Isshou Suki tte Yutta jan

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The lack of reviews this has and the fact that I would like to exteriorize all my thoughts about the manga I just read is the main motivator for my following words. So might as well write them.

As an Aka Akasaka fangirl, I had already stumbled upon Yokoyari's drawings on Oshi No Ko. Since I started drawing classes not a long time ago, my teacher asked me to pick a mangaka's style to reference and practice, so I picked this woman's style, since I liked it quite a lot and it isn't utterly detailed and complex as other mangakas whose drawing style I really like ... (eg: Q Hayashida, Yuji Kaku, Kentaro Miura, the list goes on). This attempt at "reasarch" I was doing to develop my own drawing abilities, and the fact that I knew she had works written by her (and wanted to see what she has to offer in that regard), were the main motivators why I picked this up.

So well, first, it's a collection of short stories. As it tends to be with these kinds of collections, some stories are a lot better than others. They delve about love, sex (I wasn't expecting this much sex coming from her), human relationships and deception. I will list them all and give my thoughts on each of them, as well as my rating.

1. Hagane no Kokoro

Typical story about cheating and marriage. Nothing groundbreaking nor very interesting here, this could be pretty much be a side story of a dorama or a telenovela for all I care. Though I'll say the twisted perception of desire that the protagonist has is compelling.

5/10

2. Neo Dutch Wife
This was... something. Even though the subject matter is quite disgusting and hard to read, it deals with something that affects A LOT of young people nowadays (I'll say this situation is pretty Japan coded, but the fact that I, a girl from latinamerica, has met boys who view women and sex in exactly the same way as the protagonist, does says something about media and our own escapists ways of proyecting our sexual desires). I'm glad the story does acknowledge how problematic (and common) this actions are, specially within mangakas themselves. It's strange, and very disgusting at times, but it works.

7.5/10

3. Stand By You

This one is also something. I like how it talks about protection in sex, and even though it's also pretty dark and twisted while dealing with VERY serious issues (and the ending is bittersweet, to say the least), I do think it does manage to make some interesting points about devotion and how people project happiness and liberation on sex, even though that liberation may not be healthy for you if you analize it correctly.

7.5/10

4. "Kawaii"
Got HUGE OnK vibes from this one, now I get why Akasaka is working with her. Also a bittersweet one, but it does deal with a very interesting topic on Japanese society and the line of work that it represents. I like how it gives agency towards a protagonists that is trapped in a line of work usually considered degrading to women, and how she deals with all the positives and the negatives that it all implies. A pretty current subject if you ask me, mostly with all the OnlyFans craze. This is one of the few stories that has cute scenes, so I'll give them that.

8/10

5. Ipponbana

Wow.

The most different story of them all, and for good reason. Has some sapphic vibes engrained in it, which I really appreciated. Very interesting chemistry and interactions between the protagonists, deals with heavy subjects and I like how it handles the fact that some persons impact our life hugely even if they aren't with us anymore, that hit me. Extremely sad, but quite deep and poetic. Loved this one, read it!!

10/10

6. Koi wa Zenkei Shisei

This one is so short that when I first finished I had to read it again because I didn't understood a thing. In retrospect, it's quite intense but funny, if this is a parody on the isekai subgenre, it's actually a pretty good one. It's quite bizarre and a little out of place compared to the rest, but I ended up liking it's short intensity.

7/10

7. Namu Amidaisuki

Interesting one, also the one I feel most unsure about. Realistic in some ways, the relationship reminds me of Nana Komatsu and Takumi's toxic dynamic in Ai Yazawa's Nana. Though I'm still confused if the own toxicity of the relationship is endorsed or not, that may be the main reason why this story makes noise in my head. Still fine I'll say.

6/10

The art is great, I really like how homogeneous the style of this woman is and how she uses the hair and eyes to convey emotions the character's emotions. With how mundane most settings are, she does a great job to do something with that.

So well, I'm going to say this I quite liked this! Not every story is great, but I was actually very surprised with how dark and heavy some of them are and the topics most of them touch. They actually gave me Inio Asano vibes, which I'm not pretty sure if it's good or bad lmao (considering I like Asano it might as well be).
This made me find out that Yokoyari is actually an ecchi artist, and considering my uneasy history with sex portayal in manga and anime (specially because of it's huge issues with sexism and the male-gaze), I'm still trying to sit through that. Even though my western brain still has some issues with how sex and relationships are represented in Japanese media, this may be one of the few times I'm actually interested in the view the author has about explicit situations (even if it can get very twisted at times). I read somewhere that Mengo said that she tries that her stories, despite being erotic, are actually to be enjoyed by men or women alike, and I'm actually very glad for that!

