In Volume 7 of 2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei. (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) Aoi’s wedding gets Nanami and Kaede thinking about getting married and living forever with someone. We’re reminded that when we met Nanami she was engaged, but that seems like a long time ago.
Nanami heads to Kyoto, while Kaede stays back in Tokyo to hit some tight deadlines. The day before her wedding, Aoi confesses her whole history with Kaede to Nanami, making it clear that she was in love with her former roommate. Kaede arrives and she and Nanami enjoy a nice wedding…and find themselves seated with the bride’s current girlfriends.
On the ride home, after Nanami falls asleep, doubts about her own life roiling inside her head, we see Kaede confess her true feelings to Nanami with a kiss.
So, that was a surprise. Kaede’s been a bit of a labrador puppy this entire time and we’ve been lead to believe she’s been largely unaware of the emotions around her, until they were made plain. This calls that perspective starkly into question.
Volume 8 is going to have to bring us to some kind of climax on this – there’s no way the tension can hold too much longer. But I’m perfectly willing to hunker down and wait as long as I have to. This series has been one of my all-time favorite Comic Yuri Hime series, not just because the art and content is adult, but also because it’s been give a lot of time to develop slowly and organically. I’ve never felt like the story demanded I accept that people are attracted to one another for no particular reason, without any motivation other than plot. And, since both Kaede and Nanami are the leads in a harem manga, it’s made for a fun excuse to watch them slowly, inexorably be drawn together.
Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5 It’s climbing
Service – 1
Overall – 9
The look on Nanami’s face as she realized they weren’t at Aoi’s exes table, they were at the current lovers’ table, was great.
I really don’t know what was the point of Aoi’s arc. To show some yuri fanservice to readers? To show how meaningless her homosexual encounters with those girls are? Why is she even getting married to some random guy? This is probably the worst Ohsawa’s plot point since “Selfish Fuzz and Pikapika-san”. I really was trying to like this story coz ADULT LIFE yuri is so rare. But nope this time. The slow burn is the one thing, but this is something else. Now I think it would be better for this manga to stay on a more realistic “close friendship between women” territory. This manga is pobably at it’s last volume now.
To your point, I don’t think every element in this story has a plot-forwarding purpose. As I have repeatedly said – this would make a bad anime and most manga readers in the West are used to anime-style manga. This story is not for those readers, it’s for the readers of jousei manga, which is organized much more like a nighttime TV drama. Not everything here has to have an episode to itself. Consider Ru-ko. She wasn’t for anything – she was merely a workplace relationship for Nanami that gave her a person to care about outside the confines of friendship or lover. A work peer. Like people have.
One of the things that make this series stand out for me, is that there are many layers of relationships here. Unlike most Yuri manga, there are fully formed, complicated and real-life kinds of relationships. Aoi is just another one – a friend and roommate, who is promiscuous and teasing. That’s all she’s for. But it’s that very annoying promiscuity that gives her the insight to Nanami’s feelings and Kaede’s personality that Nanami needed.
Also, I’m not sure “pointless” is accurate. We’re led to believe the women are happy, so…not pointless, just not monogamous. She’s most likely getting married because her family expects it. Gay people do that world over. (Shimanami Tasogare, Volume 4 addresses this very same topic, fwiw.)
Somehow this series has escaped my notice until now, but simply seeing the cover, with two ADULT women, requires that I now seek it out.
I’m hoping that we might have a chance to see it licensed. Fingers crossed.
What I love about this series is that the characters actually look like adults, or at least relatively close to what they are being portrayed is. I can’t stand the babyface thing.
I agree completely. The moment the series gained my attention was when Ru-ko gave Nanami face soap in thanks. That is absolutely a thing an adult woman might to to thank a professional peer.
Ultimately my biggest complaint about the series (as of Vol. #7; german edition) would be that there’s not enough Aoi. The most intruiging person among the cast in my opinion. Oh and Koyuki’s crush felt like a joke without punchline.