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Shimura posting, part 3 part 2 (Even Though We’re Adults/Otona ni Natte mo)
According to my library, I requested all ten volumes of this series on January 4th, checked out the first four volumes on January 13th, and had all ten volumes in hand on January 23rd. This book blog special feature does feel like playing with a shiny new toy, where the "toy" is "my stubborn commitment to not using any images to review a manga, a visual form of storytelling." This part will address the live action drama, return to the It's Complicated Girls, and a selection of bullet points, mostly pertaining to the first half of the manga. The next part will cover the ending and the remaining bullet points. I'm crying on the inside…
In a blog post, Shimura mentions that there have been offers to adapt her works into a live action series before, but things always fell through. Shimura's series are surprisingly tricky to adapt: one part of it is the that her early series use nudity often and explore sexuality in depth; the other part is Shimura's high fidelity to character psychology and her love of pathetic people. (I'm thinking of you, Mame, and your twenty year crush. Sorry!) Her characters can often accurately-ish state their dilemma and observe their actions and the effects of their actions, but they can't stop themselves. They'd feel even worse if they tried.
Anyway, if any series would make it to the screen, it'd probably be this one. The 2025 production of Even Though We're Adults stars Kuriyama Chiaki as Akari and Yamamoto Mizuki as Ayano. Special shout out to Hama Shogo as Wataru, who puts in a great performance as a composed Wataru than the constantly stressed and pushed about by his mother Wataru in the manga. Kuriyama nails Akari's casual mannerisms and expressive, needy nature. Every scene where Akari's saying five things at a time and trying desperately to fix her last statement, then turns around and mutters, "Stupid stupid stupid!!!" at herself is perfect. On the other hand, I can't tell if Yamamoto is miscast as Ayano or if the show's direction didn't know how to do a woman who's sweet, dependable, and buttoned up in most aspects of her life, but also constantly lying to herself until it blows up in her face. Yamamoto plays Ayano as meek and subdued to the point of dullness. She somehow comes off as super straight, too?! Whereas I feel like in the manga, part of Ayano's charm is that she's often surprising herself and others with her boldness.
The most challenging aspect to adapt in Even Though We're Adults is, by far, the friendship drama between the It's Complicated girls (Ikka, Yuka, and Mana). The child actors are doing their best, but Shimura gives the It's Complicated girls the standard Shimura child character treatment—that's to say, they, too, have backstories, family lives, and routines that exist separately from Ayano and Akari. Side characters in a Shimura series have functional roles for the narrative, yes, but they're never fully absorbed into its machinery. One thing that makes her series feel unruly is that it becomes quickly obvious each character exists in their own sphere, and each sphere intersects with other spheres only briefly. (You can read 100 Views of Awajima, an anthology series, and the less unruly Runaway Girl to see her going full throttle with this mode.) The live action kids have clearly been directed to be Ideal Children. They cry beautifully, for sure, but it's not the right choice for this series.
Mediocre-to-bad adaptation time over! Let's talk more about the It's Complicated girls.
It feels obvious that, in a series called Even Though We're Adults, we'd need a child character involved who can provide a necessary contrast to the affairs of the adults around them. Shimura, not one to slack off, gives us three, and arranges them into a configuration that parallels our other triads (Ayano, Akari, and Wataru on one hand, Morita, Eri, and Mizuki on the other). Elementary schoolers often end up with stories that are "teachable moments" for the audience at home, or worse, the indifferent C-plot of a sitcom written for adults to feel reassured that children exist in a world separate, less significant world than theirs; this is also why teachers in television and movies are often such corny and embarrassing dorks. But Shimura, always interested in the experience of childhood and adolescence, gives them same level of concern as the Wataru-Ayano-Akari relationship—if anything, this, not the Morita-Eri affair, is the real counterpoint to our main story, both in terms of replicating the dynamics of a marriage breakup and having a significantly different resolution.
