Miyamoto Niina (宮本仁衣奈) is a high school student and one of the main characters of the manga “Kakunaru Ue wa” (描くなるうえは), also known as “Now That We Draw.” At school, Niina is known as a bright, beautiful, and popular gyaru girl. She is sociable, energetic, confident, and naturally attracts the attention of those around her.

However, behind the image of an ordinary popular gyaru is a serious dream: Niina wants to become a professional manga artist. She spends a lot of time drawing and has already tried to submit and promote her own work through a publisher. Niina has strong artistic skills and is particularly interested in romantic manga. Despite her talent, she has one major problem: she lacks personal experience with romantic relationships, which makes some of the romantic scenes in her manga feel less realistic.

Niina meets her classmate Yuki Uehara, who also dreams of becoming a manga artist. Yuki faces a similar problem: his editor believes that he does not understand real romance well enough. After learning about this, Niina comes up with an unusual solution — they should pretend to be a couple so they can gain real relationship experience and use it when creating their manga.

Their relationship begins as an arrangement purely for creative purposes. They spend time together, go on dates, observe each other, and try to understand how real couples behave. Niina often uses the phrase “it’s for the manga” as an excuse for the increasingly unusual situations they find themselves in.

At first, Niina is confident that she can easily control her emotions. She is used to appearing confident and often teases Yuki whenever he becomes embarrassed. However, she gradually begins to feel nervous and flustered around him herself. What started as research for their manga slowly develops into a genuine emotional connection for Niina.

Despite her outward confidence, Niina is quite inexperienced when it comes to romance. When Yuki unexpectedly takes the initiative or a situation becomes genuinely romantic, she may become embarrassed, blush, look away, or try to hide her true feelings behind jokes and teasing.

Alongside her romantic story, Niina continues to develop as an artist. She takes her dream of becoming a professional manga artist seriously, works to improve her drawing skills, and gains experience in the professional manga industry. For her, manga is not simply a hobby but an important part of the future she wants to build through her own efforts.

As time passes, Niina and Yuki’s relationship becomes increasingly complicated. It becomes difficult for them to separate their “relationship for manga research” from their genuine feelings. The appearance of other people connected to Yuki further complicates the situation and forces Niina to think about what she truly feels for him.

Niina remains a bright, energetic, independent, and ambitious girl who is trying to balance her dream of becoming a manga artist with her growing understanding of love and genuine romantic feelings. Her story revolves around two important parts of her life: her ambition to become a professional manga artist and her gradual discovery of what real love means.