Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network. He is still on the hook for a Xenosaga KOS-MOS x Shion fanfic for their next Patreon goal.

Sometimes, you come across a piece of media that really strikes at the heart of humanity. What does it even mean to be human? To have emotions? What if there were beings that look like us, feel like us, act like us, but are wholly man-made? Is synthetic love still…love?

If you are looking to explore these heady ideas, then may I suggest Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka, now with a fantastic anime adaptation on Netflix (who did not sponsor this post).

However, if you are looking for something less Philip K. Dick and more, say, Philine K. Shlick, you could pick up volume 1 of Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity To An Android? by Yakinikuteishoku. Now, I hear you saying, “But Matt, shouldn’t the title say ‘gynoid’?” Well observed, dear reader! In fact, the referenced lovebot uses the term herself, but alas, it seems that it failed in focus testing, much like my alternate title Is It OK To Objectify A Sapient Sex Toy?

Here’s the rundown: in a near future where AI isn’t about art theft and Google Glass manages to succeed, Tsuda Akane is an office worker in her late twenties who is very reliable and professional on the clock, but outside of work she’s a complete slob who drinks heavily every night and has no real romantic experience to boot. During a drunken stupor, she places an order for a cleaning robot but what arrives the next day is a super advanced—and very illegal—sex gynoid named Nadeshiko. Akane spends the volume constantly at her wits’ end trying to keep herself out of jail and her incorrigibly horny new companion in check, however much to her chagrin she is very much putty in Nadeshiko’s skillful hands.

I expected this manga to be hornier than a buck hunter’s trophy wall and, sure enough, page one opens mid-coitus. Hell, the central point of conflict is Akane’s refusal to register herself as Nadeshiko’s owner via a fingerprint scan, and I’m sure you can infer what that entails. The premise is so nakedly (ha) transparent in its aims that even when a gag is eye-rollingly contrived (of course that’s where the power switch is! Of course!) I find myself unable to find it distasteful. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pandering as all get-out, but it doesn’t rise to a significant level of grossness unless you give any thought to how rank that apartment must smell.

What really made this volume stand out as more than just I, Robot After Dark is the snappy writing. Huge credit to the localizer Casper Kazor, who really punched up the dialogue to great effect. There are a lot of really fun little turns of phrase that got me chortling, none of which I will deign to spoil. This is one to pick up for tits and giggles.

So, back to the titular question: does it indeed count?

(all apologies to KC Green)

Thank you to Seven Seas, who also did not sponsor this post, but did provide a review copy.

Art – 8 All the character designs are cute but the fluids are a touch excessive
Story – 7 It’s a gag comic were sex is The Joke, but the flourishes in the writing elevate it
Characters – 6 This ain’t Bladerunner 2049, but I’m sure no one needs it to be either
Service – 9 Docking it one point for the few services that Nadeshiko will not provide
Yuri – 7 / LGBTQ – 7 Akane seems to be a clueless ladykiller with a cadre of admirers at the office 

Overall – 8 

You cannot fathom how disappointed I was that Seven Seas beat me to the Electric Sheep reference–and on the back cover, no less. So many jokes lost to time, like tears in the rain.

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.

Last volume, Miwa finally got a new girlfriend, the surly but earnest Tamaki. Meanwhile, Saeko and Yuria are getting along well, their struggles with sex notwithstanding. Now our two leads begin the delicate dance of finding the right distance between them to be respectful to their girlfriends. Oh, and they agree to not let their partners know that they are each other’s ex. Or even that their best friend is also gay.

Really, How Do We Relationship Volume 9 is a Saeko-centric volume, and she really goes through it. She runs into a middle school classmate who cajoles her to go to her Coming of Age Ceremony, which is already a major point of friction between her and her mother. What’s worse is she witnesses Tamaki’s supposedly supportive friends engage in some Light Homophobia. Yuria does what she can to soothe her but she can’t be around all the time, so Saeko is left on her own, wallowing in her rising anger.

