謎の彼女Ｘ

NAZO NO KANOJO X

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
12
RELEASE
September 25, 2014
CHAPTERS
101

DESCRIPTION

Mikoto Urabe is a new transfer student in Akira Tsubaki’s high school class. One day, Akira happens to find Mikoto passed out asleep on her desk after classes have ended. He wakes her and tells her it’s time to go home, and discovers that she has drooled on her desk. He spontaneously reaches out to touch and taste it… and then things start getting really strange.

In this surprising and sweet twist on a high school romance story, boy meets girl and they learn about each other’s inner life through their highly unusual bond, and Akira learns to respect Mikoto as she sets a careful pace in the development of their relationship.

(Source: Kodansha USA)

Note: Includes the original one-shot and 8 extra chapters.

CAST

Mikoto Urabe
Akira Tsubaki
Ayuko Oka
Youko Tsubaki
Aika Hayakawa
Ryouko Suwano
Kouhei Ueno
Momoka Imai
Kenji Yamazaki
Matsuzawa
Nakajima
Ogata

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO NAZO NO KANOJO X

ANIME EcchiNazo no Kanojo X

Cover Art for Nazo no Kanojo X Nazo no Shousetsu-ban

NOVEL ComedyNazo no Kanojo X Nazo no Shousetsu-ban

REVIEWS

lewdneppasu
35/100
not worth it, tbh. do not waste your time on it.
i would say that this manga suffers from the "starts well, progresses very badly" syndrome. actually, this manga has very interesting points, but it has a lot of wasted potential thanks to its lack of explaining plot points. would anyone want a second season in the anime? this manga does not explain almost anything in its plot.

plot: a boy called akira tsubaki meets her new classmate, mikoto urabe. urabe is... a pretty peculiar girl; she sleeps on lunchtime, she's cold... she's different. also, she can cut things into lots of pieces with the scissors on her panties. one day, tsubaki needs to wake up urabe after class, and him, being the horny adolescent he is, he tastes her drool. yep. after it, he gets addicted to urabe's drool and finds out himself that he has feelings for her, so, they become boyfriends. it seems that urabe can express herself through drool, kinda like a psychic power. it is a bizarre plot, but you get used to it.

i'll say something; one positive thing about this manga would be how it expresses sexual feelings in a non-verbal way. i feel it does a good job in this aspect, but for me, it is the only detail in the manga that is enjoyable. i followed and finished the manga because it was really interesting to me what was going on, but at the end i was simply disappointed. there is almost no character development, the romantic couples are toxic, and there are a lot of unexplained things that leave the manga as a simple "nonsense".
ayuko oka, urabe's future friend and girlfriend of ueno (a friend of the protagonist), has the same drool ability as urabe: she can feel and express herself through drool. perhaps in any point in the manga do they explain why oka has this ability and why this drool ability exists? never. they never explain it. it justs exists. they also never explain why urabe can cut up anything into pieces with her scissors. it just exists in that world, and they never explain it. there are even scenes where tsubaki dreams of a strange steampunk world, and these dreams don't mean anything. they're just dreams. i didn't like this because i thought that his strange dreams were going to be an important plot point in the manga, but nothing. it just happens, they don't explain why he has them, and the supernatural context is just.... in there. they never explain the supernatural aspect in the manga. it just exists. and i find it disrespectful, because they could have written an elaborate plot about people having drool powers (and the people who can perceive them), they could have written something about urabe coming from some dream world, but nothing. there is nothing. the ending chapter only makes the manga worse, and i would say it's thanks to the lack of explanations. there is even a character who confesses to urabe in the beginning, and we don't see more of him. what the hell? besides, urabe in the first chapter laughs uncontrollably in the middle of the class, and we don't see a similar situation again later on. what was so funny, urabe?

the couples in there... hell, they're toxic. oka keeps threatening to break off the relationship she has with ueno if he starts doing something she doesn't like. that's not fair and it doesn't feel healthy. tsubaki sucks. he's urabe's boyfriend, but is shown to have interest in others when an ecchi moment happens. EVEN, urabe herself tries to do lewd acts secretly so that tsubaki himself will forget about that erotic moment that happened to him with another girl. urabe genuinely loves him, but tsubaki forgets that urabe is his girlfriend and sets eyes on other girls when he's in a lewd situation. bro, isn't that like, shitty? itself, the two aren't a super toxic couple, but there is a very ugly side on tsubaki's part.

for example, if one of urabe's love rivals makes tsubaki touch her own breasts, tsubaki will be embarrassed, but he will begin to feel horny and think it was pretty hot even though it was NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND WHO INCITED HIM. god.

