Yagate Kimi ni Naru is one of the best romance manga I've ever read, and in my mind that title is held separate from its status as a yuri manga. That is to say that the story could be transformed into a non-yuri romance manga, and would theoretically have the same impact (Aside from plot details that are tied to the fact that its yuri, of course).
Despite how highly I hold this manga however, I can't help but feel that it missed some potential, which is why I'm giving it an 8.5 instead of a 9 (Rounding down to 8 for MAL). I'll start by
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going over what I like and finish with what I think could have been done better.
NOTE: I don't really care for writing reviews in a way that's meant to try and depict some sort of objective ranking of a work, because I don't think that its reasonable to say that my opinion represents the objective truth, or that there is such a thing as objective truth when it comes to this stuff. I'm just going to write what I think, and if you disagree, awesome.
Art, 10/10:
This might sound kind of obvious, but to me the main purpose of art quality and art style is simply to portray the story accurately and impactfully. When reading a manga like YagaKimi, I don't want the focus of my mind to be on the art. To be specific, I definitely don't want the art to be so poor that my mind drifts towards thoughts of its quality, and I don't particularly care for the art to be so detailed and extravagant that my mind drifts towards thoughts of how amazing it is. I want it to be in that sweet spot where I can understand everything that's going on and I find what I'm seeing aesthetically appealing, but I'm focusing on the story itself. This is exactly why I chose 10/10. Everything in the manga is beautiful, but I'm not focusing on the beauty itself as much as I'm focusing on the story, and experiencing the benefit of that beauty on the story.
Story 8/10:
The way romance is setup in this story is very unique, and I like it a lot. A girl who doesn't believe she can love, and another girl who mysteriously decided to love her openly one-sidedly (which we later realize was for relatively traumatic reasons). I really love the depth of that dynamic, because its a pretty significant detour from the traditional "boy-meets-girl and they both like each other" situation. In order for the relationship of these two girls to evolve into something that is healthy and loving, there needs to be a lot of character growth, which is what we see in the manga, and it plays out very nicely. But to me there's a bit of missed potential in execution.
For example: Nanami Touko's backstory is that when she was younger, her sister died. In Nanami's mind, her sister was this perfect person that did everything right; her sister was who she looked up to. Nanami decides to live her life as her sister, picking up the torch. She also makes it clear that she hates herself, and is emotionally dependent on the idea that she is the continuation of her sister. Nanami also has fears of emotional commitment: She fears that when people love her, they only love a particular side of her, and therefore if she were to change, they wouldn't love her anymore. This is why Nanami initially fell in love with Koito Yuu, because Koito didn't believe that she could love anyone. Nanami could love Koito without the fear of being loved. Another reason why Nanami doesn't wish for Koito to love her is because of Nanami's self hatred, because "how can I love somebody that loves something I hate?". She still has a desire for love though, so Koito becomes the perfect candidate.
To me, an explanation as to why she feels this way about herself and why she is so adamant on being her sister is only elaborated on in a short scene that implies Nanami might blame herself for her sister's death. This scene is the perfect explanation for why she decides to live the rest of her life as her sister, and also for why she hates herself. Its not that living as her sister and hating herself aren't possibilities without this explanation, but with it they become very clear and understandable. And yet, this is a single scene that isn't further elaborated on, and none of the other characters learn of this detail. Its not directly used as part of her character development to overcome her self-hatred.
When Nanami learns that her sister wasn't the perfect person that she believed her sister to be, she starts to break down a bit, and this makes sense. In order to fulfill her goal of becoming her sister and living her sister's life for the sake of her sister, she needs to be like her sister. But when she realizes that she doesn't know who her sister is, the ability to accomplish that goal breaks down. Through the emotional support of her friends and half-lover, she comes to terms with the fact that she may not be able to be her sister, and she learns to accept that her life can be her own. This is very good character growth. However, this part of the story is staged as the character growth for overcoming not just her decision to replace her sister, but also her self hatred, which doesn't make any sense to me.
The story also doesn't strongly address the fact that once she has overcome her personality problems, the predicating requirement for her love of Koito has fallen apart. Although it is sort of part of the story, I personally think that there isn't enough depth in the reestablishment of her love on different terms, and how Koito growing to love Nanami ties into that.
An Important thing to note is that its not as if the manga doesn't address these things at all, its just that I don't feel like they dive deep enough into them. A good analogy to me is that the manga takes the right path, but along that path it doesn't stop enough to smell the flowers.
Regardless, I strongly believe that it does take the right path. This story is very very far from irredeemable, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jul 18, 2023
Yagate Kimi ni Naru
(Manga)
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Yagate Kimi ni Naru is one of the best romance manga I've ever read, and in my mind that title is held separate from its status as a yuri manga. That is to say that the story could be transformed into a non-yuri romance manga, and would theoretically have the same impact (Aside from plot details that are tied to the fact that its yuri, of course).
Despite how highly I hold this manga however, I can't help but feel that it missed some potential, which is why I'm giving it an 8.5 instead of a 9 (Rounding down to 8 for MAL). I'll start by ... |
