3 stars

This really hurt my heart especially with the unrequited love trope and the story line is a bit confusing as well. However, the art style is cute!

It was tough for me to really connect with the characters—they felt kinda shallow and unpredictable. The story didn't flow smoothly, and there were moments when it felt like it didn't quite come together. On the bright side, though, I did appreciate the art style. I believe there was great potential for a cute story about teenagers and their high school dramas, but it ended up feeling a bit too surface-level and hard to follow.

Designs: so cute!
The protagonist is also approved: an ordinary girl, but extroverted. I believe that over time she will become more self-aware and she will give us surprises.
The character that intrigued me the most is Asa-chan, I hope we can get to know him better.

P.S. I can't wait to read the new chapters and find out how the events will evolve!

“I see your Face, turned away 1” is a manga about navigating high school friendships, unrequited crushes and the emotions involved in those situations. There were some issues with the text/translation, but the art style was beautiful. It was a fun read, however sometimes the story line dragged on a bit with unnecessary scenes that didn't add that much to the overall story.

This is super cute and frustrating. She's happy helping her friend get together with a guy who likes her friend but she has a crush on that guy. The two of them are super cute together. Can't wait to see where this story goes.

Intrigue has been built. Unrequited love in a friend group. How can this go without someone being hurt…
However i think there are some issues with the translation and it should be edited over. I feel like the characters are a little dull, but there is four to focus on which can be difficult in such short pages so maybe with the upcoming volumes it will be better. Although i doubt I’ll read them

This was a very cute manga to read! I enjoyed it from start to finish. Can't wait to read the rest of the novels in this series!

Thank you NetGalley and Kodansha Comics, for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review! All thoughts are my own and left voluntarily.

One might call Hikari extraordinarily ordinary. One day, she takes up a new hobby--imagining what a romance would be like between her pretty friend Mari and the cute guy in their class, Ohtani. It's all in harmless fun, until the roles start to get tangled in Hikari's mind. Does she really have to be just the best friend in this love story? And just who is on Ohtani's mind when his eyes drift away...?

Now, blurb sounded interesting enough and I saw couple reviews that gave me an idea that I would probably enjoy it. But, alas, I was not one of those readers. For the life of me, I could not be interested in this story. Aside from the cute art and switching pov, this manga felt bit all over the place. Jokes didn't land with me, some scenes were unnecessary and some text was repeated? Either misprint or I really just didn't get the idea behind it. Vibe was there, potential was there but well.. I guess this was not for me.

If you like short story about seemingly ordinary life around high schoolers - this is for you!

1.5 because I did like art.

Thank you to Kodansha Comics for the earc.
This was such a cute first volume, i love the author's artstyle and I really liked Mori as a main character, she's a really fun MC, I really curious about the other characters too and how it will all continue, i can't wait to read more volumes of this manga.
I will definitely continue this series.

This is volume one of a high school based Manga where the main character sees herself as completely average, and is trying to help her friend be more outgoing and fall in love.

It's cute thus far, a little predictable but fun nonetheless.

What a wonderful manga! The story of high school friendships and crushes, often unrequited, and the ways to navigate this emotions. A very relatable and cute story. The characters are so enjoyable and the art is lovely. I can't wait for volume 2!

I See Your Face Turned Away is the first volume in this manga series. It focuses on Hikari who is an ordinary girl. She starts imagining her friend Mari and the cute boy in class, Ohtani, in a relationship together. When Ohtani starts wants to get closer to Mari, he becomes friends with Hikari. As they spend more time together, Hikari begins to develop feelings for him.

This manga was a sweet high school romance. It is leaning towards an unrequited love, but you never know what way it will go. Hikari is an interesting character. She seems so concerned about what others want that she doesn't tend to focus on herself. As she begins to think about what she wants, she realizes that she likes Ohtani and wishes that he woukd like her instead of Mari. Mari is very shy and hasn't had much development so far. Ohtani is a sweet character who I hope to learn more about as the manga progresses.

So this was fine! A little story of high schoolers and their unrequited crushes trying to overcome some social issues (talking to strangers, talking to your crush, etc). The art was pretty, but unfortunately Ohtani and Asa looked really similar so I kept getting them confused.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha for the eARC in exchange for review!

3 out of 5 Stars

It was okay, just not what I usually reach for in manga.

