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Shimura posting, part 3 part 3 (Even Though We’re Adults/Otona ni Natte mo)
Friends, countrymen, listen to my tale of woe… I've written ten thousand words for an audience of five.
Most authors would've chosen to end Even Though We're Adults with Ayano's "Goodbye, Okubo-sensei." Instead, Shimura writes another ten chapters of manga about overpowering guilt, lingering resentment, and the fear of the future. A recurring motif of the final two volumes is people wondering when their punishment will be carried out. What will happen to those they love after their deaths? References to feeling so miserable that death would be preferable suddenly start cropping up. And I'm sitting there holding the pages like, "What??? I thought this was a romance? Happily ever after…?"
It does end with everyone in a better spot than they started, for the most part, but I'm really, really fascinated by Shimura looking the audience in the eye, seeing them go, "Okay, Ayano and Akari are together now! I hope we get some cute domestic scenes!" and then giving Akari a monologue that goes, "Maybe retaliation is coming for us, too. I even actually kind of want it to. And then I want to wipe out this guilt and the reality of what happened to convince myself that the purification ceremony was complete."
A long-running problem for Akari is that she has a thing for unobtainable women, and the form that "unobtainable" usually takes is "already in a relationship or married." She's experienced in conducting affairs and freely admits it, but though she's engaged in affairs before, she's never been chosen. Shouldn't she be happy that Ayano broke up her entire family to be with Akari? No!!! It feels like shit!!! It's made worse by how Akari's father cheated on her mother, and her older sister was cheated on by her husband. Akari, reflecting back on her dating history and her current relationship, experiences a kind of vertigo: Oh, no??? Is my relationship just built on the unhappiness of others?? Am I nothing more than an adulterous homewrecker???
Meanwhile, Eri, after her confrontation with Mizuki, is literally shivering in bed, thinking to herself, "I don't know when the death penalty will be carried out." Even Ikka and Mana struggle with the aftermath of how they treated each other in elementary school. Does Mana really deserve to collaborate with Ikka on a story after her cruel words caused Ikka to stop coming to school? Akari, Eri, and Mana are all part of the adulterers club, the people who chose to intentionally pursue relationships that led to the break up of another couple. We can also see three different ways cheating has worked out: Akari succeeded in getting Ayano for herself; Mana has managed to resolve the friendship triangle into a true trio; Eri has broken up the Morita couple but is not with Morita after his wife confronts her. Yet all three experience something of a guilty conscience as the series winds down.
I keep thinking about how some people take issue with the end of Even Though We're Not Adults for dwelling so much on this question of guilt, blame, and punishment. It's not a new element to the series: early on in volume 2, Ayano confesses to Wataru and Wataru's mother that she kissed a woman. She's cheated. Wataru's mother insists that it's not a big deal. It'd be stupid to break up a marriage over a kiss, especially with another woman. "But look at your face! It's almost like you want to be punished," she says. As part of her penance, Ayano moves in with Wataru's parents. (See previous entries for how that went.) The question that opens up the series, "What kind of adult do you want to be when you grow up?" goes from a question that you answer to the sudden realization that other adults and children are watching the way you live your life and find it admirable or shameful.
This idea of being watched runs through the whole series. All the way back in chapter 1, Ayano goes to the bar Akari's working at precisely because it's far from her school, making it unlikely that her students' parents will recognize her. Then, in chapter 3, Ayano and Akari meet face-to-face after Akari finds out Ayano's married. Akari asks if they should meet at this location, which is close to the school where Ayano works. The consequences of not thinking of who's around them leads directly to Ayano and Wataru's conversation being overheard by the parents of Ayano's students, the two confrontations with the parents and her students, and her eventual decision to transfer out of her job to a new school. Bad! Really embarrassing!
I've been wondering about a really, really, really strange element of the final two volumes of Even Though We're Adults. TWO separate people take Ayano and Akari's story and use it as the basis for an artistic project. Akari's friend, Akane, uses their story to create a mockumentary film based on their relationship, and Ikka and Mana and later Yuka collaborate on a script based on Ayano and Akari's involvement with Eri's disastrous affair.
