Where to Start with Karuho Shiina
— Choosing Between Kimi ni Todoke and Gusts and Beats

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If you are reading Karuho Shiina for the first time, open Volume 1 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You. Make Volume 5 your first goal. That is where the heroine, Sawako, realizes that what she feels for Kazehaya is love, so you can tell whether the series suits you without committing to all 30 volumes.

It is easy to feel unsure where to begin. Kimi ni Todoke runs 30 volumes and is followed by a 3-volume side story. The earlier series Crazy for You is 6 volumes, and the ongoing Gusts and Beats (Toppū to Beat) has 5 volumes so far in Japan. Together that makes 44 books. The side story takes place after the main story, so reading in the wrong order means learning something close to the ending too soon. Volume 5 of Gusts and Beats came out in Japan on August 25, 2026, and the series is still running in Bessatsu Margaret.

The best place to start

Pick the way in that fits your mood. You do not need to follow them all in order. Shiina’s main works can all be read in English, though in different ways.

If you cannot decide, we recommend Kimi ni Todoke. It is finished, so you will not be left waiting, and its thread is clear: a misunderstood girl comes to know friendship and love. If you plan to read everything, the order is main story Volumes 1–30, then side story Volumes 1–3. You can read Crazy for You at any point, but reading it before the side story gives you one more thing to enjoy. We will explain why below.

Books to check before you buy

Some of Shiina’s books are easy to mistake for something else if you go by the title alone. Here they are up front.

Kimi ni Todoke: Volume 5 tells you if it fits, and Volume 10 is a high point

Kimi ni Todoke ran in Bessatsu Margaret from the January 2006 issue to the December 2017 issue, for 123 chapters in all. It began as a one-shot in the September 2005 issue. The setting is a high school in Hokkaido. Sawako Kuronuma, who looks gloomy, is called “Sadako” and is an outsider in class, grows close to the popular Shota Kazehaya, and changes through friendship, love and thoughts about the future. It won the shōjo category of the 32nd Kodansha Manga Award in 2008, and a 2024 article reported that the series had passed 36 million copies, print and digital combined.

The story moves through three years of high school in order, so it is easiest to think of the volumes in terms of school years and events. Viz’s English volumes use the same numbers as the Japanese ones.

The Japanese e-book edition is a remastered version that includes the author’s color art from the magazine run. Only Volume 14 is entirely black and white, because it had no color pages in the magazine. Volume 22 also includes a crossover with Kazune Kawahara, listed in the English edition as “45° Eyebrows.”

If you know the anime or live-action versions

If you came in through the screen versions, you can pick up where they stop. Even so, if you want to enjoy the original, you lose nothing by starting from Volume 1.

In English, Netflix began streaming a new English dub of the first two seasons in 2024.

Save the side story until you finish the main story

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You: Soulmate (Kimi ni Todoke Bangaihen: Unmei no Hito) is 3 volumes. It takes place after the last chapter of the main story and centers on Sawako’s friend Kurumi and Sawako’s cousin, Eiji Akahoshi. It appeared irregularly in Bessatsu Margaret from the May 2018 issue to the June 2022 issue, and in Japan the collected volumes came out from September 25, 2019, to July 25, 2022.

Because it comes after the main story, please read it after Volume 30. The description of each volume also mentions what happens beyond the main story, so if you are still partway through, it is safer not to read those descriptions either.

Eiji Akahoshi also appears in the earlier series Crazy for You. If you read Crazy for You before the side story, you will know him from another story when you get there.

Gusts and Beats is a serial you can catch up with now

Gusts and Beats began in the April 2024 issue of Bessatsu Margaret. Shiina made it after switching to digital production, and Comic Natalie introduced it as the first new work in 18 years. Shiina’s comment at the start was a hope that it would become “a carefree, fun romantic comedy” (our translation).

In English, MANGA Plus added the series in February 2026. Yen Press has licensed it and lists Volume 1 for release on December 15, 2026. That date had not arrived when we checked, so confirm it before you plan on buying.

The heroine is Nike, a first-year high school student. Seeing ghosts is an ordinary part of her daily life, and when she delivers schoolwork to Nemo, a classmate who has stopped coming to school, she finds the house overflowing with lively ghosts. It has a different texture from the school life of Kimi ni Todoke, so let your feelings about ghost stories decide.

Read through the second Japanese volume and you will see that this is not just a slice-of-life story. With only 5 books so far in Japan, catching up is not hard. It also appeared in the November 2026 issue of Bessatsu Margaret.

Crazy for You is easiest to get as an e-book

Crazy for You is a 6-volume romance that ran in Bessatsu Margaret from the August 2003 issue to the June 2005 issue. It begins when Sachi, who went to a girls’ high school and has never had a boyfriend, meets Yukihiro, known as Yuki, at a group date. In Volume 2, Sachi sees Yuki kiss her best friend, Akemi, and from there the romances of five people, Sachi, Yuki, Akemi, Yuuhei and Akahoshi, become tangled together. It suits readers who want a love story that draws in close friends.

In English, Viz publishes all 6 volumes as digital-only books under its VIZ Select line, and it lists Kindle among the stores. In Japan, the e-book edition is also 6 books, and Volume 6 includes the short story “Number 9.”

Short story collections can hold different stories under one title

If you read Japanese and want to try something before a long series, the short story collections are an easy way in. MangaUpdates lists Aoi Futari, Koi ni Ochiru and Sakura Ryou March as not licensed in English, and we could not confirm English editions. Note that the Margaret Comics volumes and the Shueisha Bunko “Love Girls” short story collections hold different stories under the same titles.

If you plan to read it all, go in this order

For those who have decided to read everything, here is the buying order.

In Japan, the Kimi ni Todoke FANBOOK came out on June 11, 2010, and the art book Kimi ni Todoke Illustrations: high school days on March 23, 2018. They are Japanese books and are best picked up after you finish.

When you finish, try other Bessatsu Margaret artists

Karuho Shiina was born in 1975 in Haboro, Hokkaido, and debuted in 1991 in Bessatsu Margaret with “Kimi kara no Sotsugyō.” Shiina began drawing manga in earnest at around 15. Among the manga artists Shiina admires is Ryoko Yamagishi, also from Hokkaido.

If you are looking for your next book, how about High School Debut by Kazune Kawahara, who collaborated on Volume 22? It is a romantic comedy from the same magazine, and Viz publishes it in English. Japanese readers could also move on to Yamagishi’s Terpsichora, which Shiina has named as a favorite manga. MangaUpdates lists it as not licensed in English.

Whichever way in you choose, one book is enough to begin. If it is tonight, open Volume 1 of Kimi ni Todoke. You will know what kind of person Sawako is by the end of that first book.