shamelessly stealing the moon archive segment name for this series of posts, at least in part because we covered this for our latest yuri teatime. formatting: brief setup then spoilers/my thoughts after the break. previous entry can be found here.
kino himari just started high school and she couldn't be more excited; she's once again in the same class as her best friend and the opening ceremony even has a live performance from a student band! himari ends up falling head over heals for the lead singer, asanagi yori, of the unfortunately named ss girls, and later, when himari catches up to yori as she's leaving school yori falls head over heals for himari. but what himari and what yori mean when they say love is different and leads to a lot of anxiety for both of them as they grow closer together and as the history of ss girls comes to light.
so, the first three volumes of sasakoi are... fine. it's exactly the sum of it's parts and those parts could be reduced down to bloom into you and k-on! (or perhaps bocchi the rock! depending on your preferred kirara band series). the art is pretty, yori is a tall, nervous butch which is always fun, the characters are likable... but my taste in yuri tends towards the problematic (see, my enduring love of kitakawa, something i'll eventually write about but until then here's a great piece on it), not fluffy. so i was not quite bored so much as waiting for it to hook me, or failing that i would put it down when i caught up and never pick it back up. i do like that the mangaka draws yori with cat ears and himari with dog ears every chance they get, but that's not nearly enough to keep me hooked.
there are parts of the first three volumes i like. yori desperately confessing to himari at the end of volume 1 is good; yori knew that when himari said 'love' she was talking about a close friendship, but himari hadn't realized until that moment that when yori said 'love' she meant it romantically. volume 2 is focused on himari figuring out what love means and if she's able to feel it for yori and includes one of my favorite moments from something like this: himari is working through her feelings on love and how she's never wanted to hug or kiss anyone and her cooking club senpai, satomiya momoka, responds "is that all that counts? [...] personally, i think i'd judge by whether or not i wanted to cook for that person every single day." it's so rare to see something focused on romance acknowledge that love can take forms that don't include physical affection. volume 3 is where many yuri (and romance more broadly) series end: himari and yori get together and everyone is happy for them.
that's not where sasakoi ends and i couldn't be happier that it continues. sprinkled throughout the romance has been mentions of the singer that left ss girls right before their performance, leading to yori getting all but shoved on stage and himari and yori falling for each other. the girl who left is named izumi shiho and she enters the plot as the most bitter girl you've ever seen. she hates yori for stealing her spot (even though shiho was the one who quit...). she hates the leader of ss girls, mizuguchi aki, for some reason. aki in turn felt like shiho was enjoying herself playing with them and wants shiho to tell her why she actually quit. from the first time that shiho and aki talk it's clear they have incredible chemistry. they can't stand each other but are drawn together like magnets, unable to stay too far away.
shiho is, quite literally, the reason i'm writing this post. she adds everything sasakoi was missing before she showed up: a deeply bitter girl who can't stand herself, hates almost everyone around her, and is determined to hurt everyone no matter what. i love her. she's never done anything wrong in her life. the only people shiho seems to get along with are her band (lorelei) mates, one of whom is momoka, himari's cooking club senpai. through momoka, shiho and himari become friends. momoka knows that shiho hates yori, but himari doesn't know that and shiho doesn't know who himari is dating. watching the two of them growing closer together, knowing that shiho hates most of the rest of himari's friends but especially her girlfriend, is so much fun.
the end of volume 5 is where i fell in love with sasakoi. himari is deeply optimistic, foolishly so even, and tries to get ss girls and shiho to make up by inviting them to a taste testing for the cooking club without either knowing that the other is going to be there. it predictably blows up in her face, some things can't simply be talked out, but especially not when neither aki nor shiho were prepared for this confrontation. the final straw that breaks shiho's back is learning that her friend, himari is dating yori. desperate not to loose someone else to yori shiho grabs himari and makes her the manager of lorelei. it's an incredible scene.
shiho isn't a sympathetic character and that's why i love her. to take a line from the piece above, i love characters "who are 120% dogshit and recognizing you have a shred of empathy for them makes you feel sick." shiho isn't quite that bad, but she's not that far off. she wants to be the best at whatever she's doing, and will put in the work, but as soon as someone is better than her she crumples. she talks about how much better than everyone else she is but is constantly searching for external validation. she gets close people but can't tell them how much they mean to her and gets mad when they abandon her (read: don't return her feelings). her misery is entirely her fault and i can't help but want the best for her. i'm so happy sasakoi continues to put her and her relationships front and center as the story progresses.
this was longer than i mean to go, but sasakoi is something i like a shocking amount. most of what's out in english is not really my speed, but what i like i really like. i would heartily recommend checking it out if you like girls, kemonomimi, and/or bitter exes.
