Quick Answer
Yes, if you want a fake-dating rom-com with a genuine hook: both leads are mining the relationship for their own manga. It's early in its run, so don't expect the whole arc to be resolved yet.
Quick Verdict
“Uehara and Niina are both terrible at romance and terrible at writing it, and watching them fake their way through both at once is the actual joke.”
Best for: Readers who want a fake-dating rom-com with a meta, behind-the-scenes twist on how the genre gets made.
Not for: Readers who want a large supporting cast or real suspense about where the couple ends up.
| Quick facts | |
|---|---|
| Format | Manga, 7 volumes |
| Run | 2023–present · ongoing |
| Community score | AniList 7.4 · MangaUpdates 6.4 |
| Where to read | Seven Seas Entertainment — official |
Uehara Yuuki has one dream: get his shoujo-style romance manga published. His editor shoots it down as fake and lifeless, since Uehara has zero actual romantic experience to draw from. Enter Miyamoto Niina, his popular, outgoing classmate and a fellow aspiring manga artist who just got the same note on her own submission. Her solution: the two of them fake-date, purely for research purposes, so they'll both have something real to put on the page. Neither of them expects the fake part to get complicated.
The central hook gives the fake-dating trope a reason to exist beyond convenience. Because Uehara and Niina are both drawing on their staged relationship for their own manga, the story gets to be funny about the gap between what they're performing for each other and what they're actually writing down afterward, and that meta layer keeps the premise from feeling like a rerun of a familiar shoujo setup.
Niina in particular avoids the trap of being "the perfect heroine" Uehara wrote into his own failed manga. She's messy, competitive about her own art, and just as inexperienced and awkward as he is, which undercuts the fantasy both characters are chasing in a way that's funnier than it is mean.
The manga-about-making-manga angle also gives the comedy a second engine. Jokes come from both the fumbling fake relationship and from watching two teenage artists get real, unglamorous feedback on their work, and the book is willing to let both leads be bad at their craft before they get better at it.
The fake-relationship setup runs on a familiar clock: readers know where the "fake" part is headed long before the characters catch up, so the tension depends more on execution and specific jokes than on any real suspense about the outcome.
Some of the side cast, especially other students and editors orbiting the leads, exist mostly to react to Uehara and Niina rather than carry their own material, so the world outside the central pair can feel thin in early volumes.
This is a fake-dating rom-com that earns its charm by being honest about how bad both leads are at romance and at manga-making, and by finding real jokes in that overlap instead of just running the trope on autopilot. It's still early in its run, but the meta hook of two artists mining their fake relationship for material gives it more personality than the premise alone would suggest.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Another rom-com built entirely around a fake relationship, for readers who want to stay right in that specific trope.
A different flavor of comedy about two people who are bad at being honest about their feelings.
Another high-school comedy about two awkward people slowly figuring out how to actually connect.
| Platform | Format | Pricing | Region notes | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seven Seas Entertainment | Print & digital volumes | Paid | Region availability varies | Open |
No, it's still ongoing, with new volumes releasing regularly from Seven Seas.
An anime adaptation has been announced but hadn't aired as of this review, so the manga is currently the only way to follow the story.
Yes, their competing manuscripts and editor feedback are woven into the romance plot rather than being background noise.
