Gazing at the Star Next Door Volumes 2 and 3 Review

Kodansha released the first volume of the shojo manga Gazing at the Star Next Door in English in February last year. The story follows childhood friends and neighbours Chiaki and Subaru, who are in love but feel unable to act on it. With two more volumes in hand, let’s find out how the story has progressed after its initial debut.

As we reunite with our leads, we find Chiaki on the verge of blurting out her feelings to Subaru. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily?) she regains her senses before doing so and flees home, only to later come down with a high fever. When Subaru visits to check in on her, she pushes him away by insisting if he caught her cold he’d cause all kinds of problems for his work, but secretly she’s pleased to see he cares so much.

But just as Chiaki is beginning to find her resolve to confess, Subaru is cast as the lead in the drama Bitter Sweet Dreams, which is an adaptation of a popular romance manga. Now with Subaru advancing further in his career and being cast alongside some beautiful co-stars, Chiaki feels the gap between them widen more than ever.

Despite his newfound popularity, Subaru acts the same as ever. He still relies on Chiaki’s help to get him up in the morning and make sure he’s eating properly, and he’s seemingly still oblivious to her feelings (although we readers know he harbours romantic feelings of his own for her). Still, being this close to her crush regularly causes Chiaki no end of stress and heartache as she dreams of a relationship she thinks she can’t have.

All of these feelings come to a head in Volume 3, where Chiaki gets to visit Subaru on set and see for herself the world he’s inhabiting. Dazzled by his co-stars and seeing his passionate performance, Chiaki is once again reminded that while he’s out there in the entertainment world, she’s just a regular high school girl like any of his fans.

These feelings eat away at her until she finally breaks down and confesses to Subaru and she’s met with a response that she expected, but we readers certainly hadn’t! This changes the course of their relationship as they can’t help but be awkward around each other after the fact and our heroine is left wondering if it would have been better to have never said anything at all.

Across the three volumes we’ve had so far, it’s easy to understand why Chiaki has felt uneasy about confessing to Subaru. She feels unfit to stand beside him and she doesn’t want to cause trouble for his work. However, I do feel her self-loathing was starting to get repetitive, so I was relieved that mangaka Ammitsu chose Volume 3 to change things up. It reignited my interest in seeing where the story will go from here.

I also appreciate that while we aren’t seeing the story through Subaru’s perspective at any point, Ammitsu is still dropping plenty of hints as to his feelings toward Chiaki. As well as why he gives her the response he does when she confesses in Volume 3. It’s very subtle character development, but that light touch is working out for the best so far.

This isn’t as grounded as series like A Sign of Affection or In the Clear Moonlit Dusk since there’s often more melodrama, but I do think Ammitsu’s characters are easy to relate to. This is particularly true of Chiaki and her spiral when it comes to Subaru, which is very easy to understand if you put yourself in her shoes. And that strength compared with the expressive artwork makes this a very compelling offering for romance fans.

As mentioned, Gazing at the Star Next Door Volumes 2 and 3 come to the West thanks to Kodansha and continue to be translated by Nicole Frasik with lettering by Lys Blakeslee. Both releases read well with translation notes included at the end of the book.

The series remains ongoing in Japan with 7 volumes currently available. Here in English, Kodansha released Volume 4 in January and has #5 scheduled for later this month. So, there’s plenty of this available if you’re looking to see more of Chiaki and Subaru’s story.

Overall, Gazing at the Star Next Door remains an engaging romance story. As Subaru’s popularity grows, Chiaki finds herself forced to muddle through her feelings as her relationship with her childhood friend ever changes. Certainly, it feels like there is plenty more story to tell here and I’m looking forward to seeing where Ammitsu takes us.

Our review copies from Kodansha were supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.