Archive for the Ikeda Takashi Category


The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 4 Guest Review by Patricia Baxter

December 13th, 2023
Two women lean on a fence, looking at each other, entwining fingers. One woman has medium-length brown hair, wearing a red blouse and cargo khaki capris. The other has long blonde hair pulled into a severe ponytail, wearing a lavender long shirt and a white skirt.My name is Patricia Baxter (she/her). I am a bisexual autistic writer who has previously written articles concerning how media represents different marginalized communities. You can find more of my work through my personal website “Autistic Observations”.
 
The fourth, and final, volume of The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This is, in a word, delightful.  Not that this manga series hasn’t been an absolute delight for me to read these past two years, because it has been, but this volume in particular emphasizes just how special the series was to read.  In essence, this series’ greatest success is the same reason why I also love She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat and If We Leave on the Dot so much; they are manga series centred on the lives of sapphic women who are living happily and without shame for who they are, who they love, and what they do with their lives.  It sounds like a simple thing to take joy from, but in a media landscape so entrenched in heteronormativity it is still challenging to find narratives that even cover a fraction of what members of the LGBTQ+ community experience, or wish to experience, for themselves.  Therefore, instances where we can read a series where the characters who, even if they are not exactly like you, foster a sense of familiarity and empathy to you, are all the more special.
 

Ellie and “Wanko” continue to be a delight to read, as their day-to-day routines and shenanigans do not fail to amuse and warm the heart and they feel like actual people who exist in our reality.  The emphasis on the couple moving forward to the next stage of their relationship, discussing their future in terms of marriage and their respective career paths, adds a new layer to their established dynamics.  This may sound mundane on paper, but it’s enriching for those of us who need to see these ordinary life events occur to imagine our futures for ourselves.There is one element of the book that, while overall handled very well, deserves some criticism.  This volume introduces a new character to the series, a high school student named Kita, who is revealed to be a transfeminine youth.*  They initially assumed that Ellie was a trans woman, and asked her for advice on how to become a woman.  While Ellie cannot be the guide Kita needs to traverse through a gender transition, she is still more than willing to lend an ear and offer positive reinforcement to think about their future.  The main sticking point in this volume is the pronouns used to address Kita are exclusively masculine ones, which is a choice I felt frustrated by.  I’m uncertain if this is meant to reflect how they were addressed in the original Japanese edition, or if it was an intentional request by Takashi Ikeda for the English translation, but having a transgender character only addressed by the pronouns associated with the gender they’ve been assigned with at birth is something many people will find discomforting, as it did for me.  This slight hiccup is unfortunate, as this volume has several instances of queer positivity, but overall I am happy for Kita’s inclusion in the narrative and that their story was treated with empathy and kindness by the author.

In the end, the final volume of The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This emphasized just how much I love these characters and taking the time to experience their lives.  I didn’t want the book to end, but I am glad that we were able to catch a glimpse of these characters’ journeys for a little while.

* I chose to use they/them pronouns for Kita in my review because Kita is a transfeminine character, and it is important to address the possibility that they may be non-binary as they are still considering their gender identity for themselves

Art: 8
Story: 9
Characters: 10
Service: 2 (some nudity, references to Ellie and Wanko still having very enthusiastic sex together, but nothing egregious)
Yuri: 10
LGBTQ+: YMMV, 5 – 7 depending on how you view Kita’s treatment in the book
Overall: 9.5





The Two Of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 3

November 27th, 2023

Two woman in bikinis frolic down a beach happily together.To paraphrase myself from my review of this volume in Japanese, “One of the defining characteristics of an adult life is facing setbacks. You can work really hard, gambare with all you have and still not achieve the goal. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s just life. In The Two Of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 3, its both.”

“Wanko” is giving it her all, doing audition after audition. The one job she had gotten is canceled for reasons that are beyond her control. (And which resonate kind of hard this season, after the recent scandals of a major production group in Japan.) She’s working that treadmill hard, but she’s not getting anywhere.

Ellie is struggling with a wholly different problem. She’s been given an opportunity. One of the best in the business is mentoring her, with a tough love attitude and hard, cold facts. Now that she has an opening, she’s not at all confident that she’ll be able to move forward. 

Wanko really wants to be a full partner in their lives together, so despite her loss of her job, she contributes to the month’s rent. Ellie would be happy to let Wanko keep it, but she’s 100% supportive of her partner’s choice. Again, as I said, in my review of the JP edition, ” get yourself someone who looks at you the way Sakuma looks at Wako.”  Ikeda-sensei’s art is great in this volume, with expressions and body language really dragging you in to the emotional backdrop of every scene. But – and I will say this every time – his art hits new levels when he just does a panel of Ellie. He loves drawing her and it shows.

Solid work by the team at Seven Seas. Anh Kiet Ngo had a few challenging passages here and came through with a solid translation. (I was thinking about this just a moment ago, when I made an excruciating pun to my wife that was both in-joke and tortured English and I had a thought about how impossible that is to translate. This series is full of that kind of thing. Rina Mappa’s lettering is solid, but she is not given time to retouch which would have looked better. Give letterers time and money to retouch!

Overall a funny, poignant volume of this lovable series.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Service – 5 Light nudity
Lesbian – 10

For a slightly goofy, slightly realistic story of two women (and their colleagues and friends) adulting together and being in love, this is a quietly outstanding story.  I hope you’ll pick it up and give it a read.





