by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

I ran into an ex once at the public batting cages in Arlington, VA. Well, she wasn’t really an ex, more like the other half of a pseudo-situationship. I spied her out of the corner of my eye as my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I looked for an open spot. If I were punching up this story, I would say we locked eyes through the wire fence. In a moment frozen in time, I’d be shot through with the pain of regret of decisions not made sooner, words left unsaid. My date would notice I had become quiet and distracted; I would shrug off any questions about it despite my soured mood, kicking off a downward spiral that ruins our date. But nothing so dramatic happened; we simply found an open cage, hit some dingers, and had a lovely rest of our evening.

In the previous volume of Assorted Entanglements, Shizuku was rattled by seeing a woman we haven’t seen before while walking Saori back to her house. Saori noticed, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. Turns out that the garishly-dressed woman is Shizuku’s ex.

A notable amount of Assorted Entanglements Volume 7 is dedicated to Shizuku’s past with this woman, Miki, and what Saori decides to do in response. This is the most seriously dramatic tone that Mikanuji-sensei has gone for in this series and I think that it pays off. We thankfully get no more detail about the abuse she suffered from her parents (and the violent reaction that landed her in juvvie), but her story with Miki, a hairstylist who took Shizuku in after she ran away from her foster parents, is tantamount to grooming. We don’t know much about how Shizuku extricated herself from that relationship or how she feels about it now (though she still wears her hair with the cornrows that is Miki’s personal style), but the effect of the encounter in the present makes her retread into her prickly Bad Girl shell.

Thankfully, what could prove to be a setback in “progress” turns into the opportunity for Saori to finally admit her honest feelings–that despite all her bluster and dismissal, she does indeed love Shizuku. Shizuku tacitly accepts this, and another ship sails. To be honest, I’m still iffy on the recurring theme that these so-called delinquents (read: abused young women) who have severe self-worth issues need to be whipped into shape by the normie girls/women who happen to love them. If I am being charitable, I’d highlight that the point being made is that they (Shizuku and Minami) are indeed worthy of the love they receive, which is good and true. I just wish they weren’t punished by their lovers for struggling with accepting affection.

Let’s not forget that this is still an ensemble story. Iori and Minami are up to their normal hijinks (this time they go to an onsen!). We get one short chapter of Sugimoto at her part-time job glowing about her aquarium date and not taking heed of her boss’ advice not to get her hopes up. Unfortunately, Heke-sensei and Shinohara-san finally succumbed to Mikanuji-sensei’s love of “slapstick” violence for one gag, but otherwise their chapters continue to be a sweet love story of a failgirl nerd and her blunt-but-secretly-tender lover/boss. It’s all solidly entertaining stuff.

If you have been waiting, nay, shouting at the pages for Shizuku and Saori to finally just get over themselves and have it out, then you will be pleased as punch here. With 3 out of 4 couples established, that leaves one last problematic pair to wrap up.

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 1
Yuri – 8 / LGBTQ – 8

Overall – 8 Somehow made me “happy” for the worst couple here

The story of these mismatched women continues in Volume 8, coming our way in August.

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.

by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

Last we left our ragtag crew of sapphics, dates were “enjoyed”, feelings were revealed, emotional wounds were bonded over. We were left just short of a handful of plot payoffs: will Kujou give in to Sugimoto’s trial date idea? Will Heke-sensei be able to game hard enough to earn the right to date her boss? Will Shizuku and Saori just hook up already?

In Assorted Entanglements Volume 6, three of our four pairings arrive at significant inflection points. One couple is embarking on a new adventure as a couple, one is pretending to do the same, and the third…well that one is about to get complicated.

For Saori and Shizuku, the twin-tailed “normie” decides to sneak out of the house at night for doughnuts and deadpans her way into Shizuku’s apartment (this time choosing to be let in through the door instead of smashing the window. Character growth!!). She continues to find herself drawn to the delinquent, and has begun to see through some of Shizuku’s self-loathing. While escorting Saori back to her house, Shizuku recognizes a woman from her past. This is setting up a Shizuku character arc, and I’m surprisingly here for it. Never would’ve thought I’d say that about Shizuku of all characters, but here we are.

As for our mangaka/editor duo, Heke-sensei finally achieves her level goal in the online FPS game, putting her on “even footing” with her gaming oshi. This means she can finally ask Shinohara out! However, she nearly chickens out after spending the day together on a date. Heke-san clutches out the “win” and the two finally come together as a couple. I’m satisfied that this didn’t get dragged out for another who-knows-how-many volume. Now, the real question left is will Heke-sensei be more capable of hitting deadlines now that her editor is her girlfriend?