I have to continue to hand it to Tamifull that there is some really deft storytelling happening here. All three incidents that Saeko runs into here involve people who are generally good, well-meaning people, but there is just a strain of shittiness to them that is too stark to ignore. Her old classmate sympathizes with her choice to not attend the ceremony because of how hard her experience must have been…but still he takes one look over to Yuria and can’t help but comment “I guess you still swing that way, huh?” Tamaki’s friends are all vocally supportive to her face, but when The Gays aren’t around they say condescending things like, “they could have relationships with men if they want” and “oh, actually it’s noble of them to choose love over society’s acceptance”. Saeko’s mother, as we learned, doesn’t care who she dates so long as she acts a bit more feminine for her sometimes. It sucks. These aren’t people who are so wholly terrible that it would be an easy choice for Saeko to cut them out of her life, but their low-level hostility towards her identity understandably puts her on a hair trigger.

If this were earlier in the series, things would continue to devolve. Instead, a small miracle happens: Saeko runs into Miwa who invites her over for lunch. Miwa admits that its too hard for her to try to keep away from someone she truly cares for, and this gives Saeko the push to finally, finally tell Miwa about middle school. Afterwards, they have a cute snowball fight that is also a “I’m going to caringly tell you why you suck” back-and-forth. Saeko realizes that her fixation on staying away was the wrong idea, that Miwa is a special person to her, just not in the same way that Yuria is.

You know, I tend to shortchange Yuria in these reviews but she really is the MVP of the series so far. Every time Saeko has been struggling with something, she’s always had the right answer. She’s almost too self-actualized. Saeko awkwardly tries to rise to her level of Good Partnering, and there’s something really endearing about that, but none of it would feel right if Yuria wasn’t there. I also realized after the last review that she does share traits with Miwa (mostly romantic inexperience and naivete) in a similar way that I called out between Tamaki and Saeko. So, both girls ended up dating people who echo their ex’s personality, but not to the point of being overt duplications. It’s fantastic, subtle character work.

…That said, I have to give one demerit. Saeko and Yuria have a bit of a breakthrough in their sex life, and while the moment is meant to be a moment of vulnerability finally achieved, the way it articulates does feel a little hinky on consent. Having seen similar moments in other series, I want to chalk this up to cultural differences in the way women are “expected” to express themselves during sex in Japan, but I am frankly not the person to make that judgment. You could make a character argument for the way it is on the page but I feel like the same point would have been made stronger if the dialogue was tweaked to be more clear on consent. I may be making a mountain out of a molehill on this, but my honest reaction was to be a bit disappointed that in a series that generally avoids tropes, this one made it in and slightly soured an otherwise sweet scene.

Meanwhile, Miwa and Tamaki are getting along fine, though–stop me if you heard this before–they are not gelling sexually (“and so…they were both bassists”). It isn’t an intractable problem, but Miwa’s needs are going to be challenged, both because she needs to actually ask for them and also because Tamaki passed the entrance exam for her first choice college and is going to transfer. Aside from the two-faced nature of how Tamaki’s friends talk to her and about her relationship, this volume doesn’t focus on these two all that much.

We do get a chapter from the perspective of Saeko’s mom, and as a recent parent myself (of a little girl, no less), I found it really moving. Being a parent is hard. Things won’t play out like you always imagined they would, and it takes some fortitude to roll with those punches. As I said above, Mrs. Sawatari has got her heart in the right place and is doing her best, despite the friction she causes about Saeko’s lack of femininity. You feel for her, which is a hell of a thing to pull off with a character whose full name we still don’t know.

From a macro-plot perspective, we can still see tendrils of attachment that still entangle our leads: Saeko still has some lingering romantic feelings while Miwa just cannot forget how good the sex was. Now, if we are to believe the end-of-volume “commentary tracks” [SIGH], these would be the avenues that will lead the girls to get back together in the future. I don’t like the idea, frankly. I prefer them as close intimate friends, but the seeds are clearly there for them to get back together down the road.