The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 2

January 16th, 2023

Snowy, bare white scene, with a few trees and a building in the background. Two woman stand. One wears a mid-thigh length green hooded winter coat, she looks at the other woman, who wear a pink hoodie, brown shorts with black leggings underneath, and is reaching down towards us presumably to grab some snow. Black and red letters read, "The Two Of Them Are pretty Much Like This", In black a large 2 is in the bottom right corner, and in the bottom left, in black, "story and art by Takashi Ikeda."In Volume 1, we met Ellie a scriptwriter and her lover Wako, and aspiring voice actress. In The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 2, Wako’s career gets a big bump with a role in an upcoming anime. What will that mean for Ellie? Well, it won’t mean that Wako’s paying the rent just yet. ^_^

In this volume we meet an editor friend of Ellie’s, the kind-of-hapless Ataru. and Wako’s fellow voice actors. There are moments of intimacy, and hard work, and mistakes and embarrassing moments with neighbors. Just every day life things. This is a low drama, low comedy, and low low-key slice-of-life comedy. that’s a fun read, without asking much of us. As I said in my review of this volume in Japanese,  the only problem I had with it was the “birthday gag” in the final chapter, a gag that I strongly dislike. You know the one – “Oh, no, everyone has forgotten my birthday.” UGH.

Ellie and Wako are in love, they are adorable together and we (well, maybe not Ataru) are rooting for them all the way.  I didn’t know how much I needed another Yuri manga from Ikeda Takashi until I read this the first time., but yeah, I really did. His art is outstanding, the tone is goofy without being exhausting for a beautifully balanced story. 

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8 1 point off for the surprise party
Service – 5 Nudity and acknowledgement of sex, but not more. It’s more just like, knowing an adult couple as friends.
Lesbian – 10 and then sure, Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

As I said the first time, “Fun, relatable and way better than I anticipated, but that one point off for that goddamned awful surprise birthday party plot.” I very much enjoy the recurring Wako-as-an-idol gag. ^_^

Volume 3 will be hitting shelves in English in June!

 





The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 1

July 18th, 2022

Ellie is a scriptwriter and Wako (whom Ellie refers to as “Wanko” for her puppy-like qualities,) is trying to break into voice acting. They are living together…they are, in fact, lovers. And like most people, they are a little goofy and a little doofy in their private time together. Their private time together is what we will be seeing in The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 1.

The last book we had from creator Takashi Ikeda was Whispered Words and one can instantly see some remnants of that series’ physical comedy here in wacky expressions. However, this series is far more adult and chill and the art reflects that, as well. Where every other character looks like a manga character, Ikeda’s studies of Ellie’s face are stunningly beautiful. Individual panels of her expressions took my breath away through the whole series.

There is no high drama here. Drama comes from real-life stresses. Did Wako pass the audition? Wako’s mother comes to visit – there is no homophobia, just a silly sit-com misunderstanding. Oh, but having Mom visiting is plenty stress enough. Ellie and Wako root for one another and take care of one another. Their relationship is an anchor, not a strain. The two of them have adult lives that are, just pretty much like adult lives are.

I love this series. Unconditionally. There is nothing about it I didn’t like in Japanese. Every volume was better than the last, and Takashi-sensei, as I pointed out in my review of the Japanese edition, still knows how to end a volume. Art, story, character, this is one of the best slice-of-adult-life stories I’ve ever read and I’m ecstatic that you can read it too! It might not sound exciting, but this is the after-happily-ever-after story I’ve wanted to see for ages.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 5 a bit, it’s a story for adult readers
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9 so there is room to go up. It will need it.

I find that I always default to ‘r’ over ‘l’ in my mental translation, so Sakuma will always be Eri to me. ^_^ But that in no way diminishes the terrific translation job done by Anh Kiet Ngo, which gives every character a unique voice. I love when Rina Mappa is given space for the lettering to shine in retouching, there are a couple of choices here that are fantastic. Thanks to the proofreader, copy editor and editor – and thank to Seven Seas for having all three of those (!). Another fabulous job by Seven Seas. Highly recommended and a shoo-in for one of my Top Yuri of 2022. ^_^ (Honestly, though, this year is gonna be tough – so much amazing stuff is coming out in Japanese and English….)





Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 4 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ)

May 12th, 2022

In Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 4 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ) Ikeda Takashi brings his specific brand of wacky slice-of-life to a fantastic conclusion.

In the first three volumes of this series (Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3) we met Inazuka Wako, an aspiring voice actress and her lover Sakuma Eri, a script writer. The two of them have a happy relationship and a life filled with friends, and colleagues and neighbors. Both Eri and Wako are a bit silly, the way people often are and the situations they find themselves in are likewise, the kinds of stories we tell friends over and over.

In Volume 4, some old issues are resolved, new-old issues pop up, new-new issues arise and in the end, Wako and Eri continue to live happily ever after. There’s a lot that happens, but I’m not going to tell you about any of it, except for one thing. My favorite bit of the book is the segment when Eri buys new glasses. Some of the panels of Eri trying on glasses are breathtakingly drawn. Eri looks like an actual human.  But she’s drawn in a way that is simply stunning. I could fall in love with that woman on the page. honestly.

The good news is that you will soon be able to read this series in English! The Two Of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, Volume 1 is headed our way in June, from Seven Seas, which makes this a fabulous Pride Month selection! This series has the same kind of wacky humor we loved in Ikeda’s Whispered Words, without the melodrama or misunderstandings. This is a great story about two queer women I’d have over for lunch any time, with the occasional heartbreakingly good portraiture.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Service – Less than the other volumes
LGBTQ+ – 10

Overall – 10

A perfect ending to a fabulous series.