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A review by christinecc
Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 9 by Akiko Higashimura
2.0
I was holding off reviewing this because I've been in DENIAL about how this whole series made me feel. Let me tell you: don't start this series. Not if you want a satisfying story.
The first volume had so much promise! Three female protagonists in their 30s: one who's in a career mid-life crisis, one who's perfected her craft as a pub chef, and one who never leaves her comfort zone and still lives at home while working as a manicurist. They've been friends since high school and love to meet up for drinks to chat and complain and just unwind. Seems pretty normal and fun to me.
One of the things they like to talk about is how hard it is to find a good partner in a relationship. And... I mean, I kind of get it? The series is kind of harsh with the main characters. I'm fine with somebody telling them to stop complaining and just DO SOMETHING to change what makes them unhappy. That's totally fine. It kind of puts the mirror in their face and makes each woman question what exactly she thinks she is missing, whether she actually misses it, whether her feelings come from societal expectations or genuine feelings, and whether what they want is even attainable. ALL GREAT QUESTIONS.
The problem lies in the treatment of these questions. Higashimura (for some reason) sits on the fence and beats up her main characters until they're pulp on the sidewalk. The guy who "wakes up" the protagonists straight-up makes Character #1's character more difficult than it needed to be by deliberately calling out her work and getting her fired. Again, it's fine to criticize someone, especially if he really thought her work sucked, but it's a little weird that he keeps hounding her and commenting on every little choice she makes. Where is this coming from?? Why does she even like this guy?? Is disdain the new flirting or something? Seriously, I'm all for blunt characters, but he's not being blunt: he just constantly judges Character #1 at every turn. It's... it's really weird. And I hated watching her spiral into self-hatred and trying to force herself to be something else that didn't come naturally or comfortably. There's leaving your comfort zone, and then there's convincing yourself that you need to become something else entirely (all while hating yourself for not changing fast enough).
Meanwhile Characters #2 and #3 get woefully undeveloped storylines. #2 has to be told to leave her very, VERY useless boyfriend who is simultaneously dating three other women. Oh, but it's not her LIFELONG FRIENDS who tell her this. Nope. It's that GREAT GUY who also judges the first main character until she's raw. Good God, Higashimura, is this guy just a deity who goes around fixing people's relationship problems? He's still friends with the boyfriend, shouldn't someone judge him for his friend choices? I'm glad #2 gets out of the relationship, but the way it happened robbed her of some sorely needed agency. She doesn't change, she just escapes. And I think I would have liked to see her do it of her own volition.
#3 really gets the shaft. She starts an affair with a married man who claims he has a DOA relationship with his wife. Then she finds out the wife is pregnant. And then the guy's sister catches them in bed while his wife is going into labor. Oy. Frankly her story had the most nuance, because she leaves him after she decides she can't reconcile this behavior with her conscience. And it was heartbreaking to watch her shove her initial misgivings to the side. The end result is that she can try to put everything behind her, but even that isn't great. I wish she could have had a better ending.
And to top it all off, Character #1 finally rebuilds her life, renews her appetite for life, sharpens her work skills, and starts dating an old boyfriend of hers who has also been beaten around by life circumstances. It's not ideal, but it feels good? Normal? I would have preferred if she had realized she didn't need to have a relationship if she didn't feel 100% into it (and finished the story single but happier about her life), but noooooo, the author decided the BETTER ending would be to throw comfort out the window and shoe-horn feelings for the bossy guy, Judgy McJudgerson. Because he's hot? And mean? And says he might not be into a relationship? EVEN BETTER. Excuse me while I go cry over the sheer disappointment.
If you can't pinpoint Higashimura's take on her three characters' struggles with 30s relationships, here's why: she gives us a mixed bag. Nuance is good. But we don't get nuance. It looks like nuance at first, or rather, the story PROMISES nuance. Then it ditches nuance on the side of the road. By the end, I figured out what bothered me about Higashimura's approach to the main problem: she kind of blames the women. If they're not in a relationship, it's because they're too picky, too lazy, too anything. And that CAN be true, but... does that mean you should just settle for whatever happens? What's the goal here? To be married, or to be happy? At no point does Higashimura score the goal she set up. This last volume is wishy-washy, and there's a mixed message about having no regrets, but none of the characters end up in anything RESEMBLING happiness or satisfaction. It's kind of sad.
All in all, I get why Higashimura gets frustrated and wants to show that sometimes people need to get up and GO DO STUFF, be proactive, chase desires, etc. But with romance and relationships, it would have been nice if she had stopped trying to shift blame from party to party. The characters at the beginning blame men, and then a man blames them instead. Couldn't ANYBODY have tied the story together by pointing out: "Look, it's not always about who's to blame. Some people find a life partner. Others don't. Just do your best, try to live life to the fullest, and be happy and healthy." Aren't those goals hard enough? We have to add blame now??
Not really recommended as a good josei series. It was good at first but spiraled and never recovered. I wish I hadn't bought the series because every volume strung me along and I ended up disappointed.
Now if you want a really good, thoughtful, and entertaining story about adulthood, relationships, employment, societal expectations, and even AGE GAP relationships, I can recommend NOTHING BETTER than Kodansha's other series, "The Full-Time Wife Escapist." THAT SERIES did nothing but improve and improve.