aika hayakawa is a supporting character. i don't know how anyone does not hate her if she's an idiot. she's tsubaki's former romantic interest, only that tsubaki's love for her faded when she changed schools (in this case, she changed to an all-girls school). in one chapter, tsubaki meets her again, as she wants her to attend the school festival at her school. she makes a deal with him, as she has a boyfriend she wants to hide from since he will be attending the festival. it happens that this boyfriend broke up with her as she changed her own physique (she got a haircut), and he didn't like it at all, to the point of physically hurting her. so, hayakawa asks tsubaki to pretend to be her boyfriend. what's the bad thing?
hayakawa starts to make incitements to tsubaki about how now she wants to be her boyfriend just because he liked her in the past. tsubaki had even mentioned before that he has a girlfriend (urabe), but hayakawa is like "oh, excuse me, can you be my boyfriend? it's because my ex boyfriend doesn't like me, i don't care if you have a girlfriend, be my boyfriend, without pretending to be". bro? what the fuck?????

the worst is that, after a challenging scene between urabe and hayakawa (if i'm not mistaken i think that happened before what i'll say next), hayakawa's supposed ex-boyfriend/boyfriend/whatever, shows up saying "oh, you got yourself a new boyfriend? sorry, i really didn't mean to hurt your feelings, i never broke up with you, let's stay together". for fucks sake, that's gross. by far, hayakawa and her boyfriend are the most toxic couple in all the manga. i don't understand how she excuses a person who even physically hurt her, but okay.

it's worth noting that the only couple in the manga that is somewhat healthy is the one with suwano (girl secondary character, one of urabe's love rivals) and a photographer guy, but they make it too forced, since they literally know each other for like a few days and they are already boyfriend and girlfriend.

this manga tries to form... kinda of a harem, but it doesn't work. literally all of urabe's love rivals, who are interested in tsubaki, just tell him straight to his face without even knowing him very well "ah hello, i like you". why? it just makes it look forced and rushed.

this manga should have explained things well and it should have ended within a few chapters after the idol girl arc. the idol girl arc, where momoka is properly introduced (a girl very similar to urabe in physique), uh. i would say momoka's arc is the most enjoyable part of the manga, after this arc the manga just gets worse and stagnates. the only characters that evolve are urabe and tsubaki, tsubaki becoming a somewhat unfaithful boy to his girlfriend thanks to his indecent thoughts, and urabe becoming a bit more expressive.

tl;dr: not worth it, tbh. do not waste your time on it. it is literally "wasted potential: the manga".

edit: typos and grammar fixed english is not my first language sorry :(
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Nosavo
71/100
An strong comedic premise with a lack of confidence to take it anywhere.
This manga had an amazing premise and a lot of potential. The main character decides one day to lick the spit of a newly transferred classmate, and it causes an unnatural reaction from the main character. It is soon revealed that there is more to meets the eye when it comes to the girl's spit. In fact, her spit can cause the main character to share feelings, memories, and sensations when they eat each other's spit. I started this with very positive feelings toward the premise. It sounds weird, but I felt like a lot could be done with this premise, and towards the beginning, the story was definitely doing that. The characters were getting into unique situations and were sharing experiences only they could share, and I was enjoying the story. Around the halfway mark, the story started overstaying its welcome, and the progress that the main couple so desperately needed started diminishing. I started realizing by chapter 60 that there would be no significant change to the main character's relationship. Any hope I had at change was going to be in the final chapter, and for around 30 chapters, it felt like the story was now sticking to a formula that it was too scared to move away from, and it was a little bit frustrating. Finally, we make it to the last chapter, and the main character and main love interest are at the perfect point to develop or do anything. The easiest form of this is to make them kiss, and the story does exactly that. The main characters are about to kiss, and then they stop. The main character is sad that their routine will change, and they both feel the same way. Remember how I said it felt like this manga was sticking to a formula that it was too scared to move away from, well there you go. The ending is literally the main couple being too scared to move away from their same routine. In this story, the best way for the author to have ended it was to do literally anything to change up the interactions between the main couple, and instead they chose to make an ending that isn't good, but can't be bad. It's probably one of the most boring endings I could have ever read for a story with such an amazing premise. The beginning half of the manga felt like it really knew how to make these characters go through unique interactions, but the author didn't know how to really evolve it after a while, and that dragged the whole story down in turn. I really wanted this manga to be amazing, especially when in the first chapter, the main girl says that a "voice" told her that the main character would be the one to take her virginity. I was expecting a clear story structure with the author knowing exactly what they wanted to do. The first few chapters genuinely felt like that, but then it just went down the drain. Then there are the unexplained mysteries, like "where did the voice come from" or "why does her spit make her connect with the main character?" But the author chooses to answer none of that, and it's so damn frustrating, especially when the manga could have been so amazing. I want to give this a higher score, I really do. There is just 0 excuse for me to do so and it's a shame. Overall it's still a good story, but it's not anything special even though it really could have been.
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stephonee
90/100
The Coolest Girl Ever connects with Regular Normal Guy through Saliva, Wacky Hijinks ensue.
This review contains little/no spoiler content. Enjoy!!