The It's Complicated girls story enters the corner of our eye at the end of volume 2 (chapter 10) when they're nearly done with the fourth grade and shows the three girls up to the second semester of seventh grade. Yuka and Mana end up in Ayano's fifth grade class in volume 3 (after roll call, we see them going, "UGH! She totally recognized us from the nurse's office!"). They spend volumes 3 and 4 trying to decide if they like Ayano enough to trust her with their problem: Ikka, their former friend, keeps leaving notes in their shoe lockers that say, "NITTA MANA AND NAGASE YUKA ARE DATING." Ayano's already called them to the counseling room and asked about the note without calling any attention to the content and reassured them that she's not planning on hunting down the perpetrator (an action which would lead to, instead of solving their problem, indulging in an adult's power to punish children). It takes the entire spring semester for them to decide to approach Ayano directly for help.
At this point, it's hard to sympathize with Ikka, who comes off as a homophobic child bully (yikes!), but Shimura's hard at work. While Yuka and Mana tell their version in dialogue in the present, Shimura gives Ikka a pretty funny flashback with narration, zooming us back to the start of Ikka and Yuka's friendship in the first grade (marriage!) and skipping us forward to the fourth grade, when Yuka and Mana sit next to one another and become fast friends (dangerous flirtation!). They spend time as a trio, but Yuka and Mana spend more time together than they do with Ikka, who gradually feels more and more left out. The trio relationship grows strained over an exchange diary: Ikka always forgets to bring it back, leading to Yuka suggesting to Mana that they have a second exchange diary just between them, where they write stories with characters based on each other (adultery!!!!! super super adultery!!!!!!). The kissing and marriage in the exchange diary matters to her, but more as a way of showing that she's being pushed out. She has no place in this friendship.
Ayano starts meeting with Ikka in the counseling office. It takes a few weeks for Ikka to open up, but it's not long before she's super attached to Ayano, the only adult who's given her space to think and process her feelings. Ikka, on Ayano's suggestion, writes Yuka and Mana apology letters. Yuka's happy to have her old friend back and immediately forgives her, but Mana tells Ikka to fuck right off and never talk to her or Yuka again. Devastated by Mana's response, Ikka stops going to school.
Ayano's instrumental in coming up with a way to get Ikka back into the school building to continue studying even if she's not able to make it into the classroom, but what really brings Ikka, Yuka, and Mana back together is the fallout of Ayano and Wataru's blow out divorce conversation in a restaurant. Parents from Ayano's school (one of them being Mana's mother) overhear the conversation; soon, rumors about Ayano's cheating ways spread among the parents and reach the students. The parents confront Ayano about the rumors during the big parent-teacher conference and then (yikes!!), during homeroom later that week, the students themselves ask Ayano to address the rumors.....
The classroom interrogation is funny but also lol horrifying:
Arima: Senseiiiiiii!
Arima: Is it true you were cheating?
Ayano: What I did was rash, but I never thought you'd hear about it. I'm sorry.
...
Egawa: Are you sorry about cheating?
Egawa: Or just for talking about it at the parent-teacher meeting?
Egawa: If it's the cheating…
Egawa: Then it sounds like you thought it was okay as long as we didn't find out.
Egawa: And if it's the parent-teacher meeting…
Egawa: I'd take that to mean you're only sorry because a parent talked about it.
Ayano: R-right! I misspoke. Oh! No. I didn't mean to be rude!
SFX: BULL'S EYE
Mana, in particular, is devastated by the whole ordeal. Even when her brother says, "Don't let it bother you. Teachers are still people, after all. Some of them are going to cheat," Mana can't help but draw connections between her situation and Ayano: "Okubo-sensei is just like her. I don't want sensei to be a cheater." But who's "her?" She flashes back to the note Ikka left, but it's ambiguous if the "her" is Ikka (the spurned, loyal partner) or Yuka (the partner who's left the old partner behind). Mana's part of this friendship triangle is Akari, the adulterous homewrecker. Either way, it doesn't take long for Mana to go from disappointed to Ayano to super mad at her own mother for spreading the rumors in the first place. (Shimura's understanding of an eleven-year-old's relationship to her mom is dead on there.) The whole incident leads to Mana coming to understand Ikka's hurt feelings: "Maybe she wasn't creeped out. Maybe she was sad because I took Yuka away."