Regardless, the thrust of this volume is how the girls managed to bridge the awkward distance between them and it’s super satisfying. The scene that’s depicted on the cover of the girls improvising their way through cooking fried rice together and ending up with a fantastic dish that they couldn’t replicate if they tried is a perfect metaphor for their current relationship: it’s some great fucking food.

Art – 9 The art is in its groove, though I’m starting to notice a habit of flipping which sides two characters are on back and forth in some scenes.
Story – 9 The one demerit aside, the story continues to be compelling and satisfying
Characters – 10 The nuance of the characters, even in the secondary cast, continues to impress
Service – 5 The sex is more sensual and plot driving than “servicey” per se, but I’m keeping the score up
Yuri – 10 / LGBTQ – 10 Bumping this up for the non-romantic yuri and the crushingly realistic depiction of bad allyship

Overall – 9 A delicious dish, best served with your closest friend

If you didn’t know already, the series is now being localized and released alongside the biweekly Japanese serialization on the new(ish) VIZ app. Unfortunately, there is an 11 chapter gap in English between the end of this volume and when the simulpub chapters began, and if RightStuf is to be believed, volume 10 won’t come out until late January. Just imagine me sweating profusely every time I see a new chapter up.

The role of Reviewer will be played tonight by Matt Marcus. He is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the author of the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing the manga series How Do We Relationship.

The stage is set: Haruka has resolved to hide her acting past indefinitely while Nao has resolved to break the impasse once she passes her next big audition. Are all the secrets going to spill out? Are we going to finally learn what happened with Haruka in high school? Is Yuki going to ask out her still-in-high-school coworker?

The answers are yes, yes, and thankfully no (for now). Hope you all enjoyed the show! See you next time.

…OK that’s a bit too underwhelming even as a joke, but to be honest the story itself doesn’t fare much better.

Woe be me to think that this story centering around The Theatre wouldn’t be extra dramatic. A Monologue Woven For You, Volume 3 starts out the gate with Haruka having a minor health scare that motivates Nao to rush to her side, even though her audition is the next day. So what’s Haruka’s conclusion? Is it that her lover cares very much for her wellbeing? No, it’s that she is going to drag down Nao, snuffing out her shot at thespian greatness. She wrestles with what to do until she discovers the program for her last performance in Nao’s bag, showing that her past was known the whole time. She decides that after seeing Nao off to her audition she will ghost her. You can’t become a great artist without a little trauma, right?

You can probably figure out the rest from there. Nao is panicked. She tracks down Jun, who isn’t very helpful until she decides to try, at which point she isn’t very effective. Haruka meets Rei, the high school theater geek, who unsuccessfully tries to guilt Haruka into un-quitting acting. Somehow, Nao takes a wild leap in logic to deduce that Haruka is sulking in the auditorium in which she last performed. Nao confronts her, prompting Haruka to finally tell her why she quit.

After beginning acting at a young age, Haruka joined a local theater troupe while she was in high school. There she became close friends with a girl a year older who was an accomplished child actor. Haruka looked up to her as her role model. All of that comes crashing down when Haruka beats her out for a leading role. Her friend has a meltdown, blaming Haruka for stealing her golden opportunity, and quits acting altogether. Haruka comes away from this with a deep sense of guilt for “killing” the acting career of someone she thought was truly talented. And that’s it, that’s the trauma on which this entire plot hinges.

Haruka is still wallowing in this guilt until Nao pushes back, saying that Haruka saved her from quitting acting, and that it is her dream for the two of them to act together on stage. They reconcile, and a year later the two succeed in co-leading a play for their college drama club. Nao goes on to be a professional actor, while Haruka continues to act as a hobby. They move in together, and everyone’s happy. Cue the orchestra.