A couple years ago in 2021 I heard about a certain manga series in a YouTube video, and upon hearing what the YouTuber had to say about it I vowed to never read this manga after realising it was just some spit fetish series without any substance. About a year later in 2022 this forbidden manga found me again, and without realising why I thought it to be so familiar, I began reading. In the present year of 2023, I look back on that sequence of events as one of the best mistakes I've ever made regarding my time consuming anime and manga.

Themes:
In case you haven't guessed already, the forbidden manga I accidentally read was Nazo No Kanojo X or Mysterious Girlfriend X, and in case you skipped the intro, the main themes of Nazo No Kanojo is, to put it bluntly, The Writer's Poorly Disguised Fetish. Spit play will probably be a deal-breaker for some people, especially since it is featured in nearly every chapter. I should know, as it was what turned me off the series initially. However the body fluid theme isn't just cheap, niche fanservice, and really helps to characterise the main leads, but I'll mention that at the end. Just know that even though this aspect can be a hard swallow (no pun intended) it's worth it, or at the very least utilised well and serves the story and characters.
The other themes aside from Romance/Comedy are just general Ecchi elements throughout. I typically don't mind Ecchi/fanservice content in a series, and I am usually happy to just ignore it whenever it arises, but considering the underlying motifs of growing up and adolescence in this manga as well as the lack of cheap tricks used to incorporate it, the Ecchi in Nazo no Kanojo gets a gold star from me.

Story:
To the surprise of no-one, this RomCom manga pulls a revolutionary move which has never been done before and features characters who are in high school, so the typical school-setting arcs, that people who consume too much slice-of-life like I do will recognise instantly, are present here, such as the cultural festival arc, a spontaneous youthful excursion to the beach by train, ect, ect. Despite this, Nazo No Kanojo injects it's own flavour into these otherwise average and overdone story beats, and doesn't just rely on Urabe's quirks to carry every part of the plot, and genuinely creative plot points are created to avoid this. However even the self-contained chapters which don't have a huge bearing on the plot and typically aren't referenced again in the series are still a delight to read by virtue of Urabe and Tsubaki just being so entertaining to read about, and this consistency in character quality allows the story to just flow naturally around them.

Characters:
Nazo No Kanojo's biggest strength, much like with most RomCom series, lies in it's characters. A lot of other series similar to this manga may fall due to a lack of compelling characters, and, ahem, other (ecchi) elements taking centre stage, yet Mysterious Girlfriend X strikes a great balance between the two.

The titular Mysterious Girlfriend Urabe Mikoto is easily one of my favourite leads in a romance series. In my mind the Kuudere archetype was perfected when Riichi Ueshiba put pen to paper and Urabe was conceived. She delivers on the Mysterious aspect of the series in droves in the early parts of the series, with her behaviour being entirely antithetical to that of a typical, happy-go-lucky deredere girl that might be more commonplace, and the iconic reacurring scissors-in-panties joke (no I'm not kidding) should be more than enough to sell anyone on her.

The male lead Tsubaki Akira more or less a typical male lead for a series of this vein. He definitely has good moments throughout the series, and I in no way dislike him, but when compared to the majesty of Urabe it's easy to view him as unremarkable. There are some points in the series where Tsubaki might blend in with the supporting cast, but overall not a bad lead compared to other male leads that reader may be familiar with from other series.

Art:
I honestly cannot praise the art enough in this series. I have a huge soft spot for a 2000s manga artstyle, but bias isn't even required when praising Nazo No Kanojo's artwork. There are several points in the manga, mostly towards the beginning and end, depicting dreams that Tsubaki has had which contain Urabe. This could be used as a cheap fan-service moment in any other work, but in this manga it is a source of pure awe at the amount of detail displayed.

Truly desktop wallpaper material. The double-page spreads as well as the overall design of Urabe herself and how she's drawn in throughout the series is also high quality too, not just in moments of sexual content.

Finishing Thoughts:
At it's core, Mysterious Girlfriend X is a story about growing up, and how even though settings and circumstance may change as time progresses, the bonds that you make with people closest to you are truly timeless. I refrained from putting Supernatural among the themes section in this review as I believe that there is nothing Supernatural about the spit-bond that Urabe and Tsubaki share, and that it's merely their bond and relationship that allows their feelings to be transmitted in such a way, and that this was intentionally ambiguous in order to convey this message.

It's embarrassing that I connected with a stupid 2004 Ecchi manga in such a strong way, and that I'm looking in such detail at it's story and characters when some might say it doesn't deserve such attention, but I truly believe that this series is different to others of it's calibre, at least to me. But who knows? Perhaps the real Mysterious Girlfriends were the friends we made along the way...
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