Wakaba is cocky, condescending, foul-mouthed, and absolutely in love with her childhood friend, Daiki. For as long as they've known each other, Wakaba has been the very image of a roughhousing tomboy, but all that's about to change. When she shows up in front of him, wearing a cutesy, feminine outfit, will she get the hopeless late bloomer's heart racing? When you can't put your feelings into words, an image change might just be the right gambit!

Wakaba Won’t Give Up! has story and art by Konkichi. English translation is done by Tristan K. Hill. Lettering is done by Ludwig Sacramento. Published by Seven Seas (September 23, 2025). Rated T.

Lucas Deruyter
Rating:

I think I dated too much in high school to click with Wakaba Won’t Give Up!, a teenage romantic comedy where the central tension arises from the lead, Wakaba, feeling the need to present as a tomboy to her childhood friend and crush Daiki while actually presenting as more feminine in her other relationships. After reading this first volume, I'm not entirely sure why she feels like she has to hide this part of herself from him! I understand that they're going to different high schools and that this part of Wakaba developed outside of her relationship with him, but it doesn't feel like Daiki would end their friendship because of this!! If anything, I think Daiki seeing Wakaba as more feminine would make it easier for her to achieve her goal of entering into a romantic relationship with him!!!

Maybe I'm not meeting this material where it's at, but I find tension derived from miscommunications or characters getting in their own way incredibly frustrating in fiction. Even if Wakaba Won’t Give Up! does have a cast of dumbass teenagers who are prone to making their lives more difficult thanks to their own insecurity or limited life experience, I got my fill of these kinds of self-sabotaging romantic prospects back in high school with my own friend group. Though the main characters and supporting cast feel more like what the author, Konkichi, thinks teenagers today are like, instead of being grounded in actual interactions with them. Supporting characters feel archetypal: one of Daiki's friends is a gloomy gamer boy who's big into VTbubers, and one of Wakaba's friends has a personality that can only be described as vapid. The translation doesn't help much in addressing this issue either, as it vaguely attempts to capture youth speak but ends up inserting expressions like “dude” and “OMG” into awkward parts of sentences.

To the credit of Wakaba Won’t Give Up!, there are some funny and cute moments rooted in people navigating a budding relationship for the first time. A standout gag involves Daiki loaning Wakaba a sweatshirt on a rainy day and later becoming smitten with this impromptu “boyfriend hoodie” while back in her room. When she returns this shirt to him, he's turned on when he notices that she washed it and that it smells like her now, only for Wakaba to be sad to leave their apartment during the exchange, and Daiki realizes that he smells the same because of the fabric softener their family uses.

Not every joke lands, though. One chapter has an extended sequence where Wakaba kind of obsesses over whether or not Daiki watches porn while Daiki and his friends figure out the best ways to hide that they watch porn on their phones, and the whole plotline feels uninspired and derived from the stereotype that teenagers are obsessed with pornography. My sentiment towards that storyline also sums up my feelings towards this first volume of Wakaba Won’t Give Up!; in that, even if it can wring out a few laughs, it doesn't understand teenagers or teenage relationships well enough to offer greater insight or entertainment.

Bolts
Rating:

Have you ever read a romantic comedy that has just a little bit of everything? We have the childhood friend that keeps a secret, we have the nosy best friends that stalk our leads, we've got the jealous best friend who desperately wants a girlfriend, there's gap moe, and when you put that all together, what do you get? A pretty fun albeit extremely bland series.

I legitimately sat here for ten minutes trying to find the most memorable thing about this story, and I cannot for the life of me come up with anything. The art is very pretty, and the girls have this distinct gradient over them that helps them stand out. The story seems to be going for highlighting the glamour and feminine elements of the girls to contrast with our main lead's more tomboy personality, which they show off to their childhood friend. The gap between them, being a tomboy and being more girly, is where a lot of the romantic tension between our two leads comes from. I do like how the male lead seems genuinely flustered and interested in his childhood friend, but it just doesn't go anywhere, and unlike other stories, there's not really a pretense for why he doesn't speak up on it more.

There is a little bit of teasing here from our female lead, but the only real source of drama is that you get the sense she wants to be seen as more of a girl to him, even though she's usually girly amongst her friends. This is established in the first chapter, but it doesn't go anywhere after that. Most of the volume meanders all over the place, but there isn't really a single theme or idea that carries over from chapter to chapter. This feels like a story that isn't trying to be a master of anything but instead acts as a perfect blend or mishmash of various tropes. The result is something that feels like eating a rice cracker. I'm definitely eating something, but don't even try to ask me what it tastes like because I probably would not be able to answer.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Tomo-chan Is a Girl! was an entertaining anime from 2023 that I thoroughly enjoyed. It had a cute central couple and a wonderful supporting cast of weirdos. Wakaba Won’t Give Up! is a decidedly inferior version of the same story. Although it's meant to be a romantic comedy, I don't think it made me crack a smile once from beginning to end, and even now, I'm struggling to recall anything memorable about it.

Much like Tomo-chan, the idea here is that we have a central couple – Daiki, who is a fairly average teenage boy, and Wakaba, his childhood friend who has always been tomboyish. Now that she's no longer a little kid and has presumably developed curves in all the right places, she looks shockingly different when she chooses to wear more stereotypically feminine clothing, enough to make Daiki frantically attempt not to recontextualize their relationship. Both clearly like each other more than friends now, but for reasons struggle to progress to romance.

I do like the art style a lot, which is about the one positive thing I can say about this otherwise completely unremarkable manga. There are some fairly fun female friend characters, but they're not as unhinged as Tomo-chan's Misuzu or Carol. In a world where Tomo-chan already exists, I'm unsure what the point of this carbon copy is, when it isn't anywhere near as amusing as the original. I guess Tomo-chan fans who miss that series might get something out of this weak carbon copy, but I can't imagine expending any further energy on something so forgettable.