One story based off the characters' lives is weird. Two of them is really weird. Two of them introduced in the final volumes of a series is super, super weird! But it makes sense if we think about the series' relationship with eavesdropping and how this particular theme is specific to the Ayano, Akari, and Wataru storyline. Ayano and Akari, by consciously allowing themselves to be made the subjects, go from accidental spectacles to active shapers of their own narrative. Akane's fictionalized documentary of the two of them lets them accept the start of their relationship not as something to be ashamed of, but as part of their journey. They even ask that Akane include a scene of the two of them breaking up because it could happen in real life, too, turning the film from being material for Akane's project and into a way of Ayano and Akari exploring what they want their future to look like. The film itself becomes the "purification ceremony" in Akari's earlier monologue, a way of purging Akari's guilt so she can move forward and enjoy the relationship she now. After all, as a bit of narration puts it, "No one knows the future. I mean no one even knows the present, this very second."
Okay. I'm fine with this thematically. I get what's going on here. I do think the weakness of this thread reflects on the essential impossibility of monogamy. If romantic love is meant to be a major source of happiness, but modern times mean that people should be free to choose who they want to be with, then inevitably, if you find someone after a certain age, you'll be dealing with the person's past, present, and future relationships. It does annoy me that the script of the film is the final image we end the series on because lol I am not hot on this plot thread.
In contrast, I think Mana's stage play is weird but functions more naturally within the narrative. First, let's address the obvious. Say you're thirteen. Would you write a play about your fifth grade teacher's former sister-in-law's affair with a married man? Uh, absolutely not?! That aside, Ikka, Mana, and Yuka's interest in Ayano's life makes far more sense than Akane's. Ayano is their favorite teacher who's had a fall from grace, tumbling from admirable and respected adult to an adult that their parents scorn. It's only natural that they want to see what she's "really" like. The lives of your peers are pieces of hot gossip and cautionary tales and mortifying progress reports posted on social media; the lives of your parents and those in your parents' generation are secret myths with an eerie air of doom around them. Is that how my life will go? Is this the inevitable vision of my future?
Even though I find the whole "thirteen year old girl writing about her teacher's affair/teacher's ex-sister-in-law's affair" bit a stretch, I do like the actual set up and what it says about how kids view adults' business. In volume 9, Mana tells Ikka she has a crush on Yuka. Ikka thinks about it for a minute and goes, "Sensei can fix this!" and writes a letter to Ayano asking if she and Mana can go over to Ayano's place and talk things over. (It's a really cute letter… "I'm in the same class as Yuka and Nitta-san. I call her Mana-chan now." Wah!) Ikka and Mana have a sleepover at Ayano's house, meet Akari, and get to hear about Ayano's relationship and the drama unfolding around her now.
In volume 10, Mana sits down at her desk and writes, "This is the story I was told." The Eri-Morita-Mizuki story is now part of the story Mana writes, with assistance from Ikka and later Yuka. Mana and Ikka provide commentary on what's going on, elaborate on the motivations of characters, and sometimes sum up events with a sense of, "Oh, yeah, okay! Sure, I can see that happening." The framing device starts off similar to a rakugo performance, complete with shots of Ikka and Mana in kimono kneeling on a stage, and cuts to a prop fan and shamisen being played. The stage play/workshop session is an odd turn for a series that, aside from these few chapters, is grounded exclusively in realism, but it's a reminder of how people will hear of what we've done and construct their own separate versions with their own particular lessons from it.
One of the major challenges people have with Shimura is that there are really, really few people to hate. There's a lot of pleasure in being a hater—that is to say, there's a lot of pleasure in hatred. Infidelity, as a narrative, attracts a lot of hate. People are tired of the genre—it's boring, overdone, not serious enough, and so on. We hate the cheater for their callousness, the cheated upon for being pathetic, the third party for enabling the humiliation and degrading themselves. None of this has anything to do with the actual story or characters in question; the mere genre enrages a particular type of reader. The hatred is our fear of being mistreated, betrayed, and abandoned by our loved ones, but that hatred cannot guarantee freedom from suffering either at the hands of others or from our regrets over how we've lived our lives.
