In Volume 1 of Hakamada Mera‘s Watashi no Taisestuna Tomodachi (わたしの大切なともだち), we met Ebisawa Shouko, an otaku girl with low self esteem who is repudiated by an old childhood friend. When that friend, Tachibana, loses her memory, Ebi-san inserts herself back into her life with a little white lie, that they were the best of friends. Tachibana joins Ebi-san at a design school that was meant as a stop-gap measure during Ebi’s ronin year.

In Volume 2, Ebi-san and Tachibana are swirled up in the more demanding requirements of their friend Waka, and her famous manga artist sister Hiako.

Volume 3 picks up in the middle of summer vacation, and during a deadline crisis for Hiako-sensei. Ebi-san and her classmates are roped in by Waka to assist her sister. At the end, Ebi-sawa has shown such dedication and talent, that Hiako asks her to be her assistant…and protege. The first is a positive thing for Ebisawa, but the second is life changing. Ebisawa starts to lay her self-esteem issues to rest.

However, at this point, Tachibana has been relegated to the position of supporting character. She’s seen and heard repeatedly obsessing over ice cream, but there’s barely any interaction between her and Ebisawa.

And when the next arc – masterwork projects for the school festival OMG! – begins, it’s *still* not about Tachibana and Ebisawa. This time, it’s Waka, driven, focused, imperious and demanding, who is the center of the story. Waka alienates her classmates, who feel as if she doesn’t understand how *hard* they have to work to get half as far as she does on sheer talent. Offended to the core, because she feels that she works twice as hard as everyone else, Waka stalks off. In the meantime, everyone else struggles to work on their own projects.

Waka comes to a realization that her project is, in fact, not *her* project, but *their* project, and she returns with abject apology, and an offer that all six of them will have their names on the project. Fences mended, we all produce award-winning work. Ebisawa’s project is the prototype for a manga she wants to draw about her “most important friend.” Tachibana’s project is also a manga, the story of how she lost her memory when she was hit by a meteor.

When the school festival draws to a close, Tachibana apologizes to Ebisawa for dissing her that day. “I’m sorry I killed Tanabata,” she says, referring to the nickname she had before she lost her memory.

The next chapter covers Ebisawa and Tachibana’s story from Tachibana’s point of view. How, even as she said what she said, she knew it was hurtful but couldn’t stop herself. Her memories returning, she realizes that she and Ebisawa *were* best friends for so many years and it’s up to her to reclaim that – but now she feels she has no right to do so.

They graduate. A year passes, but Tachibana does not attend the friendly get-togethers the classmates have…nor has she seen or spoken to Ebisawa in all that time.

Tachibana’s two highschool friends from the first scene are still friendly with the new, formerly slightly addle-brained, now increasingly-depressed Tachibana. Ebisawa has gone on to some reknown as the creator of her manga which, the two say, is like a love letter. When the two visit, they can see that Tachibana’s bumming about not speaking to Ebi-san, so they decide to interfere. They email Ebi-san a link to Tachibana’s blog.

Ebi-san reads the blog, which Tachibana writes, she says, because she lost her memories once and she doesn’t want that to happen again…so she writes everything down so even if she loses her memories, she has them somewhere. Honestly, movingly, she tells the story of how she hurt and repudiated a good friend and how much she regrets what she said. Ebisawa, tears running down her face, runs out to see Tachibana. Tachibana is miserable, brooding over the loss of Ebi-san, and thinking “it’s not like she’s going to come running around the corner,” when Ebi-san comes running around the corner. They reconcile, with tears.

As the epilogue dawns, it appears that Tachibana and Ebiasawa are now living together. Their friends from design school are dropping by and the resulting gag was predictable, but amusing.

And the books ends.

I had hoped for much more from this story, to be honest. The digression into the “exhausting life of a mangaka” was interesting (and a trend I’m seeing more and more in manga as artists attempt to explain to their readers just what they go through to get the work out there…) but I feel as if the main plot basically happened as an afterthought, or off scene, while all this other stuff was going on.

The ending read very subtexty to me, but gosh darn I really would have liked to see it be a little more overt texty. I don’t live with all my friends, but I do live with one…the one who is *my* most important friend. And Ebisawa’s manga was “like a love letter.” So…yes, I think this was Yuri, but only by implication. While the author took a volume and a half having us watch something else, could Ebi-san and Tachibana not have had a second to think, “Damn I miss her…and want to hold her and…”? Meh. That’s what I think.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 7
Story – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 0

Overall – 6

By the end, everyone was very real, but the story was only marginally satisfying.

In Volume 1 of Watashi no Taisetsuna Tomodachi (わたしの大切なともだち), we met Ebisawa Shouko (Ebi-chan), a geek girl who failed to get into a university and is taking courses at a design trade school in the meantime. We also met Tachibana, a former childhood friend of Ebi-chan’s, who has lost her memory – right down to words and concepts. What’s left, Ebi-chan learns, is a ridiculous superhuman strength and a unending hunger. In Volume 2, we also learn that Tachibana has some lingering memories of her and Ebi-chan’s time together. But, not right away.

