A dinner date with destiny occurs and all our guests have things stirring. When Wataru has finally had enough, is that going to spell new beginnings for Ayano and Akari? Or is the worst thing you can give somebody exactly what they want?
I love books that surprise me. Love them. So in any other manga where that dinner conversation went on for six chapters and was full of drama and speeches, this one goes another way and just implodes in a few pages.
Both ways are good, but it’s pretty darn clear that in that moment with so much raging out of control around him, Wataru has absolutely had it and just hits the big red button and gets divorced from Ayano. It’s a reaction, sure, but reality finally sets in amidst all the chaos.
And this is where many stories would end. Obstacles gone, life gets better, everything worked out for everybody. Hooray, buy the cake, all is well. Then the swerves come and keep coming and this story is so much more interesting.
We jump ahead in time and find out that life very much moved on for everybody, but not how you might expect. Ayano is still using her married name and Akari hasn’t been in touch since the night everything happened. What exactly happened amounts to not much of anything at all.
The way we become privy to this is a bit of a jaw-dropper and this manga has absolutely no issue with taking its storylines and complicating the hell out of them. We get some very interesting new characters this time out, shall we say?
And people are complicated and the story respects that. The way that Akari and Ayano finally come back together is via a route that you wouldn’t have figured on in a million years and even I couldn’t work out the motivation, except to save face, but it really paints a new light on things.
Make no mistake, no matter what exists in the air, it is clear that Akari and Ayano may have kept their physical distance, but each is taking up real estate in the other’s head and it takes barely a nudge to get that ship sailing once more. It’s so lightly handled that I loved it very, very much.
This doesn’t even touch on Eri and her affair with a married man who happens to be Akari’s boss. That whole plotline is so flipping awkward because Eri is coming out of her shell in what feels like the worst way possible, but it’s also a case where she knows exactly what she’s doing too. And so does he.
And the poor kids at Ayano’s school, who are maybe on their way to an awakening or are just a big old complicated mess. I don’t find it easy to remember the particulars of their story, honestly, but it’s still a good enough digression.
Looking back at the English title, I suppose you could read the title as implying that even though people grow up, it doesn’t necessarily get any easier. It’s an idea that resonates with me personally, honestly, and I like that this is about being older, maybe smarter, but not necessarily wiser. It speaks to me.
5 stars - there’s an amazing buffet being offered here and it’s hard not to want to spend time on every moment of it. This is one of the best yuri stories I’ve read in ages and it treats adults as the messes they can be while still offering everybody a chance at a happy ending, if they’re lucky enough.