The Ikka, Yuka, and Mana storyline resolves happily. Ikka and Mana share their mutual wish to be friends again, confess their honest feelings about what motivated them, and express their regret for the meanness they showed each other earlier. They're all friends again in time for their sixth grade graduation and all attend the seventh grade as a happy trio of friends. Cute!
Why does the It's Complicated girls' relationship resolve unquestionably happily for all three members while the other trios have a hard time finding a happy resolution? It isn't just because it's a friendship. Mana, in her first year of middle school, shares with Ikka that she has a crush on Yuka. Ikka helps Mana confess to Yuka, who turns Mana down. Yet even the introduction of explicit romance into the triangle doesn't throw off the trio's friendship.
There's something optimistic about the way Shimura sets up Ayano and the other adults around the trio. The parents are interested but not overbearing, their teachers are caring, and Ayano's handling of the ups and downs is pretty superb. The two years of trouble pass into happy friendship, thanks to the just-right interventions. Is the difference just that friendship can have more potential points and configurations than marriages? Is it just that the It's Complicated girls are nine and then twelve? I'd argue no. The difference in outcome is due to the support the It's Complicated girls get from those around them. Ayano has a great and supportive peer group at work, but the stigma around homosexuality means she can't open up to them without risking professional consequences; her parents don't understand why she'd leave a marriage for another woman; her mother-in-law is pushy and insists on keeping to the status quo; Wataru won't let her get divorced for four volumes of the series. Friendship, romances, and sexual relationships may develop similarly, involve similar (or even the same) emotions, and hurt just as much when they end, but the cultural expectations and obligations around marriage are much more strictly enforced, and the ability for the law to dictate what's acceptable versus what's a violation of contract drives the stakes up from emotionally and socially perilous to emotionally, socially, and financially ruinous.
The end of the conventional narrative of Even Though We're Adults is volume 8. Ayano and Akari have moved in together. She has a new job lined up at a different school in the spring and will leave her current school after graduation. The It's Complicated girls graduate together happily. At the end of graduation day, Ayano realizes she's gone back to her maiden name in her day-to-day life, but her students will always remember her as Okubo-sensei. Goodbye, Okubo-sensei. Miyake Ayano is going to live an honest life with her girlfriend now.
Neat ending with all the loose threads (ssh!!! ignore the Eri problem!!!) wrapped up, right? Wrong!!! We still have two volumes left to go! It’s weird! It is an extremely weirdly shaped ending! This post is 3000 words long?! Tune in next time for. omfg. Shimura posting part 3 part 3.
Okay, now for a selection of bullet points so there won't be a Shimura posting part 3 part 4 (oops! all bulletpoints) post.
- In volume 6, Akari goes to bed with a character named Akane before reuniting with Ayano. Ayano. Akari. Akane. Ayano. Akane. Akari. Akane. Ayano. Akari. god I'm so glad there was no love triangle between these three.
- I never got a chance to write up the sheer variety of scary dinners Shimura packs in here. I love reading about a bad dinner party, but most bad dinner party chapters of a book or episodes of a show are pretty lousy. Oh, there were awkward silences? Some inappropriate disclosures? Come on, have some guts!
My favorite of the bunch is probably the baffling barbecue (a fuck up from invitation to exit! nice!), but I also like the one from volume 3. Akari's moved into a new apartment and gotten a new job to try to forget Ayano, only to end up moving directly across from Ayano's new home. Wataru, after running into Akari a few days in a row, invites her to have dinner at his house. He knows she's the woman Ayano wants to divorce him for; he knows his nosy mother and sister are going to be really curious; he suspects Ayano and Akari have intentionally set up this "accidental" double move-in situation. Ayano and Akari text each other furiously in a panic; Eri gets clued into something weird going on ("Is she Ayano's ex-girlfriend?"); the reader's braced for a disaster—but it ends up being a pretty normal dinner. Ayano ends up learning new information about Akari that makes her want to be with her even more. The dinner party ends with Wataru's mother turning to him and going, Why on EARTH did you invite Ayano-chan's... PERSON here? He doesn't know. Jealousy? Apology for the barbecue? Trying to show off how he's recruited his whole family to preserve his marriage in front of the other woman? It's good shit… - Anyway, if I were in this series, I'd only meet people at cute cafes. Much safer!