And for our third major turning point, Kujou and Sugimoto go on the long-threatened trial date. Naturally, it’s at the most sapphic of date destinations: the aquarium! Sugimoto continuously props up Kujou in the face of her gym teacher’s unrelenting defeatism and emotional self-sabotage, which is, honestly, kind of sweet. Sugimoto isn’t actively putting the moves on her teacher (in fact, she doesn’t seem to recognize her long-growing feelings), but by the end of the date, Kujou has the realization that the two of them have gotten too close for their own good. I was starting to worry that Kujou would remain oblivious for a good while longer.

…Also Iori and Minami are there. There’s a silly miscommunication that gets blown out of proportion, complete with the obligatory punch (on panel this time!), but it ends with a sweet moment together. At this point for me, these two are mostly here as supporting cast for the Saori x Shizuku storyline.

Again, I have to say I’m impressed with the improvement of the storytelling from the early volumes. It’s a direct result of the shift to longer chapters allowing the characters more space to interact and to make something resembling plot progress. Hell, it’s making me invested in Shizuku’s backstory, and how the past’s resurfacing will affect her relationship with Saori in the present. A deep character drama this ain’t, but it has become much more than the series of gag strips it began as.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Continues to be solid
Story – 8 We’re actually starting to cook here, with each of the three “active” plot arcs developing
Characters – 8 There is the right amount of angst injected with the humor, allowing for good chemistry
Service – 4 For a real payoff for our Best Couple
Yuri – 8 / LGBTQ – 8 Aquarium date!

Overall – 8 Would invite this volume to go on a shopping date to Yodob*shi 

Volume 7 of this ensemble story of sapphic misfits is coming our way in February.

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.

by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

Have you ever been on a bad first date? Like, a really bad one? Maybe you neglected to vet the content of the movie you bought tickets for (“I’ve heard good things about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!”). Perhaps you chose a restaurant that doesn’t take reservations and you arrive to find a two hour wait for the next table (“Who knew this place was this popular?”). Or you somehow left your driver’s license at home so you cannot order any adult beverages (“Curse this babyface of mine!”). Maybe you let it slip that you did a hair too much “research” on your date’s social media profiles. Or what if…the two of you just don’t have any chemistry. Worse, what if that were true and—*gasp*—they were also your boss?

OK, so things don’t get that dire in Assorted Entanglements, Volume 5, but it isn’t far off.

Last time on Assorted Entanglements, we got some real, true character growth from the majority of our Sapphic menagerie. Iori and Minami are still as committed to each other as  ever, Shizuku and Saori are bonding, Heke-sensei and her editor Shinohara are very close to admitting their mutual interest, and Kujou’s obliviousness continues to helpfully shield her from making a serious mistake with her student Sugimoto, for now. Progress!

The large majority of the page-time in this volume, as it were, is dedicated to Best Not-Yet-Couple Heke-sensei and Shinohara-san. Editor-san, hearing Iori’s warning of missed opportunities ringing repeatedly in her ears, invites Heke-sensei to a meatspace date during one of their online meetups. Even though the event on paper was a slam dunk (a live gaming exhibition), the experience is horribly awkward. Heke-sensei was too nervous to speak to her gaming “idol”…but after the two get home and hop onto another gaming session, she admits that she was such a fan of Lala’s that she figured out Shinohara’s day job and intentionally submitted her manga at her company in order to meet her. Instead of a restraining order, Shinohara instead offers that they date—if Heke-sensei can get on her gaming level.

There are more extended chapters of the two awkwardly navigating this “not yet dating” situation, but now that their feelings are out in the open the gags have shifted from Shinohara deflecting her feelings (to Heke-sensei’s chagrin) to the mangaka being an awkward nerd with bizarre priorities that mildly exasperates her cantankerous would-be paramour. It’s an improvement from the “Oh thank god I hid my true feelings at the last second” tropes we’ve seen so far. There is also a nice moment where Iori invites Shinohara over for dinner, with Minami of course doing the cooking. It’s the longest stretch that the manga has gone without a sour note.

The bulk of the remainder are expanded backstories: one about Minami and Shizuku’s time in the childhood delinquent facility and one fleshing out Kujou’s college best friend/crush Akemi. Both are well told and add nuance to the stories we’ve heard the characters tell each other. I found Akemi’s ambiguous feelings toward Kujou to be a tasty morsel of melancholy that was more emotionally nourishing than I typically expect from this series. I half-expect her to reappear near the climax of the Kujou/Sugimoto arc, but I actually wish Mikanuji-sensei shows restraint and leaves her in the past.

The volume wraps with a summer vacation bonus story that reiterates that Iori and Minami are happy together, and that Saori and Shizuku are both miserable about it. Same as it ever was.

