Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today we welcome back reviewer Mariko S. as she takes a look at  a book that was mentioned in last week’s YNN report, Ichido Dake Demo, Koukaishiteimasu., Volume 1 (一度だけでも、後悔してます。). Please give her your attention and your warmest welcome once again!

24-year-old Kozuka Chiyo is a typical manga protagonist. She loves anime and games, and used to work at a game company until a few months ago, when she lost her job due to vaguely hinted at circumstances. She’s spent the time since holed up in her apartment burning through her savings on living expenses and obviously necessary figurine and video game purchases, but, alas, not on rent. One day her landlady, a petite girl of 19, comes to collect and, finding Kozuka unable to settle up, suddenly bluntly proposes that if they have sex, she’ll work out a way to get her caught up. Despite not being sexually interested in girls, with no better alternative Kozuka apparently agrees and, after a few beers, wakes up naked next to the landlady the next morning with regrets, but at least a path forward.

The landlady’s plan – she’ll move in with Kozuka, and Kozuka will pay off her debt in blocks of 10,000 yen, each one to be checked off when Kozuka is deemed to have rendered “good service.” The landlady is clear that she wants this to be/include sex, but Kozuka is eager to find alternatives. The problem being, as you might expect, that Kozuka has no life skills to offer – she can’t cook, clean, or do laundry – while the landlady is extremely put together and competent. Kozuka finds her own life improving more by the landlady helping her, instead of anything she’s able to do in return benefiting the landlady, at least at first.

“Ichido dakedemo…” isn’t quite as dire as its skeevy and salacious (skeevalacious?) setup portends. The initial sex trade happens off page and, though the service quotient is high, it’s not especially gross. Once/if you can look past that “no woman would ever do this” setup, the subsequent “services in lieu of rent” are more of a slow burn toward relationship development/general intimacy and friendship, including things like playing games together, talking about their pasts, going on a shopping date, and a “redeem any time” hug offer. Hara, the landlady (we don’t learn her first name and only learn her last name late in the book) is very clear about wanting more, and her internal monologue suggests she’s in love with Kozuka and has been for awhile, for reasons we can only guess at (other than her stating that she likes older women).

The surprising turn comes when Hara is shown to have been struggling with same-sex attraction and the way people have treated her for it for a long time. When she and Kozuka are out on the shopping date, they run into one of the landlady’s old high school acquaintances and her boyfriend. The acquaintance outs the landlady to her boyfriend, and even though neither reacts badly, they are pretty callous with how they talk about her. Kozuka comes to Hara’s rescue, and they have a sort of coded talk about how it’s been for her and Kozuka’s attitude about gay relationships. We see that what Kozuka really can offer Hara is a chance to connect with someone else, more than just physically, who actually cares about her and needs her.

The biggest problem with this manga so far, really, is that since it’s obviously intended to be a romance, Kozuka is undoubtedly going to come around to falling in love with the landlady, even though she’s been nothing but clear about not having any same-sex desire. That said, the landlady does bring a lot to the table for her, at the very least as a roommate and companion, so if they do end up together they should be relatively happy.

I don’t think any of this excuses the problematic sexual coercion/power abuse setup. I do think the author tried to offset that by making the landlady so much younger and smaller, so that it feels more like Kozuka consents to the terms for her own gain rather than because she feels threatened or forced. It’s not going to be a title for everyone, but I was pleasantly surprised at it… not being as bad as it could have been? No, more being way better than I would have expected? How’s that for an endorsement. ><;

Ratings:

Art – 7   There’s a certain sloppiness to it that is kind of refreshing, and the proportions and poses are generally good, but it rarely has much reason to push the details and creativity beyond “nice enough.”

Story – 6   The hook is ludicrous, and many of the vignettes pretty standard adult slice-of-life variants, but there’s some good potential for the future if they delve into the hinted-at discrimination that cost Kozuka her job, or more explicitly into Hara’s struggles with being gay.

Characters – 7  Maybe a little high, but I’m just glad that they’re cute without being (too) moe and have adult bodies. Oh, bar, why must you be so low?

Yuri – 5  Since only half of the characters fit the description thus far.

Service – 7  There’s the usual assortment of “walking in on each other naked,” “conversation about bras,” and “occasional cleavage shots.” Also, I guess, the premise is literally about “service.” Service thing that bugs me little: somehow Kozuka, an otaku couch potato who lives off of cup ramen and doesn’t exercise, has an incredible body under her dumpy clothes. Don’t get me wrong, the artist excels at drawing Kozuka’s curves, but you just don’t get that body without a lot more effort than she puts in. ^^;

Overall – 6

Erica here: Thank you Mariko for another great review of a manga that I would never know anything about otherwise. That’s the best part of guest reviews!