[DeepL Translation - needs review] Akiko Higashimura's latest work is a sharp look at women and a laugh-out-loud comedy! Akiko Higashimura's latest work is bursting with laughter and a sharp point of view on women!
Rinko, Kaori, and Koyuki are 33 year old single women who still live like they’re girls fresh out of school. They’ve taken time for granted as the years passed. Suddenly they feel the pressure — of being a single 30-something, of trends passing them by while they didn’t notice, of feeling their careers threatened by younger people. Rinko wants to be married by the time the Tokyo Olympics happen, but if marriage is the goal, is this really the way to do it?
This is a josei manga, not shoujo, and our heroines are not innocents who accidentally fell into their situations. They’re grown women making choices, not always good ones. I found myself wanting to exasperatedly tell them off, while also sympathizing with the pressures they’re facing. At the end of the volume, Higashimura talked about creating this, and how she based it on what she was seeing within her own circle of friends. I think her conflicted feelings of not knowing whether to shake her friends or comfort them came across.
The setting is Tokyo, and the language is everyday. There are some cultural references and modern slang which needs to looked up in Japanese on the internet. (not in the normal dictionary) There’s little furigana, aside from names.
I feel like the language aspects are useful (because I’m an adult woman) but this first volume seems to be mostly just setting the scenario and establishing the characters. The plot picks up near the end though, and volume 2 gets more into her friends’ lives and introduces yet more complications. I got the first two volumes during one of Bookwalker’s “free to read for a limited time” promotions.
Rinko, Kaori, and Koyuki are 33 year old single women who still live like they’re girls fresh out of school. They’ve taken time for granted as the years passed. Suddenly they feel the pressure — of being a single 30-something, of trends passing them by while they didn’t notice, of feeling their careers threatened by younger people. Rinko wants to be married by the time the Tokyo Olympics happen, but if marriage is the goal, is this really the way to do it?
This is a josei manga, not shoujo, and our heroines are not innocents who accidentally fell into their situations. They’re grown women making choices, not always good ones. I found myself wanting to exasperatedly tell them off, while also sympathizing with the pressures they’re facing. At the end of the volume, Higashimura talked about creating this, and how she based it on what she was seeing within her own circle of friends. I think her conflicted feelings of not knowing whether to shake her friends or comfort them came across.
The setting is Tokyo, and the language is everyday. There are some cultural references and modern slang which needs to looked up in Japanese on the internet. (not in the normal dictionary) There’s little furigana, aside from names.
I feel like the language aspects are useful (because I’m an adult woman) but this first volume seems to be mostly just setting the scenario and establishing the characters. The plot picks up near the end though, and volume 2 gets more into her friends’ lives and introduces yet more complications. I got the first two volumes during one of Bookwalker’s “free to read for a limited time” promotions.