In Volume 1  Liz, the emotionally fragile singer for a band Liberty. And we met Maki, who is  is managing  the Liberty account for her company. Liz is a real handful, too, as she tends to use sex as a weapon.  Despite that, Maki has fallen for Liz. And sometimes, she thinks Liz returns the feeling. However, every time they get a little closer, something sets Liz off again, leaving Maki unsure of what she is to the singer.

Liberty, Volume 2 (リバティ) begins with another of the things that sets Liz off. Only this time it wasn’t a thing, it was a person. The very fashionable and sexy Sumire who works for Liberty’s newest sponsor. It’s immediately obvious to us, the reader, that there is some history between Liz and Sumire.  Unable to say no to Sumire, Liz finds herself seduced, possibly coerced…and more possibly that this is how they always have been since they met in school. Liz is ashamed of herself and unwilling to talk to Maki, who is feeling left out. All of this brings up an unwelcome memory for Maki as well.

We have hit pure Jondalar Syndrome* here, my friends. One honest conversation would end this manga. So, of course, that ain’t gonna happen.

*Jondalar Syndrome is named after one of the characters from The Mammoth Hunters (one of the Clan of the Cave Bear series.) Had he and Ayla ever just discussed anything at all, the book would have ended instantly. It was a nightmare for me, a Virgo (which has a lot of mythological tie-ins to communication), with a fetish for good communication practices between people. Made me so angry I named a bad plot device after it, for when two people just do not have the conversation they need to have as a plot driver.

Since this manga is about the drama – and about giving Liz makeovers – and it is drawn by queen of manipulative drama and mopey leads Momono Moto, I’m cool with it. But, I follow the author, Kitta Izumi on Twitter and she’s vehement about being one’s authentic self in public, so I’m hoping that we’ll get to a better place for both Maki and Liz.

I love the art in this manga, I think this is Momono-sensei’s best work to date. It’s super stylish, which suits the world in which it is set. And I love that Maki has a good friend who will realtalk her when everyone else around is either ignoring her or…what? I’m sure Maki doesn’t yet know what her role is in this story, but by the end of the volume, she may be getting there. I’ll wait on tenterhooks to see how things develops.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 we’re in a bit of a holding pattern in this volume
Characters – In the real world, we’d all gently suggest Liz speak to a therapist. For the story, she’s a walking plot complication
Service – Not really. Both the sex appeal and the sex are adult and mature.
Yuri – 10 Yuri all the way down

Overall – 8

While I wait, I have Volume 22 of Galette magazine to read, and Volume 23 will be debuting at Comitia next month!

Back in 2019  the folks at Galette Works gave us the problematic Ame to Kimi no Mukou (雨と君の向こう) written by Sakuraka Yukino with art by Momono Moto. I kind of wished they hadn’t. ^_^;

How surprised then, was I to find that Lilyka had picked it up and translated this volume it as Rain and the Other Side of You. When Lilyka ran it’s recent Sakura season sale, I figured that was as good a time to pick it up as any and so here we are looking at a problematic manga for a second time. It hasn’t aged well at all.

Mudarame Aki is a dead-eyed middle-schooler whose aggressive sexual behavior toward her teacher ought to have been the occasion for a house call from Youth Services, Teacher Kanou Yuka is presented as a woman who has no plan for her life, has been unsuccessful with men. When Mudarame-san throws herself at Yuka, she finds herself incapable of resisting.

In my review of the volume in Japanese, I wrote:

Aki[‘s] dead eyes and romantic overtures to her teacher scream “sexually abused” to this reader.

Yuka and Aki’s relationship is not a healthy one, not from the very beginning. Aki is manipulative and uses things like Yuka’s virginity as a weapon against her, which is just gross. Yuka tries going out with a guy and just finds herself going back to seek Aki’s company. When she and we see that our guess that Aki has been abused is correct, it still doesn’t make anything that’s happened okay.

If anything, it was worse on re-read, because it was in English and I couldn’t pretend I misunderstood Yuka’s justifications for not running for a phone and calling Youth Services.

What is good is Momono’s art, which captures Aki’s existential misery so well that it makes it thoroughly impossible to feel anything but pity for her and contempt for the adult who is not strong enough to help her. This is belied by an epilogue in which we see them some years later, looking happily domestic, but the mental gynmastics of this are too much to contemplate.

Okay, let’s set the dumpster fire of the story aside. Momono’s art is one of two reasons I read this book in the first place. She absolutely favors mopey, sad, traumatized characters as we may recall from her books Liberty, Volume 1 (リバティ), and Kimi Koi Limit. But the other reason is also the reason that this book being picked up by Lilyka is a good thing – this was the first of the books from Galette WORKS, the folks behind quarterly crowd-funded Yurimagazine, Galette (ガレット). If Lilyka can get some of those, I will be very pleased for us.

If you do pick this book up, let me warn you that the lettering is a little unsophisticated and the editing a bit shoddy. I’ve written to them to ask that the typos be fixed so if you do pick it up and they haven’t, let them know you think this is important, as well.

Ratings (same as the JP volume):

Art – 8
Story – 3
Characters – 5 No one would get a lunch invitation. Well, maybe the guy who goes out with Yuka, he seemed okay.
Yuri – 8
Service – The whole concept of an adult being attracted to a sexually abused child is a level of creepy I am unwilling to accept as anything other than criminal.

Overall – 5

It was not to my taste at all, where Liberty totally is. I hope you’ll all get to see that one day!

Even as Momono Moto-sensei is working her butt off with Galette magazine, Ichijinsha has been licensing some of her work, as well. Akane-iro Kiss ha Okujou de is one of these collections. 

In the first story, Megu asks an older girl at a shop to go out with her, over the loud opposition of her friends. Luckily for her, the other girl  is not all that opposed.

Two friends realize their friendship means a lot to them, and maybe even more, just int time for one to move away. Years go by and they are reunited.

A girl is approached by the subject of her crush and she just has no idea how to react.

A lesbian and straight friend have drunken sex, which leaves two of us – the lesbian and this reader – unsatisfied. I hate this kind of self-loathing “in love with a straight friend who uses the lesbian as a life size vibrator” kind of story.

A childhood mentor and tutor becomes a lover. This story kind of squicked me primarily because we’re told their specific age difference. I’m never comfortable with that, even though I don’t always dislike the concept of an generation-difference story itself. A bit hypocritical, but, I’m human.

And finally, the title story in which to friends discover that they love one another and share twilight kisses on the school roof. A nice, arm, fuzzy ending to a collection by an artists who specializes in the bitter and uncomfortable forms a relationship might take.

I really like Momono-sensei’s art, and while her stories tend to focus on the awkward and uncomfortable bits of lesbian-relationships, when she pulls out the stops and gives characters a happy ending, it’s always quite beautifully done.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, say 7
Characters  – 7 much less unlikable than in some of her previous work
Yuri – 10
Service – 5 Some sex scenes, a little nudity

Overall – 7

You know I’m going to say this….I cannot wait for Momono-sensei’s “Liberty” from Galette to be collected!