The series opens with the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" only to reveal that it's a flashback. The girl we see at the beginning is Akari, who wants her teacher to like her. Ayano also poses this question to her students towards the end of the series and gets students who say they want to be a teacher like her. Throughout the series, Ayano's uncomfortable with the admiration she gets from her fellow teachers and from her students. Her marriage failed in an explosive and spectacular way; she's happy now, but happy in a way that's illegible to her parents and society at large. But instead of admonishing herself for being a foolish person, as she did earlier in the series, she answers the admiration with the determination to "at least live honestly from now on."
Okay, whew!!!! That wraps up my thoughts on Even Though We're Adults. A ton of classic Shimura strengths in the art, paneling, emotional honesty, cool tone, and some really great writing. The ending has some great parts and some things where I'm like, "All right…….." but it's probably the most consistently paced and written longer series of hers that I've read. One thing I appreciate about Shimura's queer stories is that self-actualization is never the endpoint of her narratives. There's also little angst about identity labels, which, honestly, I really appreciate. In a Shimura series, realizing you're queer is only step 3 of 8. Your horrible break up is step 6!
It does feel unusual for Shimura to so explicitly focus on social forces, but I feel like infidelity narratives are soooo inflammatory that she had to incorporate some elements into it. Recommended for divorce enjoyers and the Shimura-afflicted manga readers in the crowd.
Now for our standard finisher: a big helping of bullet points.
Most authors would've chosen to end Even Though We're Adults with Ayano's "Goodbye, Okubo-sensei." Instead, Shimura writes another ten chapters of manga about overpowering guilt, lingering resentment, and the fear of the future. A recurring motif of the final two volumes is people wondering when their punishment will be carried out. What will happen to those they love after their deaths? References to feeling so miserable that death would be preferable suddenly start cropping up. And I'm sitting there holding the pages like, "What??? I thought this was a romance? Happily ever after…?"
It does end with everyone in a better spot than they started, for the most part, but I'm really, really fascinated by Shimura looking the audience in the eye, seeing them go, "Okay, Ayano and Akari are together now! I hope we get some cute domestic scenes!" and then giving Akari a monologue that goes, "Maybe retaliation is coming for us, too. I even actually kind of want it to. And then I want to wipe out this guilt and the reality of what happened to convince myself that the purification ceremony was complete."
A long-running problem for Akari is that she has a thing for unobtainable women, and the form that "unobtainable" usually takes is "already in a relationship or married." She's experienced in conducting affairs and freely admits it, but though she's engaged in affairs before, she's never been chosen. Shouldn't she be happy that Ayano broke up her entire family to be with Akari? No!!! It feels like shit!!! It's made worse by how Akari's father cheated on her mother, and her older sister was cheated on by her husband. Akari, reflecting back on her dating history and her current relationship, experiences a kind of vertigo: Oh, no??? Is my relationship just built on the unhappiness of others?? Am I nothing more than an adulterous homewrecker???
Meanwhile, Eri, after her confrontation with Mizuki, is literally shivering in bed, thinking to herself, "I don't know when the death penalty will be carried out." Even Ikka and Mana struggle with the aftermath of how they treated each other in elementary school. Does Mana really deserve to collaborate with Ikka on a story after her cruel words caused Ikka to stop coming to school? Akari, Eri, and Mana are all part of the adulterers club, the people who chose to intentionally pursue relationships that led to the break up of another couple. We can also see three different ways cheating has worked out: Akari succeeded in getting Ayano for herself; Mana has managed to resolve the friendship triangle into a true trio; Eri has broken up the Morita couple but is not with Morita after his wife confronts her. Yet all three experience something of a guilty conscience as the series winds down.
I keep thinking about how some people take issue with the end of Even Though We're Not Adults for dwelling so much on this question of guilt, blame, and punishment. It's not a new element to the series: early on in volume 2, Ayano confesses to Wataru and Wataru's mother that she kissed a woman. She's cheated. Wataru's mother insists that it's not a big deal. It'd be stupid to break up a marriage over a kiss, especially with another woman. "But look at your face! It's almost like you want to be punished," she says. As part of her penance, Ayano moves in with Wataru's parents. (See previous entries for how that went.) The question that opens up the series, "What kind of adult do you want to be when you grow up?" goes from a question that you answer to the sudden realization that other adults and children are watching the way you live your life and find it admirable or shameful.
