looking for ways to impress her, which work about as well as her attempts.

Cute episode after cute episode…the two spend most of the 200ish pages utterly misunderstanding each other and falling more deeply in like for each other. And getting the readers falling deeper in like with them both.

Why did I pick this up? Why did I keep reading?

picked this up because of the Firsty Duelist’s review. It sounded fun.

I stuck with it because it was almost insufferably cute, I really enjoyed watching the repeated mutual blunders—and their strange persistence—through it all.

What did I think about the art?

It looks like what you expect a manga to look like—some incredibly goofy panels, the occasional overly emotive panel—and a few where the characters look very glamorous. The rest? Nice and straightforward.

I want to say that it’s exactly what I expect to see in a manga, but that sounds like I’m stereotyping. It’s exactly what I hope to see in a manga—particularly one that doesn’t feature fighting or robots of any size.

So, what did I think about Akira Failing in Love, Vol. 1?

This is just as charming as you’d want. Firsty talked a lot about adorkable in his post, and it’s fitting.

Actually, you really should just go read his post, he does a better job of talking about this than I am.

This is a low-stakes, high-entertainment, rom-com. Think something starring Michael Cera from 2007/2008 with a less-confident version of Kaitlyn Dever’s character in Booksmart. (just before I hit “publish” I realized they could be awkward high school versions of Brooklyn 99‘s Jake and Amy)

I appreciate the way that Akira’s anxiety is played for laughs—and treated with sensitivity. On the one hand, it drives her toward excellence in every field—which works in academics, does pretty well in athletics, and is a near-total failure in her personal life. It’d have been easy to leave her as a joke, but

The one false note—to me—is that on page 202 Hajime asks himself, “Could it be that I have a crush on [her]?” It’s one thing for him to misinterpret almost everything she says and does—because she’s so adorably inept at it, and he’s even more blind about it. You’d think it’d get old, but somehow it doesn’t. Hopefully somewhere in the next volume or two, they get past this stage and onto some other sort of interaction—but I can probably handle this for at least one more volume. Possibly two.

Regardless—I can definitely tell you to pick this up if you’re in the mood for a quick read that will elicit an “awwww” or two.

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