In Volume 1, we met Suga Asako, who was starting a new life after her relationship ended, and her new landlady, former idol Miyako, who lives in her loft.
Ayako and the landlady are becoming family and in Volume 2 of Maitsuki Niwatsuki Ooyatsuki – Monthly With Ooya (毎月庭つき大家つき), they have begun to realize it. It’s not giant drama here, it’s the slow life version of coming to care for a person with whom you buy new coffee mugs and make dinner and who is there for you when you need help.
Suddenly, the landlady’s old idol group is in the news – they have a new lead and are going back on stage! The news programs talk about the rift between Miyako and the others and how she left the group. But the landlady says that is all fake news. She left because thy wanted her to be Miyako all the time and she wanted to be her. The group encouraged her to leave and she’s happy for them. When Elm’s #1 fan, i.e., Asako’s best friend whom they call Hato-san, says she will try to get tickets, there is a chance that the landlady will get to see her group on stage.
And so she does. She wears a wig, so no one will recognize her, but that does not go to plan. First, new group leader Ruri tells the audience that they loved Miyako and wish her well and the news made all their supposed fight up. Then landlady and Hato-san are cornered by a limo on the way out.
Suga gets a emergency text to meet them…at a karaoke booth, where they are hanging with the Elm members, eating and singing. Hato-san is dying, of course. But all is well, they get to tell each other face to face their encouraging words. Ruri notes that Miyako seems to really like Ayako, and she agrees happily…and Ayako returns the feeling.
The manga ends with a day in the life of these two who have become, rather casually, a partnership. Whether this is love or “love,” I don’t really care. What it is, definitely is family. I love found family stories, as so many of us queer folks have spent a lifetime building those for ourselves.
Ratings:
Art – 7 Generally good, with occasional “what?”s
Story – 8 This kind of real-world slow life is my jam
Character – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 2? Plenty of potential, but romance is quite aside the point.
Overall – 8
On this day which is meant to celebrate community here in the USA, I wish you all a happy friendsgiving and a wonderful day of community and found family.
Hi, I (he/him, cis) commented on this site before and I’ve even sent you an email or two.
So this seems like a wonderful and interesting story even if I’m more So this seems like a wonderful and interesting story even if I’m more Font of sci-fi and fantasy titles. The characters seemed nice, the set up was relatively unique, and it seems like a wonderful little read overall.
I’ve forgotten if I’m allowed to include links but… I wanted to let you know that there is a store on Amazon called “A.M Saturday” that has several diverse and included American manga titles You might want to take a look. I wish Hunter X Blade would be officially licensed again in the United States and the manga would finally be finished here. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell well enough apparently so they just gave up.
I would love to see some American, yuri, isekai, light novels with a diverse and inclusive cast. Are there any rpg-lit novels that might qualify for this spot in my reading list?