First we must deal with the possible professional success of a classmate, wherein we learn that success – and a professional career doing what you enjoy – is a double-edge sword. And we must weather the trauma caused by an apparent meeting with a precocious and vicious child, who turns out to be a new teacher and a popular manga artist. All of the tension built up in these stories explodes when Ebisawa quite accidentally plagiarizes the teacher’s work, to her utter mortification.

Ebi-chan undergoes a significant crisis of identity, finally confronting the low self-esteem we’ve seen from the start. To Ebi-chan’s surprise both her “rival” and Tachibana step up to help her out of her funk. Even more surprising, when Tachibana’s cool friends from high school drop by and beg her to join them at college, Tachibana blows them off, because she remembers a promise she and Ebi-chan made when they were young. Surprised to realize that she has more friends than she realized, and deeply moved by Tachibana’s rare smile, Ebi-chan redeems herself beautifully.

This volume was sort of problematic. The set-up of the story had to take a back seat to the work needed to fix the holes in it, before it could actually work.

Ebi-chan’s little lie – that she and Tachibana were best friends – wasn’t ever a huge issue; it was made huge by the gap between Tachibana’s apparent status as a “cool” girl and Ebi-chan’s low self esteem. Ebi-chan’s worry that Tachibana would remember everything and castigate her was also only significant because she had such a poor image of herself.

But the Tachibana we see is straightforward, a little loopy and obsessed with food. The kind of person who we can see being best friends with in kindergarten, and going out to karaoke with. It’s hard to imagine that she would be outright mean. When her cool friends come by, we can see that she was kind of fun and goofy with them too, so other than her memory loss, we can assume that she hasn’t changed all *that* much.

Ebi-san’s feelings for Tachibana are confused, because they are tied up with her own feelings of inadequacy. And that inadequacy complicates her studies, as well. Frankly, if we didn’t get that cleared up, this manga would remain a series of pretty thin gags. Now that it’s all behind us, and we already know that some of Tachibana’s memories have returned, hopefully we can move on with the story. Yes, we’ve had to give up the original premise, but it was already getting thin after a volume. So, plotwise, this was a good move. Unfortunately, story-wise it was pretty much a bore. I found it really hard to care about someone else’s issues in the middle of Ebi-chan’s crisis du page, and was not amused at the overused “apparent child who is really an adult” gambit.

Nonetheless, we are past what was a pretty big hump and have received Tachibana’s benediction in the form of a smile. So, hopefully volume 3 will be better than this one.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 6, but there’s hope for better
Story – 6
Yuri – 1
Service – 0

Overall – 6

On the whole, I’m finding Hakamada Mera’s current Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S stories more enjoyable at the moment, but I’m fascinated by the shift in her story-telling from throwaway shorts to trying to tell something that has some staying power.

Akatsuki-iro no Senpuku Majyo by Hakamada Mera is, according to the obi on the book, a “Magical Youthful Love Yuri Heartful School Story.” I’d call it whimsical, certainly.

Once upon a time, a school for magic existed. Into that school transferred a new student, with the name Akira. To everyone’s surprise, Akira came into the schoolroom wearing a giant armored suit, and was unable to speak. The students were unkind to Akira, but the class president Tokiko rebuked the other students.

One day, a fire broke out in the school, but no one was able to break in to rescuse the student inside the room. Only Akira inside the iron shell stepped up to try. There was a loud bang and Akira’s magic burst past the seal on the door. When the girl inside had been saved, and the smoke cleared, everyone was amazed to see that the iron shell housed a young girl.

Thus begins the Akira’s adventures at the school of magic.

Tokiko and Akira become good friends, and Akira confides that she is looking for her older sister, who her grandmother told her might be at this school. When her grandmother died, Akira was sealed in the iron suit as part of a curse – but her release of magic to save Yoru-sempai had freed her.

Most of this volume is very typical Hakamada hijinks. There’s the usual school stuff, festivals and lunchtime and gym, and in the cracks are some service-y type situations. In fact, this could be Last Uniform all over again, except that it takes place at a co-ed school in a world where magic exists.

Tokiko and Akira look like they might become an item, but by the end of the book, Yoru-sempai has pulled into the lead position of substitute onee-chan, if not the real one. And Mochizuki-sempai likes to snuggle Tokiko because she’s soft and fluffy. The obi tells me the series is Yuri, but by the end of the first volume, we’re mostly working with Yuri goggles on high settings.

Who will turn out to be (or become) Akira’s onee-chan? tune in next time!

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 0

Overall – 7

If you like The Last Uniform or any of Hakamada’s other works, you’ll enjoy this manga as well.