One Peace Books are picking up a variety of romance manga recently, the latest of which is the three-volume series The Delinquent Girl Beside Me Suddenly Dyed Her Hair Black. Does it prove an interesting read? Let’s find out!
Our story follows Daiki Honda, an average high schooler who lacks ambition and spends his days going through the motions. One day, he gets into a conversation with friend Shunya about the type of girl he finds attractive. The following day, Kei Shimizu, the girl who sits beside him, shows up with black hair and begins acting in ways that fit Honda’s ideal type but go against everything she’s done up until now.
Up until that day, Shimizu had blond hair and had a reputation as a delinquent. And no matter how many times the teachers lectured her about her hair, Shimizu refused to dye it black. And now she’s attending the cooking class she always skipped and acting like more of a model student. In art class, Shimizu and Honda are paired together, and slowly the pair begin to bond and spend more time together at school.
But there’s another reason Shimizu has started to interact with Honda more. Later in the book we learn that the two have met before in middle school, but because Shimizu dyed her hair blond for her high school debut, Honda never recognised her. But for Shimizu, their past meeting is a precious memory, and she’s been wondering how to become friends with him ever since.
This is based on an ongoing light novel series by author Teika, and perhaps due to it originally being a light novel, this first volume of manga is quite slow. It’s not helped by Honda being a very flat lead with very little in the way of personality besides being a ‘nice guy’. In the flashback to his first meeting with Shimizu, we get the impression that there’s a bit more to his current laid-back attitude. Shimizu is more interesting, but she kind of falls into that stereotypical bashful tsundere archetype a lot of the time.
And while that’s fine in a light novel where there’s considerably more time to elaborate on it, it doesn’t work for the manga. Particularly as the light novel is unlicensed, so you’re not drawing in readers who are already familiar with it. And while romance series aren’t in abundance quite the way, say, isekai titles are, there’s still a lot more of these on the market that have first volumes that readily hook you with their premise or quirky cast. And this doesn’t really do either. And given there’s only three volumes of this, I worry it won’t get anywhere in terms of developing the story or cast before it concludes.
That said, I do like the artwork by mangaka Sanada Waka. The characters are attractively drawn, and Waka captures the more comedic moments well. It doesn’t alleviate the overall generic feel of the work, but I do think it does its job well, especially given this appears to be Waka’s first serialisation. I think especially if you were someone who had already read the light novel, then you would enjoy watching the cast come to life in this more visual form. And really that’s the type of reader a lot of manga adaptations are trying to catch, but it doesn’t work as well in the West when the original isn’t available to transition from.
As mentioned, The Delinquent Girl Beside Me Suddenly Dyed Her Hair Black Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to One Peace Books and has been translated by Kenneth Cardoen, with no other credits (such as lettering) present. I feel the translation is a little stiff in places, which unfortunately does contribute to my impressions of Honda being bland. The release is fine otherwise, although there’s nothing to speak of in terms of extras.
With only three volumes to bring out, you’d hope this would be coming out at a reasonable pace. However, here in English we’ll be waiting until June 2027 for #2, and there’s no sign of #3 in the schedule at present. In the meantime perhaps someone will license the light novel…
Overall, The Delinquent Girl Beside Me Suddenly Dyed Her Hair Black Volume 1 isn’t bad, but it is very bland. Combined with a slow release pace, this feels like a series that will quickly be forgotten, which is a shame. Certainly one that would have benefitted more if we’d been able to read the original work first, I think.
Our review copy was supplied by the publisher, One Peace Books
© KADOKAWA CORPORATION / Waka Sanada / Teika / Hamu
Demelza
When she’s not watching anime, reading manga or reviewing, Demelza can generally be found exploring some kind of fantasy world and chasing her dreams of being a hero.
More posts from Demelza…
