Feb 14, 2025
One would think that “Ohana “Holoholo is a heartwarming story about two people working out their differences and rekindling their relationship while raising a child. About a blended family of people who come from different paths of life. Well, it isn't. “Ohana Holoholo” is a story about mutual toxic dependency, being unable to set boundaries, not trusting each other, keeping secrets from each other and ultimately, being unable to change.
It's honestly quite weird as the characters quite often realize that themselves. They would often mention their flaws, how the situation makes them feel terrible, but it never goes further than a mention in their mind
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palace. The characters take note of everything wrong with each other and their lives, but never make an active effort to be better people.
A lot of those awful situations are sugarcoated by either the scenes with (admittedly very cute) Yuuta or the series trying to play with symmetry that everybody has their flaws, shifting blame and a lot of vague angst for loneliness. Out of the entire cast there isn't a single reasonable person, who's willing to break the toxic loop and are extremely inconsiderate of each other or themselves. A lot of it feels like it’s constantly going in circles of “will they won’t they”, introducing new potential partners for the characters, but the way the story is consturcted, there isn’t really any suspense whether the two leads will end up together.
Maya is trapped by her ex, never allowing herself to do anything else other than serving Yuuta and Michiru, because she has a terrible savior syndrome and desperately clings to the idea that she can fix Michiru and has to take care of her. Michiru on the other hand is the polar opposite, someone who doesn't have the slightest care in the world for anybody, even her own child, but herself. She constantly avoids any sort of responsibility, treats Yuuta as a hot potato to be passed around and never cares for the feelings of those around her, as long as it doesn't benefit her directly. In addition to being horribly jealous and possessive, as she craves attention and validation. The two create an awful combination that's quite dreadful to watch. And then you add Nico to the mix, a character that's clearly in a very bad mental space, but never really seeking help, which boils down to him having emotional outburst at others - mainly Yuuta, as he places him at the center of his world and being with Yuuta is the only source of happiness for him. He's unable to process the loss of his lover, which in itself is not a bad thing, but it's frustrating that the series is so hellbent on never providing him with any sort of help. I imagine they can't send him to therapy, because then there would be no story, but pushing this character to the absolute limit of how depressed he can get and how Yuuta is the only thing keeping him going.
The common theme is toxic dependency, as mentioned in the opening paragraph. Maya put herself in this situation where she knows she needs to take care of Michiru and Yuuta, because Michiru would be unable to care for her son. So no matter how terrible Michiru gets, Maya knows she can't ever leave. She perpetually turns down every opportunity she has, as long as it that would mean dedicating less time to taking care of Michiru, even when she thinks she’s committing to something else, she’s still back at square one st the end of the day. The worse Michiru gets, it actually it's all the more reason to think she wouldn't be able to manage on her own. Even despite that, she's also dealing with abandonment issues, wanting to cling to Michiru by any means necessary . From Michiru's side the dependency is that she has this freedom to absolve herself from any household responsibilities and doesn't have to care for her son, because whenever she's alone with Yuuta, she always fails to properly care for him and needs someone to hold her hand in the process. She also heavily depends on others for validation in most things she does, as well as dhe needs to be taken care of by others in pretty much every chapter. While Nico's dependency comes from putting his entire life's purpose in this 5 year old boy, an immense amount of pressure on such a young child. And you can imagine where it goes, by the way I frame this with the whole "his only reason for living". Yuuta, the innocent child, is at the very center all of those adults' unhealthy attachments to him and each other.
All of this would've been fine, if it was a manga about letting go, if all of that had a purpose in representing how we need to cut toxic people from our lives, how this doomed relationship is not worth saving, trying to be a better person despite all of one's shortcomings. But the manga isn't about that. The weirdest thing is that the story is entirely aware of the characters' flaws and they are brought up quite often, but it never really serves as a teaching moment and it mostly just goes in circles around. At the end of the day, everything is forgiven, so the characters never really change. It’s one of the unfortunate examples of toxic relationships trying to pass as endearing. Which is a shame, since the manga’s core message of “A healthy and loving home is more important than a socially acceptable one” is still mostly intact. It’s just that its characters really aren’t the ones to tell this story, as they are mostly at odds with the message.
don't really think the series ever made a point about queerness one way or the other in cases of Michiru and Maya. The only way it affected them is through the relationship between Hiyori and Yuuta. I never felt like them being two women in a heteronormative world was ever the obstacle for them to overcome. It was always kept entirely personal, as the thing holding them back was their shared trauma and history, which mostly related to them hurting each other, rather than them being queer. And while I can see the point about their other love interests being men offering them a chance at an "easier life", that notion was never really brought up. The stability mostly came in the form of the love rivals being more reliable, a fresh start and also looking out for them, rather than the issue of societal expectation. I felt like the conversation was only "This guy is reliable and he had never hurt me the same way my girlfriend which I'm unable to move on from did" rather than "He is a man and that would make my life easier".
I can however see how Nico's character was intended that way, as his entire arc focused on the feeling of inferiority and his reason for leaving Keiichi was that he felt unable to provide for him that sense belonging in society. They broke up stricly because of that despite their feelings for each other. I think that was a lot more purposeful and felt a lot more intentional. Maybe it was just me, it did feel like Nico was making it pretty obvious about how he was feeling and it wasn't until the very end that the characters finally noticed it. The way it was written felt like they were just choosing to overlook it, which didn't really jive with the idea that they all were looking out for each other, because they cared about each other.
Recovery isn't linear and sometimes you still make the same mistakes. Sometimes you go one step forward and two steps back. I think that is very real and tough thing to get through, as working out one's trauma and other kinds of built up negative behaviors. I think the series was almost there with being on the right page, only really lacking the acknowledgment of it. Whenever the characters made that metaphorical circle of slipping back into their bad behavior, it didn't feel like the acknowledged that they are trying to break out of it, like they are making an effort to be better, but coming back around out of habit. I only really felt like they were coming to the same conclusions they did the first time, in the same exact way, as if it were the first time again, lacking that final nail in the coffin that allowed the characters to have any hindsight on their actions. It was almost there, but not quite.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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