- Shimura's teacher kink is here in full force, but we also get hair (Shimura loves drawing hair), ex-girlfriends springing marriage/new baby announcements on you, the impossibility of a clean start, mother and mother-in-law problems, familial entanglements, and for some reason apartment hunting… I can't tell if it's really easy to move apartments in Japan or if Shimura's just making a point about how if it's real love, moving is not going to be enough to keep you apart.
- Yuka's elementary school haircut is soooooooo bad lol. Bowlcut grade school phase.
- This is a really nice touch, but Mana has pigtails in fourth grade, like Ikka. Then, in the fifth grade, she cuts her hair into a bob to match Yuka. Ikka's left behind even in the haircut department.
- Really nuts flipping back through the volumes and realizing how tiny and round the It's Complicated girls used to be. Wow! All grown up.
- I don't think I appreciated how much Ayano does NOT want to have Wataru's kids in the manga on the first few reads. She decides to tell Wataru about her affair with Akari after a flashback to a moment when they were dating, where Wataru makes it clear that he wants children (Ayano's halfhearted response: "If it's possible, I think I might want kids" ohhhh boy). The last straw for Ayano's willingness to try to repair the marriage comes after Akari tells her that she's out of the relationship for real and then, on the same night, Wataru says they should visit a doctor to help with their difficulty conceiving. The next page, Ayano's holed up in her workplace bathroom and calling a law firm for a divorce consultation.
- Really think the way Shimura does quiet moments and consequences across chapters is top tier. One of my favorites: in the middle of volume 4, Ayano takes the first steps in divorcing Wataru and moves back in with her parents, but hasn't told her parents that she intends for the separation to be permanent. Wataru's mother, of course, tells Wataru to not take the separation lying down: he needs to visit Ayano at her parents' house to show that he's not giving up so easily. It culminates in Wataru coming over multiple times for dinner, then finally staying the night. Wataru insists on staying the night in Ayano's room. "We are married, you know? Still. Right?" Wataru says. We see him on the floor in the futon while Ayano, turned away from him, is on the bed. Wataru tries to join her in the middle of the night, but she refuses, even when Wataru says, "We can at least sleep next to each other." Next page, three large rectangular panels arranged vertically. Top panel, a big black square speckled in white. "No." Middle: Wataru's surprise. Bottom: Ayano, still turned away, eyes wide and clearly frightened of what might come next.
Next page, a full page long shot of Wataru and Ayano seen from above, with Wataru kneeling over her. "Come on," he says. Wataru climbs into bed with her and embraces her from behind as Ayano apologies in tears. We flash back to Ayano and Wataru, six years ago, happy to be dating each other. "It was six years ago [that] we got married. … What even was our marriage?" she wonders.
The narrative beats line up sooo nicely: Ayano hiding her problems from her parents because she doesn't want to explain that she's trying to get divorced and in love with a woman who she's seeing often but isn't dating; Wataru getting pushed around by his mother and going along with it because he's hurt and confused by the end of his marriage; Ayano's guilt about cheating leading her to unable refuse him until that moment. It's an absolutely miserable set of pages, full of regret. I love that shit. - Eri's constantly apologizing to Akari for how pushy her mother and Wataru are, but, when she's getting dinner with Akari to discuss what Eri should do about dating Morita, she goes, Well, Akari-san, don't you think you need to end your relationship with Ayano, too? and invites Wataru and Ayano before Akari can say no. Absolutely nuts.
- Another detail I appreciate about Ayano and Wataru's doomed marriage: at every single possible opportunity, Shimura has the Miyakes or Wataru's mom go, Ugh! I hate that family!!! They suck!!!!
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there are u__u still more bullet points. to sate the hungry hungry audience