Otomo Megane’s Himitsu (ひみつ) is a series of good ideas that don’t live up to their potential for two very specific reasons.

The plot follows a series of girls falling in love with other girls, at least one of these is meant to closely parallel a second story from the past – in which one of the main players is an adult in the present.

This shouldn’t be particularly complicated, except that Otomo has exactly three character types – blonde glasses girl, short-haired girl and long-haired girl. Each story follows possibly the same three, or three so similar that it’s impossible to tell the difference – other than names, which were never presented in full, so we aren’t *really* sure who we’re looking at without working at it.  Yes, it was absolutely true that, after I figured out which story I was following, I knew who was who. But overall, I’d rather not have to work that hard at it.

None of this would have been problematic if the stories were standalones, each telling a slightly different variation of three similar young women. Unfortunately, several of the chapters were continuations, not always in linear order. And the parallel stories were meant to be similar, which further blurs the lines. None of the stories were particularly memorable, which doesn’t help.

Individually, the stories are a variation on the theme of young love. There’s one of everything, from love triangles, to unrequited crushes, to crushing on an older girl and that old chestnut “she left to get married.” None of the stories themselves were bad, and the art is pleasant in a minimalist way.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Stories – 6
Characters – 3 They felt like the same characters over and over – even when they weren’t meant to be
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 5

The bottom line is that the artist’s lack of variety forced me to work harder at following the stories than the work itself warranted.

Happy day, a new Uso Kurata collection! Soredemo Yappari Koi wo Suru has a theme and a subtheme that combine to make a very pleasant point.

“Wired,” tells of the meeting of a energetic young woman and a cynical older girl in the RPG world from Kurata’s “Apocalypse” arc. Young, energetic, puppy-dog cuteness wins over grumpy world-weariness.

In “BBS,”  a school bulletin board provides the impetus for a girl to bridge the space between herself and her sempai on the swim team.

Sadly, “Picsee” was so preachy (hey kids, people you meet online might be dangerous) that the subplot of like-love between the two protagonists kind of got lost.

The book really takes off in “Blog,” in which two girls are outed at school by a badly timed picture on their school trip. The night before, one of them had started an anonymous blog to record their relationship – she fears that it was the source of their outing, until she learns about the picture. But, neither girl backs out of the relationship…and eventually they both start working on the blog. Little by little, they start getting comments from women who are in relationships with women, and other  girls in love with other girls.  Jun and Kazumi realize that they are not alone in the world and take strength from this.

In the omake “Intermission,” Jun and Kazumi decide to invite the commenters on their blog to get together. Of course they are the other characters in the collection. ^_^

There is tremendous power in knowing you are not alone. Whether it’s having trouble accessing a system at the office or knowing that someone else understands your feelings or your worldview, the tribal/herd instinct is strong in us humans. We prefer to know we are not alone. Where Soredemo Yappari Koi wo Suru works is in reminding us that it doesn’t have to be the two of us against the world – there are people like us out there.

There is an obvious underlying theme in this collection of online communications platforms. The negative aspects (online rumors and bullying, fake identities, people with agendas) is laid out plainly, but the moral of the story is just as obviously, “Sure, you have to be sensible about your online life, but waiting out there is *your* community, go, find it.” A lesson well worth teaching.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Stories – 5-8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 7

Other than “Picsee,” which I felt was heavy-handed, this is a pleasant enough collection of girls in love finding their place in the world.