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A slice-of-life comedy
Our shy lead 中村 (なかむら) is hopelessly in love with classmate 広瀬 (ひろせ), but just can't seem to confess his feelings! Or make that first step to be friends!
ガンバレ！中村くん！！ follows an episodic format following the daily school life of our two boys, 中村 and 広瀬, and 中村 mustering up all his willpower to get closer to the boy he likes. 中村's reserved, shy, and an octopus fanatic, while 広瀬 is the popular social boy of the class, making for a good dynamic between the two of them. The art style has an older vibe to it (especially 中村’s hair) that worked well, I thought, and each chapter is generally pretty snappy.
Unfortunately, due to this originally being conceived as a one-off side-project by the author, there's no real follow through in any of the side characters we're introduced to, or any real character development up until the very end. The book is cute, but for those wanting more, you'll probably want find something else.
There's only minimal furigana, mostly for names, but the vocabulary and grammar stay pretty simple (maybe around N3 for grammar, and a focus on school words for the vocab). The toughest part for readers will likely be the high school boy slang tossed around, though it's not too bad when all is said and done.