The first volume had so much promise! Three female protagonists in their 30s: one who's in a career mid-life crisis, one who's perfected her craft as a pub chef, and one who never leaves her comfort zone and still lives at home while working as a manicurist. They've been friends since high school and love to meet up for drinks to chat and complain and just unwind. Seems pretty normal and fun to me.
One of the things they like to talk about is how hard it is to find a good partner in a relationship. And... I mean, I kind of get it? The series is kind of harsh with the main characters. I'm fine with somebody telling them to stop complaining and just DO SOMETHING to change what makes them unhappy. That's totally fine. It kind of puts the mirror in their face and makes each woman question what exactly she thinks she is missing, whether she actually misses it, whether her feelings come from societal expectations or genuine feelings, and whether what they want is even attainable. ALL GREAT QUESTIONS.
The problem lies in the treatment of these questions. Higashimura (for some reason) sits on the fence and beats up her main characters until they're pulp on the sidewalk. The guy who "wakes up" the protagonists straight-up makes Character #1's character more difficult than it needed to be by deliberately calling out her work and getting her fired. Again, it's fine to criticize someone, especially if he really thought her work sucked, but it's a little weird that he keeps hounding her and commenting on every little choice she makes. Where is this coming from?? Why does she even like this guy?? Is disdain the new flirting or something? Seriously, I'm all for blunt characters, but he's not being blunt: he just constantly judges Character #1 at every turn. It's... it's really weird. And I hated watching her spiral into self-hatred and trying to force herself to be something else that didn't come naturally or comfortably. There's leaving your comfort zone, and then there's convincing yourself that you need to become something else entirely (all while hating yourself for not changing fast enough).
Meanwhile Characters #2 and #3 get woefully undeveloped storylines. #2 has to be told to leave her very, VERY useless boyfriend who is simultaneously dating three other women. Oh, but it's not her LIFELONG FRIENDS who tell her this. Nope. It's that GREAT GUY who also judges the first main character until she's raw. Good God, Higashimura, is this guy just a deity who goes around fixing people's relationship problems? He's still friends with the boyfriend, shouldn't someone judge him for his friend choices? I'm glad #2 gets out of the relationship, but the way it happened robbed her of some sorely needed agency. She doesn't change, she just escapes. And I think I would have liked to see her do it of her own volition.
#3 really gets the shaft. She starts an affair with a married man who claims he has a DOA relationship with his wife. Then she finds out the wife is pregnant. And then the guy's sister catches them in bed while his wife is going into labor. Oy. Frankly her story had the most nuance, because she leaves him after she decides she can't reconcile this behavior with her conscience. And it was heartbreaking to watch her shove her initial misgivings to the side. The end result is that she can try to put everything behind her, but even that isn't great. I wish she could have had a better ending.
And to top it all off, Character #1 finally rebuilds her life, renews her appetite for life, sharpens her work skills, and starts dating an old boyfriend of hers who has also been beaten around by life circumstances. It's not ideal, but it feels good? Normal? I would have preferred if she had realized she didn't need to have a relationship if she didn't feel 100% into it (and finished the story single but happier about her life), but noooooo, the author decided the BETTER ending would be to throw comfort out the window and shoe-horn feelings for the bossy guy, Judgy McJudgerson. Because he's hot? And mean? And says he might not be into a relationship? EVEN BETTER. Excuse me while I go cry over the sheer disappointment.
If you can't pinpoint Higashimura's take on her three characters' struggles with 30s relationships, here's why: she gives us a mixed bag. Nuance is good. But we don't get nuance. It looks like nuance at first, or rather, the story PROMISES nuance. Then it ditches nuance on the side of the road. By the end, I figured out what bothered me about Higashimura's approach to the main problem: she kind of blames the women. If they're not in a relationship, it's because they're too picky, too lazy, too anything. And that CAN be true, but... does that mean you should just settle for whatever happens? What's the goal here? To be married, or to be happy? At no point does Higashimura score the goal she set up. This last volume is wishy-washy, and there's a mixed message about having no regrets, but none of the characters end up in anything RESEMBLING happiness or satisfaction. It's kind of sad.
All in all, I get why Higashimura gets frustrated and wants to show that sometimes people need to get up and GO DO STUFF, be proactive, chase desires, etc. But with romance and relationships, it would have been nice if she had stopped trying to shift blame from party to party. The characters at the beginning blame men, and then a man blames them instead. Couldn't ANYBODY have tied the story together by pointing out: "Look, it's not always about who's to blame. Some people find a life partner. Others don't. Just do your best, try to live life to the fullest, and be happy and healthy." Aren't those goals hard enough? We have to add blame now??
Not really recommended as a good josei series. It was good at first but spiraled and never recovered. I wish I hadn't bought the series because every volume strung me along and I ended up disappointed.
Now if you want a really good, thoughtful, and entertaining story about adulthood, relationships, employment, societal expectations, and even AGE GAP relationships, I can recommend NOTHING BETTER than Kodansha's other series, "The Full-Time Wife Escapist." THAT SERIES did nothing but improve and improve.