Everyone’s Getting Married, Vol. 9

March 23, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Everyone’s Getting Married Volume 9 by Izumi Miyazono

I’m always glad when Viz puts out stealth josei under the Shojo Beat imprint, and while it might mean only one josei series from them running every year or so, I’ll take what I can get. The final volume of Everyone’s Getting Married reminded me a bunch of a last episode of a Korean drama, because Ryu and Asuka keep quasi breaking up and getting back together after long periods of time pass. Couples separating and reconciling in a dramatic fashion after many years is such a Korean drama staple!

everyone's getting married 9

All along, Ryu’s fervent opposition to marriage and Asuka’s total commitment to becoming a homemaker as her ultimate goal created plenty of dramatic tension throughout the series. It was difficult to envision a happy ending where both of them would be fulfilled, but this final volume showed in an episodic fashion how their personalities shifted a bit after they paused their relationship. Asuka started finding more fulfillment and rewards at work, while Ryu realized that he can’t be solely committed to his career. It takes the wedding of an equally unlikely couple, Rio and Hiroki, to bring Asuka and Ryu back together for good. This volume was much more episodic in nature than previous volumes, with the story unfolding more like a series of vignettes. I put down this volume appreciating all the emotional depth Miyazono brought to the story. Since most of the Shojo Beat imprint focuses on high school romance, it was refreshing to have a series featuring adults dealing with relationships and commitment issues. Now I’ve just got to be patient for fall when the Maki Enjoji series An Incurable Case of Love comes out for my next mainstream josei fix from Viz.

SP Baby Vol. 2

January 23, 2018 by Leave a Comment

SP Baby, Volume 2 by Maki Enjoji

I hadn’t realized before that this was only a two volume series! The second volume of SP Baby does exhibit some typical final second manga volume characteristics of plotlines going kablooie, but overall I enjoyed it as a peak into the possibilities of a slightly more lighthearted Maki Enjoji series.

Story wise, the pacing in this volume is a bit on the frantic side, as each chapter races through events that might have taken an entire volume to play out in a series with a bit more space. Tamaki deals with her infatuation for the florist next door, there’s an incident where she’s suddenly a maid for a short period of time, she continues to demonstrate her unerring bodyguarding instincts, the reader gets a little bit of information about Kagetora’s mysterious past connection to her, and a mysterious random fiancee is quickly disposed of. That’s a crazy amount of stuff to happen in one volume! Still, I liked the more comedic touch Enjoji brought to this series. Everyone’s Getting Married has me much more anxious about what will happen to the characters, but SP Baby was much lighter in tone, so I wasn’t reading every volume with a slight feeling of dread.

I enjoyed Tamaki’s frequent aggressive kicking and Kagetora’s intrinsic endearing weirdness and disconnection from reality. Enjoji’s art is always solid, easily portraying Tamaki’s swings of emotion from unchecked aggression to more tender feelings towards Kagetora. I really think that with 3 or 4 volumes and more time for the pacing to be more deliberate, SP Baby would have been so much better. As it is, it is a nice brief read that doesn’t quite come together in the end. Still recommended for fans of light and fluffy josei.

SP Baby, Vol. 1

November 15, 2017 by Leave a Comment

SP Baby Volume 1 by Maki Enjoji

I’m a pretty big fan of Enjoji’s series Happy Marriage so I was excited when it was announced that Shojo Beat would be bringing out another series of hers. While Happy Marriage has an undercurrent of tension (spoiler alert! no one is getting married yet), the first volume of SP Baby is more of a comedic workplace romance.

Tamaki Hasegawa is struggling to find a full-time job. She needs to better support both herself and her little brother who is about to enter college. She has an ordinary life where one of the highlights is her helpless pining for her long-time friend Natsu who works in a flower shop. One day she sees one man chasing another on the street and jumps in to help by attempting a kick to the head of the threatening man. He promptly catches her ankle, leaving her at a loss on what to do next. After it becomes clear that the two men in question know each other, Tamaki apologizes for interrupting a lover’s quarrel and runs away. Her adventures are not over because the next day she’s shoved into a car carrying Kagetora Sugou, the man who she attempted to defend. He gives her a suit with a short skirt and announces that he’s going to interview her for the full-time job of being his bodyguard.

Kagetora is a nice contrast from Ryu in Everyone’s Getting Married. Kagetora is of course rich, but there’s an odd open-hearted innocence in his mannerisms and actions, like when he gives the people he works with nicknames that are usually reserved for cats. He alludes to having met Tamaki in the past, which is something that she has no memory of. Tamaki embarks on her new job, which necessitates dealing with some intense training in martial arts as well as finally getting her driver’s license. While it is obvious that her new boss is romantically interested in her, Tamaki keeps reminding herself of her so far one-sided affection for Natsu.

Enjoji’s art is always solid, and she easily captures the extreme emotions that Tamaki deals with as she ends up on an impromptu date with Kagetora or gives in to her lighting-fast violent reflexes. By the end of SP Baby, I was rooting for this very odd couple and wanting to see more of this story unfold. February is a long time to wait for the next volume! I recommend this title if you enjoy josei comedies with heroines who have a tendency to kick people in the head.

