1st volume shipped in 2012

Saenai Heroine no Sodate-kata ( How to Raise A Boring Girlfriend ) light novel author Fumiaki Maruto announced in the series' twelfth volume on Saturday that the series will end with the 13th volume. Maruto also mentioned that it's possible, based on "various political decisions," that there will be "spinoff-like" works that are unrelated to the main story.

Kadokawa published the first volume with illustrations by Kurehito Misaki in 2012. The story begins when Tomoya Aki, an otaku who is working part-time to earn enough money to buy anime on Blu-Ray Disc, meets a beautiful girl on his way home during spring vacation. He eventually models the heroine of his own dojin game after her. However, he finds out a month later that the girl is in fact his classmate, and he doesn't know her name. He learns that the girl — named Megumi — actually is hardly noticed by others. Tomoya also has no artistic ability or writing skills, so he asks ace of the art club Eriri Spencer Sawamura to provide the art, as well as the honor student Utaha Kasumigaoka to write the scenario. Can they produce a decent game for Comic Market?

The novels inspired an anime adaptation that premiered in January 2015 in Japan on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block, and a second series will premiere on the same block on April 13. Aniplex of America licensed the first series under the title Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend, and streamed it on Aniplex Channel, Crunchyroll, and Hulu as it aired. A PlayStation Vita game based off of the anime shipped in Japan in April 2015.