In Volume 1 of Yuni’s office life drama, we met Komori Mio a woman who has been transferred into Human Resources instead of getting promoted in sales, at which she excels. She excels, at least in part, at sales because she is very good at schmoozing women, which suits her fine. In HR she’s mentored by Yamanobe Kyouko who initially seems very uptight, but is also, as it turns out, very good with the ladies.
Volume 2 of Hitogoto Desukara!, (ヒトゴトですから!) begins with Komori encountering a weakness in herself. She’s not great at conducting internal interviews. Having always approached negotiation from a transactional perspective, Komori isn’t suited to the more conciliatory interviews of HR.
But more importantly, the interview leads us to learn about Yamanobe’s early years, and an old love affair with repercussions in the present. And the situation just gets more and more complicated as relics of Yamanobe’s life keep her tied to her past and unable to move forward, to the detriment of her future.
The whole story is ironic in several senses, as HR reps are the ones that are meant (in theory) to help you out of sticky personal issues in the workplace. At least here in the US that’s completely fictitious as HR serves primarily as a risk management tool for corporate leadership. Reading this book with an American eye, every one of the female characters would be hounded out of their positions, while Haruma would be promoted to the position Komori deserved. But it’s not all that difficult to stay amused as these people all fail to function appropriately. ^_^
It’s bitter, it’s funny, it’s wacky….it’s a bit like being the colleague in the office who can see all the drama, but isn’t sucked into it. We’re all the older lady in the corner who thinks these young people have too much energy. ^_^
Ratings:
Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 7
Service – 0 More drunken, than licentious this volume
Yuri – 8 Two definitely queer woman, and two I think have potential. ^_^
Overall – 8
I do not want Komori and Yamanobe getting together, but I like that they can sort-of rely on one another enough to talk to about whatever nonsense they are dealing with in their love life. ^_^
I don’t know if Yen Press will license this series; it is a bit more real-life business stuff (there are notes in the back to the actual HR texts used as references in the back of the book) than usual for the Yuri audience, but as a corporate drone myself for most of my adult life, I sure appreciate it! ^_^
I picked up volumes 1 and 2 of this, along with I Love You To Hate You, more or less as blind recommendations from Amazon while buying a bunch of other OL series. My poor Japanese makes reading painfully slow, but one of the things I’ve noticed about Yuni’s work that I really like is how normal it all is. The only difference between this and any other seinen / josei slice of life series is that the two main characters are lesbian. It’s maybe even a little too earnest? (Although one thing I do like about Japan is that they still haven’t quite collapsed into reflexive cynicism about their institutions – Shin Godzilla has to be the only recent big action movie that’s built on the premise that if everyone in the government just works together we can all accomplish great things, or at least drive Godzilla back into the sea).
While there are series like かけおちガール that tackle things like compulsive heterosexuality and internalized homophobia from new / different angles, it’s also neat to see something that normalizes queerness as just another personality trait, without requiring that stories be set in single-gender lily-strewn Avalons.
I just generally cannot get enough the current wave of OL / adult bi and lesbian themed series – this, 月とすっぴん, 定時にあがれたら, 欠けた月とドーナッツ, 不揃いの連理 (sort of), Collectors, 異国日記 (again, sort of), even Morinaga-sensei with 私の可愛い子猫. And not all of it published in Yuri-Hime or Galette! Does that mean that editors think there’s more of a market for lesbian stories for adults? That would be cool.