Fuzoroi no Renri, Volume 4 (不揃いの連理) by Mikan Uji, is both a whimsical look at several Yuri odd couples and a profouns story about about found family and making a space for one’s self. In this volume, the whimsy is set aside a little more than usual so we can talk about what happens with young people who are rejected by their families.

To do this, we spend a little extra time with Minami, which is finding herself becoming introspective about her relationship with Iori, and her fellow orphan Shizuka, who is being asked by Saori to admit her feelings for her defacto sister.  There’s some really emotional scenes here, as both Minami and Shizuka have to take stock of what they were to one another and what they fear giving up if they give themselves wholly to another. I am pulling for Minami and Iori, well Minami, really. Iori needs to stop drinking so much. Shizuka and Saori face a couple of high hurdles, not least of which that that they are both very young and forever is a long time.

Accompanying this is a few melancholy pages with the gym teacher who ends up confiding in a student who work in a maid cafe, next to the lesbian bar she doesn’t have the confidence to step into.

All of this makes for an unusually serious volume of this mostly-light-hearted manga. It does leave little room for the manga artist and her editor who are falling for each other online, if only because in comparison, their story seems dopey. But the other effect is that I am more invested in these characters than I was when they were just gags as they were in the previous three volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 4 A little bit more than usual
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Mikan Uji-sensei’s author notes are one more in a long series that reference how lonely manga artists are in lockdown. A study could be done on how manga artists, specifically, are doing working alone, or almost alone, in their rooms these days. It might be a coincidence, but an awful lot of the comedy manga I read has become more serious in recent months. I wonder if there is a correlation.

Hinako’s family died in a tragic accident. Most of what she remembers is falling into the deep, deep ocean. So when, one day, she stops to look at the sea, she feels profound emotions. As something bubbles up from below, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean gains her attention.  The next time she walks by the water, that something rises. A sea creature attempts to drag Hinako down, but the girl shows up again and explains that she is not human. As scales and claws appear on her, she fights off the creature, then tells Hinako that she will protect her, until Hinako has matured….and then she will eat Hinako.

The next day that girl appears as transfer student in her class. Oumi Shiori, explains to Hinako that her flesh is – or will be – exceptionally delicious and she has claimed it for herself. She can see that Hinako wants to die, but she won’t let that happen…yet.

Watashi o Tabetai, Hito de Nashi, Volume 1 (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし) is a millefeuille of a school-life drama wrapped around a dark story of depression and loss, wrapped around a subversion of the Japanese fairytale of mermaids, whose flesh, if eaten, is delicious and brings immortality; wrapped in a youkai story. And in a mere 162 pages, Naekawa Sai hits the nail on every one of these. This story is as tight and dry as a drum-head.

If you ask me if I like horror, I will vociferously tell you that I do not. I don’t enjoy being startled (adrenaline and I have a long, unpleasant history) and I don’t care to be grossed out. But there is a note of psychological horror I don’t mind, monsters are fine and, above all, good writing can make a heck of a difference. The end of this volume contains a scene so creepy and violent that I ought to have been both startled and a little grossed out, but both art and story work so beautifully that it was merely a breathtakingly excellent scene.

So, if you do like horror, I hope you will give this series a try and I’ll can shake to see if anyone at Yen might consider licensing this, because, honestly, it is damn good and dark.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Solid, but really favors blood-spatter on Shiori’s face
Story – 8 Intriguing and dark in different ways
Characters – 7 We hardly know them, yet. I feel like there’s a lot left to learn
Service – Blood. Violence. Monsters From the Deep. Secrets.
Yuri – Hinako’s BFF is possessive, Shiori is infatuating

Overall – 8

I’m hooked. (This is an entirely inappropriate fish pun.) You can get Volume 1 and Volume 2 in print and digital now. I think you should.