Stretch Manga, Volume 4 (ストレッチ)

December 19th, 2016

For about two years, I’ve been following Akili’s wecomic-turned-manga, Stretch. For two years I’ve watched Keiko and Ran, two adults who are clearly close friends and roommates act like close friends and roommates. This of course doesn’t stop some fans from seeing more. ^_^

Volume 4 of Stretch (ストレッチ), the final volume, begins with Ran telling Keiko that she’s getting married and moving out. Half of this is true. Her time relying on her old school sempai is coming to a close. In between suggestions for “dynamic stretching,” Ran and Keiko spend their last days together as roommates.

Their relationship never changes. It remains friendly, intimate and snarky right to the end. Two close friends who had fun as roommates and have every intention of keeping in touch. It’s anticlimactic in it’s normality. 

And, really, that was what Stretch always was. It was never a romance, or a Yuri manga. It was always a manga about two adult women who were friends. Had it been written for a female audience  it might have had less service, but probably would not have been otherwise much different.  

Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 1
Service – 6  Some perfunctory bath groping.

As a vehicle for getting readers to do some stretching, Stretch was pretty fun.

2 Responses

  1. Jin says:

    I enjoyed Stretch. As there is more to yuri than Girls Love, all wonderful, nice and fluffy feelings of love between females, it is nice to see other things to consider. I wish Prism had worked out, as many others did also. It is regrettable that I have seen that Higashiyama Shou has returned to the worst, Comic LO. I enjoyed the art style, I would have liked to see another project such as Prism.

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