Full-Time Wife Escapist Vols 1 and 2

July 8, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Full-Time Wife Escapist Volume 1 and 2 by Tsunami Umino

Kodansha seems to be putting out so many digital titles, I’m having a hard time keeping track of them all. I’m always curious to check out josei titles and Full-Time Wife Escapist is a unique title, as it isn’t as overtly focused on romance as some of the other josei titles that have been translated over here.

Mikuri is in a bind after attending graduate school in psychology. She’s having difficulty finding a full-time job, and makes ends meet as a temp. When her temp job ends, she’s caught in a difficult situation because her parents are moving to the country, where there will be even less work for her. She picks up some shifts here and there doing housework and meets a man named Tsuzaki, and she becomes his regular part-time housekeeper. They become closer when she takes care of him during an illness. Mikuri and Tsuzaki come up with the solution where Mikuri will move in as his platonic paid wife, taking over housekeeping duties, making him lunch and dinner, and generally making his bachelor apartment more comfortable.

Tsuzaki is a bit of a loner at work, and somewhat emotionally stunted and has a way of relating to other people that make them assume that he’s cranky, but it seems more like he just hasn’t developed his social skills very well. The transnational nature of the relationship is one of the aspects of this manga that makes it both interesting and refreshing. When Mikuri and Tsuzaki go to visit his parents, they set the terms of Mikuri’s overtime by negotiating back and forth. It is interesting to see tasks that would be unacknowledged emotional labor in a real relationship being assigned a dollar value in this one.

Mikuri’s background in psychology shows her observing other people as opposed to getting real insight on herself. She does have some amusing daydream sequences when her mind wanders and she projects herself into some dream tv interviews that offer some commentary on her life choices. Her aunt Yuri, an unmarried career woman, serves as a counterpoint to Mikuri’s more aimless lifestyle. I enjoy manga when it gets a little didatic, and there are some great asides in Full-Time Wife Escapist where the characters start discussing the economic conditions facing younger adults in Japan, providing some real world background and context to Mikuri’s unconventional lifestyle choice.

The first volume sets up the unique relationship situation in The Full-Time Wife Escapist fairly quickly, and the second volume shows some of the issues that happen when the couple continues to try to portray their relationship as real to friends and colleagues, who sense that something is a bit off in the way the couple relate to each other. At the same time, the close proximity of the fake couple is showing some awareness developing between them. This series has a nice slice-of life pace to the storytelling, as everyday activities like preparing dinner have a new slant due to the unique relationship. At the same time, there are some moments of pathos, as Tsuzaki reflects that if Mikuri ever decides to get married for real, he’s going to be alone for the rest of his life.

Tsuzaki’s friend Kazami starts appearing a bit more and more, and he and Mikuri have a few easy friendly conversations. Kazami starts envying the married lifestyle, but he’s not interested in settling down at all. Intriguing changes are signaled for the next few volumes. I enjoy a good josei romance series, but one of the things I appreciate about The Full-Time Wife Escapist is that it is focused more on transactions and slowly developing friendships than overt romance. It’ll also be interesting to see if Mikuri’s unconventional wife for hire lifestyle is sustainable over the long term.

Everyone’s Getting Married, Vol. 5

May 4, 2017 by Leave a Comment

I still very much enjoy Everyone’s Getting Married, but this volume was a little bit of a letdown, mostly because I’m not terribly fond of the way the “suddenly a rival appears!” storyline is being executed.

At the end of the last volume Kamiya, a work colleague of Asuka’s decided that she would be his ideal wife. He was not put off by the fact that she’s dating Ryu, and Kamiya’s persistence was one of the most annoying things about this volume, even though he did bring up some good and rational points about Asuka and Ryu’s counterproductive relationship. Asuka is mostly reduced to a bargaining chip between the men, and her actions are a little bit too passive, although I suppose it is an accurate portrayal of where a woman might end up when she has been thoroughly socialized to be nice all the time. The volume opens with Ryu and Kamiya getting a drink together, and even though Ryu warns Kamiya to stop his pursuit of Asuka, Kamiya is undeterred, pointing out the futility of a relationship where one person wants to get married and the other is set against it. Kamiya is convinced that the couple will eventually break up, and when that happens he will be there, ready to scoop up Asuka and take advantage of her innate intelligence and competence to have the supportive live partner of his dreams.

Kamiya proceeds to both threaten and manipulate Asuka into spending time with him, and I started feeling very annoyed that Asuka was so passive that she got thrown into situations with Kamiya when she didn’t really want to spend time with him. Ryu and Asuka always do reaffirm their relationship, and a brief trip away with a break from work serves to smooth things over. One of the reasons why this manga is so interesting to read is the fact that either one of the main characters is going to have to fundamentally change, or they will have to break up, and that dramatic tension is intriguing. This volume felt like a bit more of a placeholder, and I hope there’s a more satisfying story in the next volume.

« Previous Page
Next Page »