As we make our way through Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu, Volume 4, (兄の嫁と暮らしています。) we find ourselves literally forced to see both Shino and Nozomi as fully developed humans apart and aside from the presumptive affection that is building between them. It’s fascinating, it’s awkward confronting my own laziness as a reader and it’s refreshing. 

Let’s address the awkwardness.

When I attended Yuriten last month, I took quite a lot of photos. I posted them publicly on Facebook, for folks to share. People did, which was nice. And, I learned something really important. I’ve been running Yuri-focused online communities for 20 years now and have always demanded a high standard of behavior from commenters. I hadn’t realized how civilized you all are, until folks shared out the pictures from Yuriten with people elsewhere. In fact, I had never before encountered such demanding incoherence in a community of my own. One of the pictures is a spoiler for the “other” girl-falls-in-love-with-her-sister-in-law story Tatoeto Dokonu Itoda Toshitemo (たとえとどかぬ糸だとしても ) which runs in Comic Yuri Hime. The point was not the incoherent grunting of animals the picture caused, but my response to that grunting. I had a long conversation with my computer screen which went like this, “Why are you all reacting like /probably some  negative word/s? It’s a Yuri manga. Of course they will get together. Duh.” 

Which brings me to this volume. I, as a reader, am as lazy and entitled as any other reader. I expect manga by Kuzushiro-sensei to be Yuri.  Furthermore, because I have determined to approach this manga as a “Yuri” manga, I assumed that Shino and Nozomi will naturally get together. But, what if they don’t?

Good question there, Erica. 

In Volume 4, Shino gets a job and Nozomi has a crisis about it. Shino is becoming her own person. She’s adulting. And Nozomi is quietly flipping out because she had put her sister-in-law in a box in which she stayed forever the same, half dependent and half independent and now she has to acknowledge change. As a guardian, as family, as a friend….and, if there is anything else, we don’t yet know and can’t because neither of them are ready to think about that. And, on the other side, they are actually becoming more touchy, more relaxed around each other. Not-quite-friends, not-quite relatives. Definitely not-quite-something-more.

Shino gets to see what other people’s obsessive crushes look like from the outside and Nozomi remembers that’s she really good at being a teacher. They come home to each other, and remind each other of what they have and what they’ve lost. If there is going to be a relationship, what’s going on in this volume will be good for it, as they stop thinking of each other in relationship to themselves and start thinking about each other as people.

Any presumptive Yuri aside, this is a really good story. Should the Yuri no longer be presumptive, I’m okay with it. In the meantime, I’m trying to be a better, less lazy reader. Kuzushiro-sensei’s work deserves that.

Ratings:

Art – 8 It is getting mainstreamy-er
Story – 8 It’s not quite compelling, but is quite good
Characters – 8 Becoming human
Yuri – 2 Going down, not up
Service – 3 Also less than previously, and unusually little for Square Enix

Overall – 8

I don’t know if I know where we’re going, but I’m definitely all in for the journey.