In Volume 1, we met Hanayo, a woman whose husband has passed away, leaving her both free to do whatever she wants and confused as to what that might be. She meets Yoshiko, a woman of similar age, who runs a cosmetics store in town and her life begins to change.
In Hana Monogatari, Volume 2 (はなものがたり), Hanayo begins to build her new life and runs into a new version of an old problem. We learned in Volume 1 that her husband lacked imagination and greatly impeded Hanayo’s chances at growth. When he retired he clung to her selfishly, forcing her to continue to cater to his needs until the very end. She loved him, but she had been ready to start fresh at retirement. Now that he is gone, she finally has a chance at that fresh life.
Hanayo signs up for a college class on Yoshiya Nobuko’s and ends up with a surprising new acquaintance. Subtly, in the instructor’s story, schwinn-sensei’s shows the kind of disdain Yoshiya’s works received for decades at the hands of academic literary scholars. And then a crisis occurs.
Riko, Hanayo’s granddaughter has been fabulously supportive of her grandmother and her daughter-in-law knows what she’s doing and supports it as well. Almost predictably the only person who is not on her side is her son…a man who clearly takes after his father. He condescends at his mother, claiming she is not able to keep up with the times (a projection, as he himself is unable to) and sneers that this is the influence of that “old lady” friend of hers. When Hanayo demands he show respect to her friend and stop being an ass, again predictably, he storms off, his feelings hurt.
Around this time when the series was coming out, schwinn-sensei noted on social media that her editor started making fun of this story – not in a kind way. He undermined her confidence in exactly the same way that the son attempts to do with Hanayo. I don’t know if this chapter was in response to the editor, or was the inciting incident, but it is clear that, like Hanayo’s son, this guy found even the mildest of criticism of men undermining women’s work too hard to accept, thus proving the problem. Apparently Comic Flapper was not at all supportive of this work.
At least in Hanayo’s case, but one hopes in scwhinn-sensei’s case, as well, standing up for herself brought renewed dedication and strength. Hanayo invites Yoshiko out to what turns out to be a lovely birthday dinner. They tell each other their ages…and Yoshiko admits to having dated older women before. Yoshiko suggests that they do this again next year. Adorably when she gets home, Hanayo freaks out about the idea that it was a date – and is thoughtful at the idea of “next year.”
Another key point in this story is a great deal of Yoshiko’s history. She goes out with friends – on the screen is an older idol celebrating a 20 year retrospective and we learn that she and Yoshiko were once lovers.
Ratings:
Art – 8 Hanayo is adorable
Story – 10
Characters – 10 They have lives, and family and society, like real people do
Service – 0 salaciousness, 10 empowerment
LGBTQ+- 9
Yuri – 7 It notches up
Overall – 10
While this series did not get the love it deserved from its editor, it has been popular enough to be translated into Korean and Chinese in Taiwan and, sxhwinn-sensei announced on Twitter last month that it is coming out in French! I am endlessly hopeful that someone in the US will pick it up for localization, because we definitely need more older adult Yuri! I say “older” but Yoshiko is only a few years older than me at this point. So, yeah, gimme old lady Yuri because I am an old lady. ^_^