All and all, this volume breezes by and avoids nearly all of the pitfalls from the previous volumes. Somehow, online gaming has led to less toxicity; I guess that’s why this is fiction.

Art – 7 At least this time there are no new characters
Story – 8 There’s some actual, non-gratuitous pathos here
Characters – 8 The character-based humor between Shinohara and Heke-sensei earns an extra point
Service – 2 For a drunken college hookup
Yuri – 8 / LGBTQ – 8 Iori effectively comes out to Shinohara

Overall – 8 Feels like the story has moved up in the rankings

Volume 6 of this ensemble story of Sapphic misfits is coming our way in October.

Matt Marcus is a serial enthusiast whose range of appreciations include guitars, watches, and a particular genre of Japanese popular media named after a flower. Outside of writing for Okazu, he cohosts various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, where he frequently bloviates about video games, anime, and manga. He also hosts a blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.

by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

In the previous volume of Assorted Entanglements, a new couple joined our problematic posse with the 3rd year high school student Sugimoto and her perpetually maidenless gym teacher, Kujou. Everybody else is still on their normal bullshit.

Assorted Entanglements Volume 4, brings something that was sorely needed to the series: character development. No, really! The series up to this point was content with short four-page chapters that loosely hung together but were mostly setups for gags. About a third of the way through this volume, Mikanuji-sensei starts writing longer chapters that expound more on the girls’ histories and their evolving connections to each other. It’s something that I would not have explicitly asked for, but it greatly benefits the whole package.

Minami has a flashback to the time she spent with Shizuku after getting out of the child services facility, which prompts a crisis of confidence. Nevertheless, she continues to think only of Iori and how she might leave her someday. After another open-handed peptalk from her older lover [sigh], Iori admits that she is a terrible person (true!), but she says that they would not have met if either one of them were normal. It’s almost touching!

Elsewhere in the city, a meaningless spat between Shizuku and Saori* leads to the two girls not talking for some time. Shizuku, never one to be fully honest with herself, finds herself feeling lonely enough that she goes out of her way to patch things up by laying out her point of view for Saori: that she is a fundamentally broken person who cannot relate to “normal” people, and thus despises them. Saori accepts this, finding common cause as maladjusted girls with twisted, unfulfillable loves. It’s kind of endearing!

Kujou’s girlfriend quest hits a snag as she gets a harsh dressing down from the cantankerous manager of the lesbian bar. Sugimoto is still trying to push her along, her last act in the volume being to offer her teacher an aquarium date as a “girlfriend test” (we all knew this was coming). We do find out in a bonus chapter that Sugimoto found the gig at the maid cafe after finding herself too gripped with panic to deal with the social stressors at school, and that seeing Kujou outside the bar everyday gave her the motivation to go back to class. It’s nearly sweet!

While all the other couples are angsting it up, Heke-san and Shinohara are still slowly circling towards each other like a binary star system. They are still the most wholesome couple here. It’s refreshing!

You may be detecting a theme here. With some space to stretch out, Mikanuji-sensei is able to add more contour to the characters and, despite all of my kvetching and faint praise, there is a core here that I do indeed like about this series. It’s still a hard recommend, but if you’ve stuck it out through three volumes already this one is worth picking up; it’s the best the series has been so far.

Art – 7 No major changes here, but Shizuku does give one the best “silent seething rage” faces I’ve seen put to page
Story – 8 It’s not going to win an Eisner but at least it’s trying
Characters – 7 Everyone’s schtick is firmly established here, yet there is some growth
Service – 2 Points are mostly for Minami’s tattoos
Yuri – 9 / LGBTQ – 9 Kujou gets a lesbian dating app

Overall – 8 Normality is overrated

Volume 5 of this ensemble story of Sapphic misfits is coming our way in June.

*I hadn’t noticed until recently that while the localization by Eleanor Ruth Summers has been excellent, Iori’s sister’s name has ping-ponged between Shiori and Saori throughout the series, even within the same volume. It’s an odd editing miss. Either may be technically correct, but after some discussion in the discord we have decided to go with Saori.

Matt Marcus is a serial enthusiast whose range of appreciations include guitars, watches, and a particular genre of Japanese popular media named after a flower. Outside of writing for Okazu, he cohosts various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, where he frequently bloviates about video games, anime, and manga. He also hosts a blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.

by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

Previously in Assorted Entanglements Volume 2, sparks and virtual bullets flew as we met mangaka Heke-sensei and her editor Shinohara, who not-so-anonymously play an online First Person Shooter game together while harboring mutual crushes. Meanwhile, Shizuku and Shiori slowly float closer to each other, somehow.

