something i really like about GSNK is that it’s about a group of friends, but it isn’t about a friend group. everyone knows each other so there can be interesting interactions between any combo of the main characters, but it’s not like all seven of the main characters ever hang out all together at once, so there’s never any sort of feeling that it’s forced to include everybody in every comic.
in fact a big part of GSNK is everyone knowing each other, but not knowing that others know each other, or not knowing their ‘true identity’ (like mikoshiba being unaware of who does backgrounds for nozaki’s manga while chiyo knows, or everyone knowing seo is lorelei while wakamatsu is unaware of it).
it feels realistic in a way to portray people as having multiple overlapping friend groups instead of just only one tight group of friends who they always hang out with. it’s an interesting dynamic that i rarely see to this extent with main characters in other slice of life/sitcom series