My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex: “Childhood Friends No More”

Leave a reply

By Kyosuke Kamishiro and TakayaKi. Released in Japan as “Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta” by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Gierrlon Dunn.

Given that I’ve said how much I don’t care for Akatsuki, and how I prefer it when the series focuses on its main couple, this third volume was always going to be a hard sell for me, as it gets into the nitty gritty backstory of her relationship with Kawanami, how it changed, and her own personal issues, with Mizuto and Yume once again being pushed to the background. That said, it does a decent job, showing me that Akatsuki is aware of her dangerous personality issues and is doing her best to change them, even if she thinks of it as “wearing a mask”. And frankly Kawanami has just as many issues, some of which were brought on my his tortured past relationship but most of which are his own damn fault, and he seems to be as obsessed with his friendship with Mizuto as Akatsuki is about her friendship with Yume. They have a lot more baggage than our two leads, and I’m not sure they need to get back together.

The first half of the book focuses heavily on Isana Hagashira, who has now been rejected by Mizuto but oddly takes that as an invitation to be even more blatant around him, since she knows he’s not interested in her romantically. Essentially, she still has some difficulties working out how normal girls react around normal boys. And she’s probably not getting any help from the people around her – for one thing, Kawanami takes an instant dislike to her as she says she’s Mizuto’s best friend – that’s his job! The second half of the book gets into the backstory of Akatsuki and Kawanami when the group all go on a “study camp” sponsored by the school, and we discover, as Hagashira points out, that the “childhood friend” trope is something best reserved for fiction.

Explaining the backstory of those two is pretty easy, actually: they’re both latchkey kids who lived next to each other, and Kawanami was naturally extroverted anyway, so they simply grew together. Unfortunately, Akatsuki’s lack of boundaries proved to be crippling – we saw a lot of that in the first volume, and it creeped me out. Here we see Akatsuki acknowledge she was backsliding, and she really is trying not to get so obsessed with those around her (Yume as well) but the sheer loneliness that settles in when she does this is crushing. The intervention towards the end of the book that led the two of them to break down in front of each other is good for catharsis, but I’m not sure it will lead them to grow closer again just yet. As for Hagashira, she’s pretty hilarious, but I do think her shtick only works, as she knows, because of Mizuto’s lack of interest. As for Mizuto and Yume themselves… the biggest romcom thing that happened to them takes place entirely offscreen.

The anime of this has started, and the verdict so far seems to be “OK but flatly animated”. We’ll see how it goes. Till then, this remains a decent romcom but I wish we would return to our main couple.

My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected, Vol. 14

Leave a reply

By Wataru Watari and Ponkan 8. Released in Japan as “Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatte Iru” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jennifer Ward.

I will note that the ending to this series feels very much like you’d expect. The whole thing has involved people avoiding the subject, ducking the real issues, and trying to take care of everything without getting anyone else involved – all things that are impossible if you want to be an actual romantic couple. So somebody is going to have to take a step up here. It’s not going to be Yui, who communicates her feelings to Hachiman in the best “Hachimanese” she can, but he knows and won’t say anything. It’s also not going to be Hachiman, who will never do anything the honest, straightforward way if he can possibly duck out of it. No, it’s going to have to be Yukino, still trying to get the approval of her mother, and putting on a very nice compromise prom that has no problems… but still is not good enough. It’s going to require working together to get a happy ending… and possibly an actual confession.

So yes, they have the prom, and it goes well. Yui gets to dance with Hachiman. Yukino gets to validate herself in front of her family. Iroha gets to feel important and be really annoying. It’s good… but is it good enough? There was a bigger, cooler prom that got shot down, right? Shouldn’t they have fought harder for it? What’s more, it involved another high school, and they’re busy asking “hey, what about that joint prom?”. It’ll take a lot of work to fix this, as well as some brazen lying and bluffing. Fortunately, they have someone who is fantastic at hard work and someone who is fantastic at brazen lying and bluffing. Unfortunately, they’re both acting as if, once this is over, they’ll drift apart and never see each other again. Can Hachiman and Yukino be kicked in the ass enough to confess to each other?

This doesn’t spoil too much (if you think it’s a spoiler Hachiman and Yukino are the final pairing, I urge you to reread Vols 1-13), but it feels absolutely right that Yukino is able, after the 2nd prom, to finally come out with a sincere “I love you”, but Hachiman’s confession to HER is about as oblique as “the moon is beautiful tonight”, basically saying that he wants to continue to get involved with her problems and be in her life. But that’s huge, for him. He wants to be close to someone. He even admits he’s going to get a job after college, rather than the bullshit “househusband” thing he’s always said before. As for Yui… I’m sorry, this is not the sort of series that was going to end with an OT3, though at least she is still trying to stay friends with them. In the end, the only one who exits the story here is Shizuka, who gets transferred to another school, but not before one last dance with her favorite student.

This is the final volume… except there’s a short story collection coming after this. It’s mostly “bundle up the short stories that came out with Blu-Ray boxes”, but has one taking place after this book. In the meantime, this feels like a very appropriate ending for the series.

My Happy Marriage, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Akumi Agitogi and Tsukiho Tsukioka. Released in Japan as “Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon” by Fujimi L Bunko. Released in North America Yen On. Translated by David Musto.

The late lamented manga Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei had as one of its characters a girl named Ai Kaga, whose name was a take on “guilt complex”. She constantly blamed herself for anything that happened around her, even if it had nothing to do with her. This was mined for considerable humor, as was everything in that manga, to the point where Ai’s apologies could actually be weaponized to take out soldiers. Now, take that sort of person and play it 100% seriously and tragically, and you have an idea what reading another volume inside the head of Miyo Saimori is like. Yes, the title continues to be the most ironic one ever, as just because we’ve removed Miyo from her abusive family does not mean that we’ve actually solved her problems, especially since her husband is also a past master at non-communication. The result is that this book feels a lot like the first one did: beautiful and well-written, but not something to read if you’re in the mood for a “light” novel.

Having settled in at the home of her fiance, Miyo is trying to learn the art of being a bride, complete with lessons on “how to act at parties” from Kiyoka’s bright and outgoing sister Hazuki. Unfortunately, she’s started to have horrible nightmares every night, which has made it hard for her to get any rest and has caused her mental health to once more deteriorate. This is not being helped by the fact that she has no idea how to ask for help or to say she needs to rest, and Kiyoka himself has no idea how to offer help if Miyo does not ask for it first. The result is that both of them are once again doubting their partner’s feelings. So it’s a very bad time for a man to show up and turn out to be her cousin, related to her mother’s side of the family… which has as many dark secrets as her father’s side.

As you’d expect with a book like this, once we reach the breaking point for Miyo and she is allowed to become proactive, she shows off that she can be a terrifyingly powerful and gorgeous young woman. It’s just that we kind of have to get through 150 pages, a break-up, more family abuse, and a heaping helping of despair first. I’m not surprised that Miyo’s actually not just powerful, but one of the most powerful Gift-Users around, as this was signposted in the first book. Possibly the most interesting part of the book was Miyo’s feelings towards her mother, who had deliberately suppressed Miyo’s powers in order to protect her… but this also led to Miyo’s abuse by her family for years. She finds this very difficult to simply accept with just a “she did it because she loved me”. I also really enjoyed Hazuki, a desperately needed outgoing and extroverted young who also has a sad backstory but is still strong.

I’m still looking forward to the next volume of this series, but I suspect it will once again be “no, this is still not a happy marriage”, because the plot seems to be “overcoming obstacles”. As such, let the reader beware.