The high school debut or glow-up has become a staple of shoujo and shounen romances in recent decades. You know the story: a kid who was bullied or ignored or perhaps bad in middle school decides that since high school is a chance to start over, they’re going to make some serious changes and become someone different – possibly better. For Momose, the impetus behind her efforts is the fact that she was picked on and bullied by the bad actors at her middle school, the delinquents and the gyaru. Determined not to be a target this time, she’s dyed her hair, gotten contacts, and is going to present herself as someone aggressively normal who no one would want to target. And so far, it’s going great…

…which means that there’s no way it can last. Enter Ichikura, the bespectacled, studious boy in her class. Ichikura largely floats by under the radar with a reputation as one of the good, smart kids, and he’s even the sole member of the Helpers Club, which devotes itself to lending a hand to anyone who needs it. He seems completely harmless. But as Momose soon discovers, he’s also enacting a high school debut: he’s transforming himself into a nerd from a delinquent, and those aren’t two personas that shift particularly easily. That’s a nice way of saying that Ichikura’s not doing a great job of hiding his past, and Momose figures him out pretty quickly.

If there’s one thing that these volumes have going for them, it’s that both Ichikura and Momose earnestly want to change. It’s not easy, but they’re truly trying. Both of them slip back into their old selves with an ease that reminds readers how long they spent in those guises and what brought them to the point they wanted to change. At the end of the first book, Ichikura asks Momose out so that he can prove to her that he’s not like the guys who made her life hell in middle school, and while he does slip when an old acquaintance pops up in the second book, he apologizes for scaring her. In volume two, an upperclassman who happens to be a gyaru comes to the Helpers Club for aid, and Momose is sent careening back into her past – she’s instinctively afraid of the girl. But she musters up her courage and tries not to let the older girl get to her. These kids stumble a lot, but they largely keep themselves from falling.

The pair is dating as of the end of volume one, and that mostly works for the story. They must be closer in order to continue to effectively change (at least within the confines of a romance), and it opens the door for their very different life experiences to clash a bit. Ichikura, for example, is much more comfortable in the dating sphere than Momose is – and he’s fully cognizant of that. While Momose is fluttering around, wondering if kisses really taste like lemons, Ichikura is trying not to scare his girlfriend off – at least, until the end of volume two, that is. He’s much more conflicted when it comes to their relationship, not in the sense that he’s not sure he wants to date her, but rather in his attempts to handle the relationship in a way that won’t freak her out while wanting rather more. It takes them several near-misses before they kiss (it does not taste like lemons), and once he feels he has permission, he takes any opportunity to put his arm around her waist. She’s clearly not comfortable with this, and volume three takes a few turns into dangerous territory where Ichikura comes off as a creep. While statements like “I’m yours, and you’re mine” can sound romantic, if possessiveness isn’t your idea of romance, volume three won’t work for you.

Creator Naruki does, however, get credit for totally turning the no-chance rival storyline on its head. When a middle school acquaintance of Ichikura’s turns up in volume two and later transfers to their school, it’s not because he has a crush on Momose. No, he’s there because he wants to be friends with Ichikura, and he’s trying to wrap his head around Ichikura’s self-proclaimed transformation from delinquent to nerd. While this does bring on a jealousy subplot, it’s overall a great subversion of the typical romance love geometry – and I imagine that for some readers, jealous Ichikura will be alluring.

This is Naruki‘s first serialization, and that shows at times. (Their assumption that volume two would be the end of the series is the most obvious.) But you can see them getting more comfortable with their craft and series as these books go on, as page layouts become easier to follow and the character writing sharpens. This isn’t reinventing the wheel, but it’s a fun turn of it, and if you’re a fan of shoujo romances, I think it’s safe to say that you’ll have a good time with Glasses With a Chance of Delinquent.