In Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 6 (やがて君になる), the story comes to a climactic moment, with an expected twist.
It is, at last, time for the school festival and with it, Touko’s Student Council is putting on an original play, finally fulfilling her late sister’s unrealized dream. Unusually, we are allowed to see the entire play, including the scene where Sayaka plays amnesiac Touko’s now-forgotten lover. Immediately rumors begin to spread, but they move though the scene to the conclusion of the play; in which the protagonist decides against choosing any of her former lives, instead preferring to create a new self into which she can grow. The play is a rousing success. Touko’s parent’s reaction to it all is very interesting, and I hope we’ll be privy to a conversation between Touko and her family discussing that reaction.
But, as far as the main story goes, there’s only one reaction Touko cares about. When she and Yuu finally have a moment alone, Yuu makes heartfelt confession – she can no longer remain the same as she was, as she had promised. And, more devastatingly, she has realized that she is in love with Touko.
Touko, who had resigned herself to keeping their relationship in stasis, is thrown into a high state of confusion. Where they will end we cannot say (well, okay, obviously we can. It was abundantly clear from the first page of this series it was meant to be a romance. As I noted in my review of the first volume back in 2016, “The first [criticism I had of V1] is that it is presented as a romance. The story is apparently that we’ll side with Touko as her sincere feelings for Yuu are eventually returned.” So, yeah, obviously it has been heading in this direction from the very beginning. Which I’m still kind of sad about. I would really have preferred to have Yuu as a rare aromantic manga protagonist. Oh well.
Setting that aside, as a romance goes, this story is taking time to alleviate my concern that Yuu would be swayed merely by the force of Touko’s affection for her. That, at least, has not manifested.
Now Yuu and Touko will have to see if their feelings can match one another’s, and then see if they can build a relationship on those feelings.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 1
Overall – 8
The play was actually quite good – as well as terrifyingly accurate.
In the meantime, I’m still watching Sayaka, whose role in the play has effectively outed her to the whole school. I hope she will find her way through all this. (I am currently reading another novel by Iruma Hitoma, I’m ever more concerned for her novel, I hope they are up to conveying her as fully developed character.)
I’ve always read Yuu as being more Demi-romantic than aromantic given her stated desire to actually fall in love and have those feelings for someone. Which seems to be about how it turns out? Building up a strong emotional bond with Touko before developing romantic feelings for her.
A valid interpretation, although I never really saw her as desiring that, merely wondering what she’s missing in it all.
Honestly, I think all analysis is far too sophisticated for what is clearly a story that was always going to be a Yuri romance and never anything else.
I don’t have anything concrete to add, but I’ll disagree here on principle: any story can and should be analyzed in a “sophisticated” manner, as Eco did for Ian Fleming and Barthes for the narrative created by images of wrestling.
Yagakimi won’t have the influence of James Bond on the collective imagination, but its representations of “aromantic” (and how Yuu’s thinking changes within the story) will for its part define how such orientation is imagined by a not-inconsiderable audience. There will be otaku excited by specifically by this aspect (if the excitement generated by the ambiguous sexuality of Land of the Lustrous is anything to go by), but it will likely affect the thinking of “normal” viewers too.
Therefore I think there is value in trying to understand the details of what the author is saying and how that message is or can be interpreted. This obviously goes for all works, but personally I think that Yagakimi is a particularly interesting candidate for “opening the hood” of a yuri romance.
I didn’t mean it shouldn’t be analysed, only that looking at it through the lens of sophisticated understanding of sexuality and gender was running it through a course it was never meant to tread. Dengeki Daioh‘s audience is not tuning in for discourse on consent and identity – the story is, and was always meant to be, a Yuri romance. We can and should analyze it, but it will fail to have the depth we need, as it was not almost certainly not created with any of those messages in mind.
Interesting you should bring up Bond, since Fleming’s work is as often discussed for the things it lacks and the racism, homophobia and misogyny in the pages, as for anything else, now. ^_^
Indeed, Eco’s essay referenced those qualities already back in the 60s, though he talks more about it in the context of the Bond-Villain relationship rather than the Bond-Woman relationship. The essay is here in case you have time: http://my.fit.edu/~rosiene/eco%20bond.pdf
Thanks!
I just want Sayaka to be happy, dang it.
Me too, dang it.
While it may not quite answer your prayers, a spin-off novel by Nyuumon Ningen titled やがて君になる 佐伯沙弥香について (Yagate kimi ni naru: About Saeki Sayaka) will be out on Dengeki Bunko this Saturday. IIRC Nyuumon’s (strange pen name even by Japanese standards) 2017 yuri short story collection was reviewed here at some point.
Yes, we reported on that a fee week ago…and I am ambivalent, as I don’t much care for the author. Now that it’s been launched, I also see it’s a middle-school Sayaka. I am still ambivalent.
You’re most welcome. Don’t assume a general interest from one magazine, however. This one is consistently supportive, but that doesn’t mean any others are.
oops, I looked through recent YNN posts in case it was mentioned and missed that anyway. Anyway, I read the first story of the earlier book a while ago and it was nice, so I’ll probably check out the Sayaka book. The middle-school part is a bit of a minus though.
No worries! I will also check out the Sayaka book, but yeah. ^_^
i have no comments, other than that this is a great review and it should say aromantic, unless you were talking about manga protags who smell good lol
this was super helpful as a summary as well!!
Thanks for the catch and for reading! Glad you enjoyed it.