In Volume 1 we met hapless Koduka, an adult chronologically, but so at loose ends that she is unable to function, really, as an adult and her hopeless landlady who, under the guise of a terrible contract, is actually making Koduka’s life better. In Volume 2, Koduka comes to realize that she’s falling for her landlady, and start to make steps to put her life in some kind of order.
In I Can’t Believe I Slept With You!, Volume 3, Koduka has finally understood what she wants out of her life…and that includes being with the landlady as lovers. Only, the landlady, who is carrying a ton of emotional baggage is making it harder than it should be. We have hit “two people who like each other and should be together, but are not, for reasons” territory. This might be very irritating, except that Koduka is working so hard at adulting and being a good, kind, and thoughtful, person, that neither we, nor the landlady can resist.
Christmas brings a happy ending for our couple and we’d be perfectly within our rights to take that at face value. In fact, we have to, because while Koduka has worked on herself and realized who she wants to be, the landlady’s story is left for us to imagine and is not so much as touched upon. The creator mentions this regretfully in her afterword and I am torn about it. On the one hand, the story feels unbalanced by it’s absence, but on the other, it was probably pretty obvious and banal (landlady falls for tenant, is rejected, things go badly.) In any case, we are meant to be satisfied with Koduka’s redemption, as she was the protagonist. It was a pretty good redemption, too – Koduka gets a job that suits her and that she likes, she starts to talk to people, she and the landlady become friends with another not-a-lesbian who moves in. Koduka’s extra lovey-dovey Xmas Eve plans are likely to melt most cold hearts.
Art – 8
Story – I don’t want to be the movie scrooge, I’ll call it an 8 out of holiday generosity
Characters – 8, same. The landlady even gets a first name
Service – 5 some sexual situations
Yuri – 8
Overall – 8
As a three-volume short series, Miyako Miyahara’s I Can’t Believe I Slept With You is not ground-breaking, but it’s an easy, fun, dare I say, heartwarming series. A veritable Hallmark movie of a Yuri manga.
Now I’ll go settle in to my seasonal holiday grumpiness. ^_^
I don’t remember why I think this, but I got the impression the landlady’s trauma goes back to high school or earlier, and may involve family issues. I would like more details — or for the growth to be less one-sided, but characterizing it as a holiday special is not a bad approach (though it’s nowhere near as treacly as Our teachers are dating , as far as that goes).
In chapter 5 there’s an encounter with a former classmate who blurts out that their whole class knew about Hara dating a girl, so yeah, presumably her backstory would have been about that if the series hadn’t been cancelled.
Dengeki Daioh started several yuri series around when Bloom Into You was ending, but only the Adachi and Shimamura adaptation survived.