Nikurashii Hodo Aishiteru (憎らしいほど愛してる) subtitled in English “I love you, to hate you,” is a new adult life story about two woman who work together who are having an affair. Asano-san is the hyper-competent manager, Fujimura is a rising star in the company. The two make a formidable couple and are admired by the division in which they work.

Asano, who is married, appears to be satisfied with the nature of their relationship – meeting after work for meals and sex is the outlet she needs. But Fujimura is increasingly dissatisfied with the arrangement. She finds herself falling in love with Asano, and wants their relationship to be more than a diversion.

The story isn’t full of grand soap operatic content. It’s more filled with the kind of gut-churning small mistakes that fill an adult life.  Asano goes home to a husband she doesn’t feel like she knows and pressure to leave the job she loves to become a mother. Asano and Fujimura try to return to just being colleagues, but cracking under the stress, Asano makes a grave error that puts her division’s work at risk.  The entire division kicks in to help fix the problems; Fujimura is there to help prop up Asano during their important late-night push to get everything done. Too tired to go home they share a hotel room once more, and, at last, Asano realizes what is important to her.

In the final pages, Asano tells Fujimura that she’s getting divorced and in a very public confession, tells Fujimura her feelings in front of a Christmas illumination.  Aww. ^_^ We see them 6 months later sharing an apartment and a life.

I really liked this book. Yuni’s art is slick and adult. The bed scenes are intimate rather than servicey.  The initial premise, which is not yet all that common in Yuri manga, is the same plot as a zillion lesbian romances of the 1990s. ^_^ As a result, it felt both fresh and incredibly comfortable at the same time.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 3 Nudity, but mostly tastefully done.

Overall – A strong 8

Asano’s journey is not unique, but the characters are developed well-enough for the story, which feels very much ready-made for an evening television drama. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? ^_^

The name Kiriyama Haruka should be familiar to us by now. We’ve seen work from this author in multiple “Shakijin” working-life Yuri anthologies.

And today we are looking at a collection of stories by this creator that center working women’s lives. Or, more properly, some of the more typical tropes of working women’s lives.

It’s a pretty specific distinction, because by now we have, actually, seen all the basic plotlines of romance between women working in offices. Cool together character and disaster employee, two women get drunk, wake up in bed. Women hiding they are together in the office, women coming home from work to their partners. A year into this new subgenre of Shakaijin Yuri and I’m already looking for artists looking past the “get drunk, wake up in bed” storyline.

And most of these stories fit the bill. The collection begins with three work friends getting together for an after-hours drink and it turns out two of them are a couple.

An artist and her assistant are extremely cute together.

A woman who works for an insurance company ends up meeting the online video idol she admires. (Yes, shades of Risou to Koi.)

The best story in my opinion was a story of a couple, struggling with their idea of what they want from their relationship right before they get married. I liked the recognition that commitment can cause friction in even a strong relationship. This one also felt very realistic.

And in a lovely final story, a woman whisks her lover away on a much-needed overnight vacation to restore balance to her beloved and to them as a couple.

Ratings:

Art – 7 sometimes a little sloppy
Story – variable 8
Characters – 8
Service – 2 Very mild partial nudity
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8

It was all very pleasant, easy to look at and no one I wanted to strangle. ^_^ More importantly, there were a couple of stories with some good real-world touches.