Thanks you Netgalley for this E-Arc

Loved this, It was almost nostalgic to me. Beautiful art, interesting story. Recommended to all manga readers.

Thank you Netgalley and the publication for letting me read the e-arc.
This manga consists of the unrequited love trope where Hikari who is friends with shy Mari-san and helps her to come out more.
She takes up a imagining her best-friend with a cute guy in their class, but somehow the roles get tangled up , she starts wishing for something more, i love how this manga shows us both Hikari and Ohtani both the povs.
i'm excited for the upcoming volumes.

I want to thank Netgalley for an advanced ARC of this manga

I read this excepting me to love it because of the description but I just didn't feel as invested into the characters as I wanted too. The story was interesting but I don't think I will continue on past this volume

I can't wait to read the continuation to this volume!! That's how good this was!!

We get introduced to the main characters in this volume, and follow closely two of them.

I really like the subtleties in Hikari's characterisation. And I'm curious to know more about Mari! Also Asagiri. I'm curious to know if the unrequited love will play how I first imagined, or if the plot will involve other people.

Hikari Mori, the main character of the story, is a teen girl who feels so insecure that she will always try to step aside and let someone else take an opportunity at happiness, even when she hasn't even checked in with that person if they even want what Hikari feels she doesn't deserve. At times, the boys try to include her only for her to politely refuse, suggesting any feelings of being trapped on the sidelines are mostly her own doing. She thinks of herself as just average and with no talent or passion to speak of, despite being a committed and skilled musician and always making her friends laugh.

Hikari treats herself as a side character in the life of her best friend, Mari, who is more conventionally beautiful than Hikari, but this misconception is not only sad but almost comically ridiculous. Mari is so painfully socially anxious that she can only speak to Hikari at school and would probably be a true loner without her, and from the Studio Ghibli comparisons she makes, it's clear that Mari thinks of her best friend as a real protagonist heroine type, someone so strong and brave and kind. I'm sure Mari would be sad to know what Hikari thinks of herself, and I feel bad for that Mari may wind up resented by Hikari as she selflessly tries to set Mari up with the boy she likes.

Ohtani, the male lead, is given his own personality: he is a class clown who does impressions of teachers and makes jokes that more often than not fall flat. He is more than just kind, though he is kind, too. His best friend is the most popular boy in the grade, Asagiri, which acts as a mirror to the dynamic Hikari believes she has with Mari. His infatuation with Mari is so adoring. The author can pull double duty by making the obstacle to Hikari's happy ending clear while also showing just how he'll shower her with affection if he were to start crushing on her.

While the plot of the story is Hikari wingmaning for Ohtani, the boy she likes who likes her best friend, the real central conflict in this story will be seeing her admit her own desires and finally go after them. The potential for character growth and the takeaway theme of the story is clearly established in this first volume.

However, I am rating it three stars because, although it was successful in executing this set up, it was overall pretty dull. It's possible the stakes of a high school romance on its own just doesn't move me, and if that's the problem, it's my fault for picking this book to review rather than anything wrong with the book. But the whole time, I felt like nothing is really happening. Nothing ever really happens. Now slow starts are normal in a lot of serial stories, I get that, but usually it's because the audience is still being introduced to the world, characters, and set up. The world has no hook to it; it's just a high school slice of life. The romantic rivalry and Hikari's self doubts are sufficiently explained by the halfway mark. Everything that happens after that is just kind of there, in my opinion. One would think the book would take that extra time, if it weren't going to progress with the plot, to further develop the other characters, and to an extent, it does, but I don't feel like I got enough out of Mari, Ohtani, or Asagiri to really justify all this space. And other small speaking roles aren’t even named, so the cast in this nondescript school feels even more economical and barren.

I'll give it this, though: the ambiguity of that ending…

The translation notes were a delightful addition. It was nice to have the pop culture references I didn’t get explained, and they are laid out with side-by-side visuals of the panels in question, so you don’t even have to refer back and try to figure out what a note is talking about. Since of Hikari’s main insecurities, her monolids, is such a repeated concern, it’s all the better that there is a note contextualizing the beauty standard for a foreign audience.

I did enjoy this manga. It was slow but I enjoyed the everyday lives of these people and the daydreams that came from it. What I found most interesting was how Mari was the center of most daydreams but no one every took her into account. I found the idea interesting-- is it okay to daydream about someone or is it not?