When I reviewed Volume 1 of What Did You Eat Yesterday, I found myself mildly disappointed. I like Yoshinaga Fumi-sensei’s obsession with food, and the idea that she had done a realistic story of a gay couple who was together and then the story happened, thrilled me no end.  But as I read Volume 1, I found myself feeling intense dislike for the lead character, Kakei Shiro, who came off as vain, self-absorbed and pretty sour. When I commented to other people that he and his boyfriend never just talk, they show no affection for one another and might as well be roommates, they’d all stare at me like they’ve read some completely other book. It was, to say the least, disconcerting.

Thankfully, many of these issues go away in Volume 2. (I like to fantasize that a bunch of gay readers wrote in and complained that Shiro was kind of a jerk. ^_^)

In Volume 1, Kenji and Shiro are a couple because we’re told they are. In Volume 2, we get a look at how he and Kenji met and moved in together, although nothing about their actual relationship. Watching the two of them is like being a teen over a friend’s house. You know their parents are “married” but they don’t seem like anything other than Mr. and Mrs. Smith, if you know what I mean. ^_^;

More importantly, this time we get author asides assuring us that, although he’s stone-faced or sour-looking, Shiro has hidden emotions of joy, triumph and satisfaction and his parsimony is not a lack of funds or him being cheap, but a genuine enjoyment of the challenge of buying and using cheap, good ingredients to make economical, delicious food. Okay, I can buy that.

The final part of the volume is rather serious, as Shiro learns that his father has cancer. This chapter hit me hard for the conversation about his reaction to the news. That struck me strongly.

The bulk of the “story” is still the making of menus, cooking and eating of meals and enjoying the heck out of them. Anything plot-like is secondary. But with these little almost side-stories, we’re learning about the people who populate Shiro and Kenji’s world…a thing that still lacks in many of the schooliest of Yuri. Characters in those stories are rarely allowed the luxury of classmates or family. Shiro and Kenji have friends, not always mutual, separates casts of coworkers, customers and people they speak to.

I love Yoshinaga-sensei’s clean art style and the detail with which the food is presented. So detailed that I was able to recognize slices of bitter melon. That‘s detail.

At first, I wondered if the translator was not a cook, but then I decided they were, they just had an ever so slightly prissy style – and to give them credit, they have to balance the idea that not everyone has a market where they can buy miso or dashi, with the idea of making a readable book. It’s a tough balance to strike and they did it pretty well.

I’m much more kindly disposed to Volume 2 than I was Volume 1. We may even try some of the recipes.

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Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8 Shiro’s fleshed out and I found myself liking him a lot more
Characters – 6 Everyone was less wound up this volume
LGBTQ – 7 Kenji and Shiro act in ways that indicate they care for each other.
Service –9  Food, food, food

Overall – 8

I’d still like to see Shiro smile a bit more. But even without, it’s a readable series, and has some nice touches.  Volume 2 warmed my cool feelings for this series like a bowl of Shiro’s simple soup. (Terrible line, I know, I had to do it. ^_^)

The June 204 issue of Margaret magazine has a “tribute” book to an ongoing manga Usotsuki Lily by Komura Ayumi, about which I know nothing and haven’t bothered looking up even so much as the plot. ^_^

This tribute book starts off with a short comic that is, however, absolutely relevant to us – Girl’s Lily, which is ominously labeled “Boys not allowed” on the cover so, as I picked it up I was already cringing.

It turned out to be an unexpected treasure.

The first page involves a guy, confronting two girls, (all presumably characters we would know from the main narrative), and the older girl commenting “Didn’t you see the “No Boys Allowed” tag?” I just love when the fourth wall crumbles underfoot, so I started to read in earnest. The boy explains that he needs their advice. His older sister wants to marry her lover, he says, but her lover is…a girl. Quelle shock, as you can imagine.

Just then his older sister, Keiko and her lover come into sight, having followed him to try and talk with him.

The lover, Kanae, is a pale, quiet, shy thing, but she follows him when he runs off, takes him to a coffee house and when he’s surprised that he likes what she chosen for him to drink, she smiles and said that, because his big sister likes sweet things too, she thought he’d like that. To his massive discomfort, it become really obvious that Kanae really loves Keiko and that they are  – and want to be – happy together. He inadvertently confesses his massive siscon, and faux-grumpily, to cover his embarrassment, wishes them well.

And so we will assume them, happy and well, for ever after.

I don’t know who these people are, but, wait, was that…? Yes! It was a manga about two adult women getting married to each other. In Margaret, a shoujo manga magazine for teens. Woot, woot, and double woot.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
LGBTQ -10

Overall – 8

Thank you Komura Ayumi-sensei! Congrats on the success of Usotsuki Lily. Here’s to many more.

YNN Correspondent Nikki S. writes in to let us know that Kanae’s and Keiko’s story fills Volumes 9-11 of this series.  Thanks Nikki! (Quick update: Looks like Volumes 10 and 11, but not 9. I have them sitting here, and 9 is all about the school festival.)