I do think some of this stories may have benefited of more pages and development, but I'll still take them despite how short some of them are.

Would recommend it, but mostly if you're already into manga and have read seinen before. Will probably read more by her in the near future.

Each story is one chapter long, depicting darker aspects of life and relationships. Most of them are though provoking (On reading it'll be obvious which chapter is the exception.) As weird as this may sound, I still think reality is more depressing than how things are portrayed in the manga. It's hard to explain, but even in the chapters with dark situations you don't get the sense of complete devastation or feel that the characters are broken beyond repair.

Sometimes the story will focus on the weird ways characters cope with their lives rather than on their lives. That's not a bad decision on its ... own, but the way it's the idea is executed in some of the chapters feels off. For example, without spoiling, there's a chapter involving a student and teacher which reads reads more like a fever dream than a solemn depiction of the main character's difficult circumstances. Furthermore, sometimes the character motivations for their actions don't like motivations real people would have, and it gives the story a weird fictional vibe that undermines the tragic tone the story should have.

That said, overall I think this is a good collection. It's a low time investment and there's a thought provoking uniqueness of each story; it's well worth the read.

This manga is not completely dogpoop, but it feels extremely pretentious and tries to show how life can be depressing and it's all pessimistic, but instead the stories only cause you to raise an eyebrow and be like "oh I guess that happens, whatever".

Ch.1 talks about cheating and how marriage life is not always happy, it feels very eh and it even feels like it endorses cheating in a way (the girl always lacked love and found herself love upon being rejected by a guy during a cheating moment or whatever). It's very boring and unless you like cheating, it'll probably be just a miss ... and leave you with a straight face.

Ch.2 is one of the more interesting ones because it deals with masturbation/porn addiction and attention-seeking behavior. However, I'll point out that even though the story has a good theme, it completely flops with its resolution because, again, the story is trying to have a pessimistic approach with life and although it might be realistic in some way or another, it still doesn't really leave me satisfied, even though negative endings can be done quite well. Both protagonists had a very traumatic experience with one another (a guy and a girl) sexually related and in the end, it just shows how the girl moved on from it, whilst the guy became even more of a porn addict and also an incel. I wouldn't really mind that, but I think such topics had more potential to be discussed and mainly considering how the story was going for. The ending felt like a turn-off. EDIT: I'd like to add, maybe I'm being biased here, but because I've experienced being a porn addict, it's quite sad to see this theme never get the importance it has (unless it's some influencer trying to gain a following from men). It'd be cool if they had developed the characters together and going through their problems.

Ch.3 is another one with cheating-related things, but instead it talks about p3d0 and sexual development of girls. It is kind of interesting, as it tries to approach how the girl views sex and family, having an abuser satisfy her sexually, but being an abuser, and a boyfriend who treats her right, but doesn't really give her the satisfaction in sex and doesn't yet want to have a family. The story develops rather quickly with the professor being reported and whatever, but the ending also feels non-sensical as it contradicts all that we had read before.

Ch. 4 this one is kinda cool, it deals with young girls being models for adult magazines and how they deal with it. The girl meets a guy who swears to not see the content and that he loves her for herself. However, as the manga progresses, it tries to show how some people are so devoid of personality that they become some "pavlov dog" that reacts to keywords and all turns mostly well in the end. It shows a bit again the attention seeking behavior from some girls, but I liked a bit this one, as it felt sweeter than the rest.

Ch. 5 maybe I'm some low IQed person because I didn't understand anything at all on this one. I'm p sure it has something to do with symbolism of flowers and also with how people deal with loss, however I have no idea how the two MCs relationship really matter. One of them went to have a sex life and died??? I didn't really understand the point of it, it is the worst one in my opinion (again, maybe because I'm stupid).

Ch. 6 it's an isekai parody where the girl is trying to be with the mc, but in every universe she ends up getting rejected (the guy is on an eternal loophole of being isekai'd). I don't really know how to rate this, it just exists.

Ch. 7 it's one of the cooler ones as well, except that the idolatry point they were trying to criticize ends up being right? I think maybe it's because of how twisted and devoid of personality the girl is, but it's still pretty interesting nonetheless, as it goes a bit away from the darker pretentious pessimistic points and goes for a more interesting topic to discuss.

I really love this artist's art style and the reason I came to read this was not only because it's hers, but also because I saw a picture of chapter 2 on social media and wanted to check it out. Overall, it's a really pretentious and pesismistic story that most of the time doesn't achieve a point to actually make the reader reflect on the topic they wanted to criticize/point out.