On the run from life in general, Momo and Midori have holed up together in the boonies for a bit. Tazune is in pursuit, however, and the reality of, well, reality is going to drop on the two women very, very soon. Does Midori have an easy out from the life she’s found herself trapped in?
Am I going to say something about three volume series again? Yes, yes, I am. Mainly because they invariably come into these landings that manage various levels of success that tend to be just shy of a slam dunk. So it goes here as well, which is why this is one of my maxims (or biases, it can be both).
However, let me just say that there is a full-stop, no fooling, honest to deity of choice, amazing Manga Moment (tm) in this story that makes all of it worth it. It comes when Midori is confronted by her coworker, Azusa, who happens to also be intimate with Midori’s jerk of a husband.
The way Midori gets her point across about how she suffered at Tazune’s hands, literally, is absolutely stupendous. It’s a real moment that looks like it’s going for a gut punch, but instead just poisons the well and salts the earth for good measure with nothing more than simple truth.
Combined with the outcome of Midori’s conflict with Tazune proper, it makes for the most compelling material of the volume and all the others as well. Mainly because Midori is letting herself have one last gasp of freedom before she yolks her life to a man who only says he loves her.
Except, of course, that Momo is there. And while she was the escape to the highway, she’s also an off ramp to some place entirely new for Midori. It’s nice to see Midori slowly coming around to the idea that, regardless of gender, there is one person she can always count on and maybe should take for more than granted.
I’d hardly call this the greatest yuri ever, it does fall a little into the ‘the series is ending so our love is now gonna work out’ vibe that many of these shorter works have. It’s not bad, but you look at something like the superlative Even Though We’re Adults and you can’t help be see this idea being done just that extra bit better.
Still, it shows Midori doing something for herself for a change, her true self, and Momo makes a choice for once in her life. It’s a good accumulation of all the things that had come before, and if the romance goes a little thin, it makes it back by showing just how much life Midori injects into Momo’s. If you were going to weather Japan’s homophobia, she’s the one you’d want to do it with - the joyous melancholy of their ending is such a nice touch.
The sea change at the end is interesting, and not necessarily in a bad way, although it definitely feels like time that could have been spent on our leads. Instead, we see the future through the eyes of Komari, Momo’s online friend, and Kon, the older version of Midori’s then-unborn child.
It’s an interesting way to go and I’m not mad at it because it does explore homophobia and the othering of people who are different from you. Plus, it goes after the experience of a child being raised in a same sex marriage/partnership and how somebody of a more difficult age handles a more difficult situation (not well).
It dovetails really well with Komari’s earlier appearance in the story and does some very solid things built on the bones of the earlier chapters. The bonus chapter is merely okay, although I do love the implication that Komari is not exactly a disaster lesbian, but more a lesbian disaster (don’t you hate the one person you know you could never say no to? Or love them? Likely both).
So it ends, with a good story and some moments of true greatness. There are worst ways to wrap up, our ladies definitely get their due, but there are definitely some ways this could have been more focused. Yet the directions it goes are themselves interesting in their brief moments.
4 stars - I do like the way things end between our leads, but it does feel like it could have made a bit more hay while the sun was shining. It’s a beautiful bit of melancholy with a happy ending, and a very worthwhile, if not entirely successful, read.