Kakunaru Ue wa

Meet Yuuki Uehara, a nerdy high schooler who's poured his heart into crafting the perfect romantic comedy manga — bashful heroine, sweet misunderstandings, the whole deal. Then an editor at his dream publisher tells him it's generic and lacks any real emotional weight. Rough day. Turns out his classmate Niina Miyamoto, who's basically his opposite — outgoing, popular, ridiculously pretty — got the exact same feedback on her own manga. Her solution? They fake-date each other so they can both experience actual romance and use it as material for their stories. What follows is two aspiring manga artists awkwardly stumbling through manufactured romantic scenarios, each trying to take mental notes while pretending to be a couple. The comedy comes from how neither of them really knows what they're doing, both as romantic partners and as creators, and their contrasting personalities make every interaction feel genuinely funny rather than forced. If you liked the creative process stuff in Bakuman but want something lighter and more rom-com focused, this scratches that itch. And if Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun was your thing — artists hilariously misreading romance while being oblivious to the real thing happening around them — you'll feel right at home here. It's a seinen adaptation from studio ROLL2, so expect the humor to lean a bit more mature than your typical school romance. The fake-relationship setup is well-worn territory, but filtering it through two manga nerds trying to research love gives it a fresh angle.