“Can’t buy me love,” or so the song says. But Hishikawa Shun is much too young to know that song and and she has much more money than sense, so she approaches classmate Komaki with an offer she could refuse – Shun will pay Komaki for her companionship. And, she’s convinced, more. Komaki doesn’t refuse the first part of the offer, but consistently refuses the additional services requested.
Shouraiteki ni Shindekure (将来的に死んでくれ) is not exactly a likable story, for many reasons. The premise is silly, but it’s played for laughs in a way to guarantee I’ll never so much as crack a smile. Hishikawa is a shouty character, whose reactions to everything appear to be at high decibels and with the ugliest open-mouthed tear-filled weird faces possible. When a bit of creepy service goes over the line, I considered dropping the book altogether, but didn’t. And I’m kinda-ish glad I didn’t.
Because, while Hishikawa is a perv and Komaki’s little brother is a perv and I fucking hate comedy based on perving because it’s gross and not at all funny, there’s something here, buried behind the idiotic premise I do find interesting.
Hishikawa has very poor people skills. We can see that even when she speaks with her best friend, Saya. Saya seems to understand Hishikawa’s lack of human skills and explains it for Komaki. And, for her part, I genuine believe Hishikawa when she tells us that she’s genuinely in love with Komaki. I just also think she has no belief in herself as desirable or interesting and doesn’t have enough peopling practice to realize that offering money for friendship and sex might get you want, but won’t get you what you need. In turn Komaki doesn’t actually dislike Hishikawa and she is always very, very clear about her boundaries. I think that Komaki might just train Hishikawa to become a person.
I sure hope so.
Ratings:
Art – 4 Ugh
Characters – Anywhere from 3-7 variably in a single chapter
Story – 4 Creepiness is not funny. It just isn’t.
Service – 6 No upskirt, but very much in the creepy.
Yuri – 5 – Buried pretty far down, but it’s there and it’s sincere.
Overall – 5
There’s at least one more volume of this series, but I’m likely to give it a pass. I didn’t care enough and more panels of Hishikawa’s shouty, teary, snotty face, or her shouty weird smile face, is not needed in my life.
Oh, heavens, there’s two more volumes! (Volume 2 | Volume 3). If any of you read them, let me know what happens! ^_^
Sad because even though I know all of this series’s short coming, I still like it the most out of all the current running yuri comedy serialization (there are just so few of them, in the back of my mind i can only recall Bright and Cheery Amnesia and 立花館To Lie (which I can’t bother to pick up) right now).
I guess it’s a matter of how serious you take its nonsensical premise and whether you’re willing to let it slide past or not to enjoy the jokes and the characters. I respect all your other opinions about the manga, however I disagree with the comment about the art because it was actually one of the aspects that made me interested, it’s unique and fitting for a gag manga. And I like the main characters’ interaction. Sure Hishikawa is an annoying piece of human being and doesn’t understand anything about human interaction, but above all else she respects the will of Komaki. And while Komaki firmly keeps her boundary, she is also incredibly patient with Hishikawa, she never once pushed her away and always rewards Hishikawa when she does the right thing.
If there is anything that I would say is the true deterrent for a yuri fan to pick up this manga, then it would be the fact that shounen romcom series like this one have a tendency to drag without meaningful development until the very last chapters. It has happened to Shinozaki and it could happen to this one too.