I always enjoy every manga I read by Nagisa Furuya. They always have such a sweet story and are beautifully drawn, I will always and always do look forward to reading their work !!

Nagisa Furuya does not MISS. I repeat NEVER MISSES.

Every book is absolutely amazing, the character are so relatable and real, that they journey to their relations ships and the obstacles they face. Her love stories are so sweet, and full of so many heartfelt moments, she is an automatic buy for me.

Number call is another great success, hating his name Eito Tachibana with all the jokes and puns attached to it, but when a faithful meeting with classmate Tomoya Hatta, his rather unlucky name, could be the key that brings him the biggest change of his life.

This just like any of her books are a brilliant introduction to her work.

My Thoughts:

I seem to be reading a lot of LGBTQIA+ books on my queue and perhaps this is in preparation for LGBTQ awareness month in June. Maybe this is in preparation for Asian Pacific American celebration month in May. However, I am reminded that a few years ago, I changed my reading mantra on this blog to say "Diversifying YA Bookshelves one book at a time." That is really what this is. This book, out of Japan and translated into English is not an Asian American book, however it is a diverse book and it is a LGBTQIA+ book. That is what gets it into your classroom. But at the end of the day, this is a cute book where friendship is friendship and love is love. This is a manga story that needs to be available for the student that is waiting to read this.

The awareness of this odd feeling of friendship and perhaps more starts with a pun in both English and Japanese. The final "awakening" at the end is not a surprise. We as readers are much more emotionally awake than either "Eito" or "Hachi." However, the cute factor of this is that these two high schoolers from different programs of the school meet over the 8 pun that shows up in many ways besides their names. That is what makes this meet cute different from the endless others.

From the Publisher:
High schooler Eito Tachibana has always hated his name, including all of the jokes and puns about the number 8 that have come along with it. It's as if the number has haunted him like a ghost ever since he was a child. One day, he meets a classmate named Tomoya Hatta, aka Hachi-the Japanese word for “8.” What begins as casual greetings and small talk in the hallway soon becomes something much deeper, and Eito realizes that it's more than just a similar nickname that draws him to Hachi. Could the number that Eito resented for so long finally bring him something he'll love-and is that someone Hachi?

Publication Information:
Author, Artist: Nagisa Furuya (she/her)
Publisher: Kodansha Comics (March 12, 2024)
Print length: 196 pages

This is a sweet and cozy manga about two high schoolers whose names mean eight so they get closer to each other because of that coincidence. The realisation that they like guys is also very matter of fact and no drama ensues and the story itself is calming. The art is very neat and it hasn't many details but it doesn't detract from the story

Overall a nice, sweet and cozy gay romance

This was a really sweet read, I thought the characters were intriguing and I'm going to keep an eye out for more from this author.

Number Call is a wholesome story. Eito and Hachi have this slow-burn... something. It was hard to get to know them. I know the basics of who they are. They have the grump and sunshine vibe and that's really all I could tell you about Eito and Hachi.

Their relationship, started by kinda bonding over their names and the number 8. While they were together in nearly every panel throughout the story, I felt a lot of their conversations were bare and didn't allow me to get to know them or really see their relationship form.

Art for this was great. It was clean and clear. There were times when I struggled a little with the speech bubbles and who was saying what, but I'm 99.9% sure that was a me thing and not anyone else.

This isn't a manga that is going to stay with me for long, but it was a decent enough queer manga.

Number Call is about two boys that share a similarity with the number eight in their names. I've never read Heartstopper but have read that Number Call is similar, just as a manga. The artwork is simple, clean and subtle but it works for the story as it allows the reader to pick up small quirks the characters do as they learn their feelings for each other.

The story itself is short and sweet, a very light read if you want to see beautiful artwork and finish something within an hour. Personally I wish it was longer to see that relationship develop as they go through college but as is I still thought it was so charming.

I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Kodansha Comics!

Number call is a nice and cute read that can be finished within an hour. If you are looking for fluff this is where to go, theres not a super strong plot and its too short to get super attached to the characters but it is still fun to follow along a romance story none the less.
Sadly I think its length being so short is making it be rated lower, if it was 2-3 volumes I definitely think I could have connected better. I also think the artist has a little bit of an issue with same face syndrome, sometimes the characters looked very similar. Other than those critics I really enjoyed reading it!

In this story, we follow two high schoolers, Eito and Hatta, who happen to meet because of their peculiar names, which leads them to become friends and maybe something more.

