Nakamura is a very shy, and very gay, high school boy who loves octopuses and who would love to finally find the courage to speak to his crush, fellow classmate Hirose. But Nakamura’s life is rather silly and it seems like something always comes up at exactly the wrong time! Go for it, Nakamura! We’re all rooting for you!
Go for it, Nakamura! is a fairly simple, straight-forward story populated by fun characters, an eye-catching retro art style, and mostly demure octopi. Nakamura himself is a pretty simple high school boy and, while the first few chapters lead me to fear that he would never talk to Hirose, Nakamura does make progress in getting closer to both Hirose and some of his other classmates.
My favorite relationship is the accidental “bond” between Nakamura and one of his female classmates after she mistakes him for a fellow BL fan when really Nakamura was just very excited over her drawing of Hirose. Go for it, Nakamura! is good about using “gay situations” as the set-up for a joke but not as the joke itself; one of the most memorable gags in the entire volume is when Nakamura meets Hirose’s older sister, who looks just like him, is smitten, and Nakamura spends the rest of the chapter thinking “maybe I’m bi?” It’s immediately clear what’s really going on to the reader but this light touch makes the reader giggle at Nakamura for being a lovesick high school boy who happens to be gay, not the other way around. The US manga market has gotten better at licensing a wider range of series with LGTBQ+ characters in them, but even among these newer titles, this ranks high in my list of favorites.
In addition to standing out in the crowd of BL manga by featuring a protagonist who confidently and immediately identifies himself as gay to the reader, Go for it, Nakamura! also stands out with its fun, retro-inspired art style. The art style does actually shift subtly through the volume (something I would have never noticed if not for the author’s note) due to the unusually long amount of time the volume was serialized over, but the basic designs stay consistent and it’s a fun change compared to the other art styles you’re most likely to see in a BL manga from 2017.
My only real complaint, besides a small quibble that the pacing takes a little time to find its footing (and learning that this story was infrequently serialized over the course of two years explains that) is that it’s over! Manga-ka Syundei doesn’t 100% rule out the possibility of a sequel but at the moment Go for it, Nakamura! is a one and done manga series. Obviously I would love to see more of Nakamura’s life and antics but I would also love to see more from Syundei! Although it appears that most of their other works are also short series and that most of them are more sexual in nature (also that nearly every other leading couple in their other series look like Nakamura and Hirose which I find amusing) so if this is the only work of Syundei’s that gets brought over for a long time I’m glad it was Nakamura!