alternatively: i'm boo boo the fool
oh my god. they fucking got me. well done. i'm a huge fucking dumbass lmao.
i was right the first time, when i thought that hime should've just apologized right then and there after yano kissed her!! she could've just resolved everything there, by saying that she doesn't like yano like that but still wants to be friends!! the situation wasn't actually as bad as volume 7 made it look!!! and you know, at first i thought this was a kinda anticlimactic or disappointing way to end this arc, but... nah, it makes perfect sense, because that is actually the exact point. having convinced herself that she's fucked up irreparably, hime has bought into the drama — this juicy, delicious... and extremely manga-y drama! it's the middle layer of the artifice that i talked about before!!
now, it was easy for me to say "hime should've apologized right away" back then, but this volume does a lot to put us in her headspace and show us why she's so scared. there's her experience with having rejected a bunch of boys (who never talk to her again afterwards) before, of course, but the main thing here, and the one that i actually appreciated, is simply that... she cares about yano. she really, seriously cares about this girl who's her friend! and this sounds so stupidly quaint when i put it like that, but just think about how friendship is treated in almost every romance story. getting friendzoned, "they seem like good friends :)", etc.; in other words, the lose state. if the main couple ended up as friends rather than lovers, then something went wrong. but watayuri looks at this and says, what the fuck? no? like, yes, hime doesn't love yano romantically, but that doesn't make her affection any less real! and indeed, that affection is precisely what leads her to continue making mistakes. she can't bear the thought of hurting yano any more than she already has (whether yano will actually get hurt like how she's imagining or not), so she's willing to even hurt herself by losing this friendship if it means the worst doesn't come to pass.
and this! this is exactly what yano failed to realize until it was almost too late, and why she'd already given up before kanoko talked to her in the salon. when hime pushed her away, she saw that only as a rejection of their entire relationship, and respected hime's choice to do that... not seeing, in the rest of hime's actions, that yes she does still care for yano a lot and doesn't actually want to leave! and it makes sense that yano would miss all that, considering that, you know. but that's where kanoko comes in, and oh my god that scene where they argue in the salon holy shit. on the one hand, yeah kanoko just tells yano everything i said here, but on the other! on the other fucking hand!! what she's actually saying here is "don't you love her like i do? aren't we the same? then why are you moping around being sad and just letting her go?? go be selfish and stop her from leaving, because that's what i would do and it's insulting to think you wouldn't do the same if you also love her!!!" holy shit! this girl is the best "will never tell her crush she loves her" character ever. what a galaxy brained execution of the concept
anyway, in the end, it's once again a matter of figuring out how to peel away all of the layers of artifice and lies here until their bare, raw feelings are exposed. this is how the conclusion of all the previous arcs has gone, but... man, how do i even talk about the way it goes here??? the way hime stubbornly, violently refuses to tell the truth, even going as far as saying that she was lying about not wanting to hurt yano and actually doesn't care at all — to which yano responds by finally mustering up the courage to disbelieve something someone is telling to her face, the selfishness to believe in her own interpretation of events, and the faith in the girl she loves and who she knows genuinely cares about her, and saying: "no! that's a lie! and you only lie to protect the things you care about, never to actually hurt someone!" and she's right!!! because of course she is. that's exactly the kind of disaster person hime is.
that would already be a fantastic ending to all this, but nope, we're not done yet. yano tells hime that she's fully prepared for whatever might happen, even being hurt, yet even then, when it's obvious what hime wants to say, she still can't bring herself to say it. and i don't blame her. it truly is scary, exposing your deepest and most vulnerable emotions like that... and here's where it all finally comes together, because that's exactly what the performance is for!!!! this is its value! it too is a lie, but one that gently wraps and protects these emotions, allowing them to be handled much more easily. sure, the specifics may not be there, but the core remains: it's in her onee-sama persona that yano can truly be kind, and with that kindness, accept hime... and it is as the little sister of the pair that hime, at long last, says that she wants them to remain sisters.
PHEW
jesus, just think about how many layers that scene was working on. there's the performance stuff i focused on, but also, the genre metacommentary?? shit! they're right! the plausible deniability of subtext is the very thing that makes it useful...... and though it can be used insincerely or confusedly, it can also be used for good effect... there are probably more layers to it than just this but i completely forgot about them in the time it took for me to figure out some good settings for resizing the below page, so i'll leave that for you to figure out :)
the final chapters of the volume are a much lighter-hearted affair, with yano being her lovably autistic self and hime being ????? as they try to work out how to navigate their new relationship. it's all very adorable and funny (which i welcome after all the previous volumes lol) while still being just plainly well-written relationship drama, as i'd expect. very good! however it does prominently feature hime getting all flustered from seeing yano naked, looking at her boobs (and the other girls', too), etc., which does bring up some questions. i mentioned in the last post that i was wondering whether hime might be aro/ace or straight, and i still think those are possibilities, but considering what happened at the hotel bath...... hear me out, guys: what if she's only aro, and otherwise gay. and! and. what if yano is the opposite, and gay + ace. now, i haven't the slightest idea how likely the former is, and while there's definitely something to how clueless about sex stuff yano is, that could just be the autism. so you know, maybe i'm completely off-base here.
but that'd be so fucking good though oh my god. just think about it. it'd be a natural extension of their relationship as it is right now, and something i don't think i've ever seen any other yuri manga deal with; in other words, completely on-brand for this series. ah shit i really want to see this now.
alright, i think i'm finally done here. so, what next? well, for one, i didn't talk all that much about kanoko here (aside from that one paragraph), but i have to say... while yano is still my favorite character, kanoko is without doubt the one that's the best-written. her development in the second arc was already really interesting, and the scenes she's had with yano in this one communicated a personal growth that's at the same time both illogical and completely emotionally coherent. not to mention the fact that she's been right about... basically everything so far! (aside from like, her rather poor and superficial understanding of yano's character.) i'm absolutely fascinated by her, and i can't wait to see what happens with her and sumika in the next arc. i'm sure everything will be fine :) <- clueless
also, i'll probably wait until i'm done reading the whole thing before writing another post; that'll let me write some proper analysis, rather than (cough) embarrassingly incorrect speculation on where the story is going to go. but don't worry, i'll be writing about other stuff in the meantime! probably.
read watayuri. my final message. goodbye
