Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! #2

Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! (Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!) began as a series of short, comedic manga chapters written and illustrated by Syundei, first serialized in the magazine Opera starting in 2014. The series follows the high-schooler Okuto Nakamura, a painfully shy boy navigating a crush on his classmate Hirose. The second volume collects subsequent chapters that expand on Nakamura’s elaborate, often futile, attempts to bridge the social gap between himself and his object of affection.

Syundei’s design for the series is marked by a clean, minimalist aesthetic that leans into the expressive, awkward energy of the shonen-ai genre. By focusing on the internal monologue and the slapstick nature of unrequited love, the work garnered a dedicated following for its gentle humor and character-driven narrative. The publication of the second volume served to solidify the series as a staple in the queer manga landscape, praised for its sincerity and for avoiding the more heavy-handed tropes typical of its contemporaries.