The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, shortened as KiniOto and more popularly known as The Green Yuri due to its distinct green accent color, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Sumiko Arai. Originating as a short story posted on Arai's Twitter account from July to September 2021, the series started its current weekly run on the platform in April 2022, before being serialized on Pixiv Comic in April 2023. Kadokawa Shoten published the series in print in the same month, with its chapters collected in three tankōbon volumes as of February 2025. An anime adaptation has been announced.
The series has been a critical and commercial success, with critics praising the story, artwork, and characters. It won the 2023 Next Manga Award in the web manga category.
Aya Oosawa has developed a crush on the clerk of the record store she frequents as they share their love for rock music. Unbeknownst to her, the store clerk is her female classmate Mitsuki Koga. The story follows the budding relationship between Aya and Mitsuki as they experience life within and beyond high school with their friends, while finding out how much they mean to each other.
In an interview with Shuko Yokoi, Sumiko Arai shared that the concept of The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All originated from her being drawn to stories about individuals from differing backgrounds connecting and wanting to tell a story about girls, so she drew short stories featuring no dialogue which were posted to Twitter, as Arai believed it could thus resonate with international readers. One of these short stories, uploaded between July and September 2021, served as the inspiration to the series.
Since Twitter only allows four images per Tweet, chapters of the series are limited to four pages. As a result, Aya and Mitsuki's interactions have to be depicted concisely. The series' editor commented that the character's faces are illustrated to be detailed enough to understand the story without the dialogue, which makes the series more accessible to Twitter users not from Japan. The yellow-green color which serves as an accent to the black-and-white illustrations was stated by Arai to be a late addition before the first chapter was uploaded.
Written and illustrated by Sumiko Arai, the series was uploaded on the author's Twitter account on April 10, 2022, where it began its weekly run. It later began serialization on Pixiv Comic on April 29, 2023. Kadokawa Shoten began publishing the series in print in the same month, with its chapters collected in three tankōbon volumes as of February 2025.
Arai announced on April 3, 2024, that the series is receiving an official English release alongside other international releases, with Yen Press later announcing on April 26 they licensed the series for English publication.
An anime adaptation was announced by Arai on her Twitter account and Kadokawa Shoten on February 20, 2025 to coincide the release of the third volume.
Apple Music and Spotify released an official playlist containing songs that Mitsuki and Aya listen throughout the series to coincide with the release of the first volume, featuring artists such as Nirvana, Turnstile, and Royal Blood, among others. The playlist is periodically updated after the release of a succeeding volume.
A pop-up store selling merchandise from the series was open in Ikebukuro from September 15–24 and in Nagoya from September 30 to October 9, 2023.
A drama CD adaptation was released on April 24, 2024.
The first volume sold 150,000 copies within a week of its release. By September 2023, the series had 200,000 copies in circulation.
The series won the 2023 Next Manga Award in the web manga category. The series ranked second on the 2023 "Book of the Year" list by Da Vinci magazine. The series ranked second on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2024 for female readers.
A columnist for Animate Times praised the artwork, particularly its use of color, and the story's progression. Momo Tachibana of Real Sound praised the main characters and their interactions, describing them as understandable. Erica Friedman felt the story was "not the first of it's [sic] kind" but that it handled its subject better than similar series. Friedman also praised the artwork and its use of black, white, and green.