I will be honest: I thought the melodrama was both over the top and contrived and the payoff a bit rushed. I don’t think after two volumes of teasing that I would ever be satisfied with Haruka’s inciting incident in high school, and what we get is more or less as pedestrian as you could get. I had mentioned in my review of Volume 2 that I wasn’t sure if the story wanted me to trust in Haruka’s decision never to act again. Seems a bit foolish now to think that she could have chosen to stay in the audience, but given the way the story framed her stance I think my confusion was warranted. A slightly less storybook ending could have demonstrated Haruka’s outlook maturing as she looks back on the opportunities she threw away. For most people, there are times in your life where you have to give up on participating in something you love but you discover a new way to appreciate it, like an injured athlete becoming a coach. You can wring a lot of impact from such stories of loss, however it would fall flat here because Haruka’s decision to leave the troupe was not foisted upon her; it was entirely self-inflicted. Seriously, someone should have just told her that the fault lies with the girl who quit over a bruised ego. Like, maybe her parents. Or Jun. Or Nao! (I have the “it’s not your fault” scene from Good Will Hunting running on loop in my head now.) Given where Yasaka-sensei wanted to take the story, it would have been better to seed more hints that Haruka was drawn to act again, but felt ashamed about it.

To pivot away from the story, there is one interesting part of the art that didn’t strike me as obvious until this review, which is the use of blur to show depth of field. There are of course cinematic perspective tricks used in other manga, but the way it is implemented here feels somewhat unique. It had been there the whole time–hell, it’s on the Volume 1 cover with the cherry blossoms–but for whatever reason I only noticed it in this volume. Aside from that, there is only one bit of art that I felt was really well composed and drawn, which is the cover page to chapter 15, with Nao standing under a streetlamp at night.

All in all, this series ended up very “mid” as the kids say. The story could have relied less on contrived and stretched out tension, the art is fine but not amazing, and I don’t think it draws out all of the potential out of the college setting. That said, it’s not a bad time. If you want some fluff with a heaping of melodrama, you could do worse.

Art – 7 The art stayed consistent throughout
Story – 6 The melodrama was overwrought
Characters – 5 They’re acting to the rafters but they can’t elevate the script
Service – 0 Nada
Yuri – 8 / LGBTQ – 1 They teased a second ‘ship but didn’t commit

Overall – 7 Would give it a perfunctory standing ovation

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu. Matt Marcus is back again to cover Tamifull’s continuing series of young adult life that has a lot of layers to parse. Please welcome Matt back and give him your attention. Matt, the mic is yours…!

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, such as the JRPG games club podcast Lightning Strikes Thrice, which is currently covering Final Fantasy VIII.

In Volume 8 of How Do We Relationship While Still Being Friends With Our Exes, we follow Miwa and Saeko as they try to learn….well you get the idea.

Saeko and Yuria are still enjoying each other’s company, but their mutual dislike of being touched has put their sex life in suspended animation. Miwa, who accidentally baited Tamaki into a confession using her cat (so this time the cat outed the girl from…the bag…hmm), is nevertheless trying to maintain the status quo with her kohai in fear that her crush will lead to another debilitating heartbreak.

During the Band Club summer retreat, Tamaki starts flirtatiously teasing Miwa, or as one chapter aptly calls it, “Messing With You, To Great Satisfaction.” Miwa continues to hesitate, but Tamaki’s escalating pursuit–and a small push from Saeko–leads her to open up about her feelings. The two begin dating, which raises the dual thorny issues of Tamaki’s plan to transfer to another school and how to handle introducing their relationship to Tamaki’s friends.

I have a confession to make: I did not like Tamaki when she first showed up. But credit where credit’s due, Tamaki steals the show here. After a volume and half of getting closer, then backing off, only to get closer again, the way in which she pushes forward towards Miwa here is a very refreshing change. Something I noticed as well is that there are moments where the art shows her in a much more attractive light, particularly when she is acting confident. Compared to previous volumes, it’s one hell of a glow-up. Plus, she gets to show some developing maturity during her date with Miwa as they discuss their potential future.  I knew that the story would pair her up with Miwa, but what I was not prepared for was coming away from this volume thoroughly convinced that Tamaki is worth rooting for.

