ナキナギ

NAKINAGI

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
5
RELEASE
January 28, 2026
CHAPTERS
38

DESCRIPTION

A quiet witch meets a girl in love. Nakika was once a feared with of the deep sea, but has started a life on the surface to learn about "human emotions." Nagisa is a naive romantic and Nakika's best friend—and although she might not always understand Nagisa's infatuation, her compassion for Nagisa is deeper than the Pacific Ocean! As she uses her magical powers to support Nagisa's quest for love, she gradually learns about “human emotions. Follow the 1000% wholesome story of a girl in love and her watchful guardian!

(Source: K MANGA)

CAST

Nakika
Nagisa

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Kellian

70/100

Interesting concept not given the opportunity to flourish.

Contains Spoilers
Never thought my first review would be about this manga but I wanted to address this while my feelings are still fresh. This truly is the potential manga oat.

I’m genuinely so aggravated that it ended so abruptly. I really liked the premise and I was absolutely invested with the twist on the story of the little mermaid. AND ITS YURI!!

  A really refreshing story with a majority female cast and a main dynamic between an entity attached to a high school girl trying to get her crush’s attention, in a way drawing this entity to attempt to understand human nature and emotions. She is literally a blob of nothingness and dark placed in a setting where humans are at their most formative phase, high school. 

  Then we learned that she is a twist on Ursula from the tale of the little mermaid who once tried to give the most important person in her infinite life (the Ariel of this story) a happy ending but felt she failed and time just moved past that. Nakika was by far the most intriguing character in this story and we could’ve gone multiple chapters with her coming into terms with that guilt and also the denial and realization of why she went so far to grant a wish for the mermaid princess, that not only humans are capable of feeling the grandiose emotion that is love. 

  I’m quite the fan of stories that tend to psychoanalyze characters, especially female characters (bonus points if it’s queer) and I believe this was doing such a good job at exploring the nature of relationships formed by girls at this particular stage in their lives. I also love monster elements, specifically if they are presented to contrast and highlight human emotions with the author using it to convey their interpretation of the differences in how one might go about expressing themselves and their feelings towards another, The Summer Hikaru Died is a great example of this.

  Truly had the potential to be very good, the side cast weren’t that grand but with what was established I could see them becoming even more compelling if the story was given the opportunity to explore. It sucks because I learned Maki Keigo traveled a lot to broaden his knowledge about the sea and folktale surrounding it. I could feel his storytelling capabilities in this were far improved from when he made Shikimori-San and it seemed this was supposed to be his passion project. A shame really.

So would I recommend it? Yeah if you want to read something that stands out, plus if you go in for the Yuri, the last chapter at least gives you a kiss scene so you aren’t left with absolutely nothing but the emptiness for what could’ve been really sticks and kodansha can go to hell for that.

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