This manga went by very quickly and I truly enjoyed it! It was a cute friends-to-lovers and the number 8 being the link between their names was very interesting. I also appreciated the change of POV after the first conflict, which gave us an insight into what Hatta was feeling and thinking. Though I have to admit, sometimes I had a bit of trouble identifying the characters, especially the friends.

Thank you NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for the ARC.

❥ 2 stars ☆

❝One simple word... One little smile... makes such a difference.❞


This is Nagisa Furuya’s first manga book, and I wanted to read it since I’ve read and really liked all her other mangas that she has written after this one, but this manga was unfortunately underwhelming for me.

Maybe I had a bit too high expectations for this manga, or it may be because this was the first one that she wrote, so she has gotten a lot better since then, or the story just wasn’t for me.

I felt like the story was a bit more slow paced. While reading her other stories, the stories has drawn me in right away and I’ve loved the stories as soon as I started reading them, but it just didn’t happen with this one.

I liked the associations and references with the number 8 in the story; both the main characters having names, nicknames and birth dates associated with the number 8. The number 8 can understandably be meaningful to many people, and the most common association is probably that it looks like the infinity sign, 8 meaning fate etc.

I also didn’t really like the art in this manga, while I’ve liked the art in the author’s mangas after this one.

💌 Thank you to NetGalley + Kodansha Comics for a digital ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━

Thank you to Netgalley and Kodansha Comics for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had a good time with this manga! The story flowed nicely and the number 8 being a connection between the two main characters was unique. The development of their relationship was sweet, and the occasional chnage of POV from Eito to Hatta was a nice bit of insight into the other's mindset.

As usual, it has the usual small conflict of most BL protagonists, where they think 'I'm not gay, but I like you', but it's actually not too prominent in this, and the two of them seem to overcome this quickly, which was super refreshing!

I think the weakness was in the side characters; I felt like the friends were barely there, only occasionally popping in for funny dialogue or contextualising some small things. Though with only 196 pages, I understand the author would want to focus on the relationship between their two main characters instead.

Overall, this was short and sweet, and I enjoyed my time with this manga!

2.5 stars

this was a really cute comic for what it was! the plot wasn't very interesting and i thought that the whole thing with their names was pretty low stakes but it was still a really sweet and short story.

i would have liked to see the world better developed and learn more about both of the characters' lives outside of their interactions with each other. i think basing the whole thing off of their names wasn't the best choice because it wasn't very interesting. but the drawings were so lovely and i had a fun time!

thank you to netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review

Soft dnfed this, it was just too much for me the angst in this story.
Also if I can't get into a story I'm trying to do more soft dnfs these
days :)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6297674370

This was a cute, quick manga for any age group. It was very slice of life, easy reading with no stakes or drama; just two high school boys with similar names who happen to find out they have more in common than their nicknames.

3.5 Stars

What I enjoyed about Number Call is the pacing, the story is slow and gentle and truthfully not much happens. However, this makes the emotional connection of the two main characters much more convincing. I think this makes the reader more invested in the romance.

As an aside, the watermark colour lines on the review copy were really distracting at times. I appreciate this might be needed in review copies due to copyright but maybe there is another way of doing it?

Number Call is a romance between two boys who bond over the same nickname: Eight, both caused by different ways to read their names. By this chance meeting, they grow closer and then apart as they wrestle with their growing feelings for each other and what their future might hold.

This is a pretty easy read with a sweet storyline and simple art. The translator did a good job with the really specific culture surrounding the names & etymology at work here, which couldn't have been an easy feat. The lack of backgrounds also helps pick up the pace since your eye doesn't have as much to follow. I would recommend if you like more innocent style high school romances.

This was such a cute read. I really liked those two characters and the pun with the number. The fact that they're both connected with the number 8 because of their names and how it annoys one but still gets him connected with the other guy is just too cute. I know how it is to be called a name you don't necessarily like but get to like after a while. Now I seriously don't know why I hated it so much at first haha. Anyway, this was such a cute story and I loved it so much.

Eito and Hachi are so adorable! I love the sweet innocence of this story. I especially like getting inside Eito's head as he processes everything that's happening.

CUUUUUTE!!!! I love a good pun, and if that pun just happens to inspire some cosmic love connections between two boys, nice to see it. The line work is crisp, the story always tight, and I loved the sentiment of wishing you met someone earlier in life. Okay I will go cry now.

This was a really cute story about two boys who came together because both their names make people think of the number eight. They become friends and get closer, and one of them catches feelings. They spend some time apart, but eventually come back together. Super cute <3