Title: My Girlfriend Gives Me Goosebumps!

Creator: Shunsuke Iino

Demographic: Shonen

Themes: Psychological, Thriller, Drama, Romance, Slice of Life, Stalking, Yandere

Status: Ongoing (with English Simulpub) 

Published By: MangaPlus/Shueisha

LINK

Official Summary:

Meet Haruka Kawatsuji, a young boy who miraculously survived a fall from his apartment’s balcony as a child. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts to find that same thrill in sports and horror movies, he’s never quite managed to feel as alive since. However, that may all be about to change in a fateful encounter with one very eccentric girl!

Thinky Thoughts

I don’t have a ton to say about this as I’m reading it right now. Like as I write this, I have my phone on my bed and I’m powering through the chapters. Normally, I try to recommend things I’m thinking about for a a while or in some serious depth but… with this? I had to recommend it because this series is fully a freak for freak relationship of a kind I rarely see outside of R18 media or seinen series.

Haruka is a teenager who hasn’t really been able to feel emotions from a very young age. That fall he experienced in his early childhood jumpstarted a habit of thrill-seeking that he’s been unable to satisfy. Enter Kisaki Tokano, a girl who Haruka “saves” from an awkward moment when her friend (who… she’d been stalking, actually) lashes out at her in the middle of the night. From that moment, she decides to make Haruka her full focus and the disturbing devotion she feels for her friends gets put on him.

After Haruka is warned away from Tokano, he actually… decides to date her. Because she’s weird and offputting while still being cute… and he thinks that she can breathe new life into him.

Again, this is fully freak for freak. Tokano is a yandere with boundary issues a mile wide and every single red flag a manga character can possess. She infiltrated Haruka’s home, has his mom adore her, changed her school plans so they’d go to the same high school, wire tapped his bedroom, and is increasingly horrifying towards him.

And Haruka loves it.

In the sixth chapter, he tells a mutual friend that:

“I want to be the person Tokano hates the most, too. I don’t care what she does to me… but I don’t want to be blindly tied up either. I want to get in her way, and make her love and hate me in equal measure… so I can feel the full force of her emotions. If that means getting “swallowed up,” then so be it. If I fight back with everything I have and still lose, then I don’t mind being Tokano’s slave.”

FREAK FOR FREAK!!!

This is a mildly unsettling series, but honestly, it’s cute. I really like the characters and I want to see if Haruka will succeed or if he winds up being swallowed up by the force of Tokano’s personality. I also want to see if she will escalate her yandere behavior to seinen thriller levels or not… because she’s already done so much and we’re only like fifteen chapters in.

If you love freaks (fond, positive) in love, you need to check this series out! It’s free, if that helps!