What makes Tamaki more than just a new love interest is how she poses as a foil to Saeko. Both are quite blunt and have a tendency to drop a biting line here and there towards Miwa. In a way, Tamaki’s harsher comments resemble some of Saeko’s in the first three volumes, such as when she calls Miwa a “bit of a wimp.” However, Tamaki’s are more on the line of teasing instead of insecure lashing out. Also, as time has gone on it’s become more clear that Saeko’s “toughness” that Miwa so idolized was a falsity; for Tamaki, her “difficult personality” is just who she is, and it’s that fortitude that pushes her through the various homophobic reactions of her friends when she comes out about her relationship with Miwa. It made me think back to Volume 6 where Saeko says that Miwa’s next girlfriend would need to be mentally tough to weather the challenges of being queer in a society that is openly hostile to it. It’s as if Tamaki read the job requirements before applying, but not in a “too convenient to be believable” way. 

Just to camp out on the coming out scene a bit more, the economy of storytelling Tamifull employs is worth highlighting. There’s a denial (“No way!”), a joke (“you’re just playing at dating, right?”), a somewhat condescending acceptance (“oh that’s very trendy of you!”), AND a flat-out rejection (“I don’t like people like that, it’s gross.”), all in the span of a few pages. It’s pretty impressive stuff, plus it gets those issues out of the way so the story can focus on the relationship itself going forward.

All of that said, there are still other developments going on. The most important one is how Miwa and Saeko’s friendship has continued to change. Miwa is trying to stay close, thinking of Saeko as her best friend, while Saeko is trying to pull back because, despite what she thinks, she’s still not completely over Miwa. The asymmetry of their feelings and how they process them internally is nuanced in a very compelling way. It is also fairly evident that the next volume will put Saeko more in the spotlight, since we did not see much progress about her body issues in this volume–not that she doesn’t play a big role in these chapters, but the Miwa/Tamaki story definitely took top billing.

The last plot thread I think is worth mentioning is the entanglement of Rika and Mikkun. It’s a case of the unstoppable force of casual sex meeting the immovable serial-dating object. I’ve mentioned being curious about Rika’s role in this story in past reviews, so perhaps we may see some progress here. Or it can just be a vehicle for jokes at Mikkun’s expense. I give it 70/30 towards the latter.

There are countless little positives I’d like to call out, like Yuria’s realistic body shape, the callbacks to the first band retreat, Saeko’s many new hairstyles that have clearly been done by Yuria. I’ve found the more time I spend revisiting previous chapters, the more I find moments where these later volumes carry echoes of the earlier ones in a way that I find very satisfying.

I think this is a fantastic volume, with deliciously playful tension and gentle but meaningful character development. Also, if you’ve been waiting for Good Things to happen for Miwa, you’re gonna love how this goes.

Art – 9 Fantastic paneling, great use of light and shadow, strong perspective choices–I’d say it’s the best looking volume so far
Story – 9 There are some predictable beats here, but the timbre continues to impress
Characters – 9 Tamaki won me over this volume
Service – 4 There’s a lot of non-sexual intimacy while nude, which is a form of service
Yuri – 9 / LGBTQ – 9 Got a complicated friendship between exes AND two couples to boot

Overall – 9 Band camp continues to deliver fireworks (just not literally this time)

Can I admit that I’m a mark for POV shots that take into account height differences? I mean, I just did, but we can be cool about it, right? Right.

Erica here: Totally cool. ^_^  Thanks very much, Matt for this insightful review. You’ve clarified some of my thoughts on this series, as well. It continues to feel more “real” than just almost anything else I’m reading these days for better and ill. ^_^