For Assorted Entanglements Volume 3, Mikanuji-sensei must’ve thought “hmmm the last new couple was a little too wholesome. It’s time to spin the Wheel! Of! Problematic! ‘Ships!” A giant prize wheel rolls in and is vigorously spun. Plasticky ratcheting sounds burst out then slowly decelerate as the selection arrow slowly passes over OL x JK, then Sister x Sister (Adopted), and finally Sister x Sister (Not Adopted) before landing on: Teacher x Student. A sizzle reel plays for the winning couple. For some reason they are riding jet skis at a Sandals Resort.

That’s probably not how it happened (I’m sure there was an editor involved somewhere). However, it is less dire than you may be thinking. For now.

Our new pair of star-crossed acquaintances is the stoic gym teacher Kujou and one of her students, 3rd year Sugimoto. Every day after school, Kujou stands outside the door of a lesbian bar, too afraid to enter. Inevitably, she chickens out and instead frequents the maid café next door where Sugimoto works. Sugimoto, who is a bit of a misanthropic loner despite her good looks, decides seemingly on a whim that she is going to help Kujou on her quest to enter the bar and finally find herself a girlfriend.

It becomes clear pretty quickly that Sugimoto is on her way to catching feelings for Kujou; blessedly, her gym teacher doesn’t even register her as an option, despite noticing that her student is pushing the boundaries of a proper teacher/student relationship. (I hate that I find this refreshing.) Regardless, the comedic dynamic between these two works. Sugimoto’s acerbic tongue is a fun foil to Kujou’s sad puppy vibes. I’m just mildly concerned about where the story is going to take them.

Aside from these two, there are still three other “couples” to check in on. Not too much has changed between Minami and Iori, however the same can’t be said for their “jilted” hangers-on. In fact, Shizuku’s hard-assery has softened considerably towards Shiori, much to the latter’s chagrin. You can see the little dance they are doing, inching towards each other then repelling apart mostly because Shiori likes to throw Shizuku’s feelings back in her face to goad her into anger for a laugh. Despite that, progress is being made. For some reason, I’m rooting for them.

Meanwhile, Heke-sensei and Shinohara begin spending more and more time with each other, often pretending to be lovers for “material” to inspire Heke-sensei’s storyboarding. Each time Heke-sensei tries to close the gap, Shinohara’s bluntness and desire to hide her crush ends up unintentionally sending the wrong signals to her coworker/secret gaming buddy. They are the goofiest and most wholesome pairing in this series, so it’s always a nice reprieve when they show up.

I mentioned the art’s Same Face Syndrome in my review of Volume 2, but somehow the issue has now spread to entire characters. You can’t have your characters say a line like “you should be able to recognize your students” and then give multiple characters 99% the same face and haircut.

These are three different characters. Two of them are 12 years apart in age. No, I can’t tell them apart either.

Also, every now and then there’s some weird body proportions. There’s one panel in particular where Shinohara’s right arm appears to have grown 30% too big for her body.

The thing that continues to hold my interest is the humor (again, shoutout to Eleanor Ruth Summers for the excellent localization). Unfortunately, there are still moments of “yikes” that keep me from truly singing its praises. It’s like eating that PB&J sandwich you packed with you to the beach: no matter how careful you are, you will get a bite or two of sand that feels like it’ll crack your teeth. In one notable case, Minami is acting passive-aggressively and Iori has no idea why, and it turns out that she is grumpy because the night before, Iori, who was blackout drunk, did something out of pocket in bed. It’s supposed to be a reversal joke, but there’s enough “ick” to it that it is hard to handwave, let alone laugh at it. The series continues to be one that has enough rough spots to make it difficult to recommend.

But despite my complaints…I am still reading it. This is perhaps the funniest volume so far, and there’s plenty of joy to be had in cropping out panels as reaction images or meme fodder. You just have to be OK taking your Yuri with a grain of sand.

Art – 6 Seems like the art has regressed a touch, and the sameness of the character designs is not helping
Story – 7 A handful of questionable choices hurt it, but the humor stays sharp
Characters – 7 This really is a manga for people who like Women/Girls Who Suck
Service – 4 Iori and Minami’s sex life is still present, and it is a little uncomfy in a couple places
Yuri – 9 / LGBTQ – 9 You did hear me say lesbian bar, ya?

Overall – 7 I’d tell it to run a few extra laps

Volume 4 is currently available in English from Yen Press, with Volume 5 arriving in June. A twisted Yuri comedy with some punch.

Matt Marcus is a serial enthusiast whose range of appreciations include guitars, watches, and a particular genre of Japanese popular media named after a flower. Outside of writing for Okazu, he cohosts various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, where he frequently bloviates about video games, anime, and manga. He also hosts a blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.