This idea of being watched runs through the whole series. All the way back in chapter 1, Ayano goes to the bar Akari's working at precisely because it's far from her school, making it unlikely that her students' parents will recognize her. Then, in chapter 3, Ayano and Akari meet face-to-face after Akari finds out Ayano's married. Akari asks if they should meet at this location, which is close to the school where Ayano works. The consequences of not thinking of who's around them leads directly to Ayano and Wataru's conversation being overheard by the parents of Ayano's students, the two confrontations with the parents and her students, and her eventual decision to transfer out of her job to a new school. Bad! Really embarrassing!
I've been wondering about a really, really, really strange element of the final two volumes of Even Though We're Adults. TWO separate people take Ayano and Akari's story and use it as the basis for an artistic project. Akari's friend, Akane, uses their story to create a mockumentary film based on their relationship, and Ikka and Mana and later Yuka collaborate on a script based on Ayano and Akari's involvement with Eri's disastrous affair.
One story based off the characters' lives is weird. Two of them is really weird. Two of them introduced in the final volumes of a series is super, super weird! But it makes sense if we think about the series' relationship with eavesdropping and how this particular theme is specific to the Ayano, Akari, and Wataru storyline. Ayano and Akari, by consciously allowing themselves to be made the subjects, go from accidental spectacles to active shapers of their own narrative. Akane's fictionalized documentary of the two of them lets them accept the start of their relationship not as something to be ashamed of, but as part of their journey. They even ask that Akane include a scene of the two of them breaking up because it could happen in real life, too, turning the film from being material for Akane's project and into a way of Ayano and Akari exploring what they want their future to look like. The film itself becomes the "purification ceremony" in Akari's earlier monologue, a way of purging Akari's guilt so she can move forward and enjoy the relationship she now. After all, as a bit of narration puts it, "No one knows the future. I mean no one even knows the present, this very second."
Okay. I'm fine with this thematically. I get what's going on here. I do think the weakness of this thread reflects on the essential impossibility of monogamy. If romantic love is meant to be a major source of happiness, but modern times mean that people should be free to choose who they want to be with, then inevitably, if you find someone after a certain age, you'll be dealing with the person's past, present, and future relationships. It does annoy me that the script of the film is the final image we end the series on because lol I am not hot on this plot thread.
In contrast, I think Mana's stage play is weird but functions more naturally within the narrative. First, let's address the obvious. Say you're thirteen. Would you write a play about your fifth grade teacher's former sister-in-law's affair with a married man? Uh, absolutely not?! That aside, Ikka, Mana, and Yuka's interest in Ayano's life makes far more sense than Akane's. Ayano is their favorite teacher who's had a fall from grace, tumbling from admirable and respected adult to an adult that their parents scorn. It's only natural that they want to see what she's "really" like. The lives of your peers are pieces of hot gossip and cautionary tales and mortifying progress reports posted on social media; the lives of your parents and those in your parents' generation are secret myths with an eerie air of doom around them. Is that how my life will go? Is this the inevitable vision of my future?
Even though I find the whole "thirteen year old girl writing about her teacher's affair/teacher's ex-sister-in-law's affair" bit a stretch, I do like the actual set up and what it says about how kids view adults' business. In volume 9, Mana tells Ikka she has a crush on Yuka. Ikka thinks about it for a minute and goes, "Sensei can fix this!" and writes a letter to Ayano asking if she and Mana can go over to Ayano's place and talk things over. (It's a really cute letter… "I'm in the same class as Yuka and Nitta-san. I call her Mana-chan now." Wah!) Ikka and Mana have a sleepover at Ayano's house, meet Akari, and get to hear about Ayano's relationship and the drama unfolding around her now.
In volume 10, Mana sits down at her desk and writes, "This is the story I was told." The Eri-Morita-Mizuki story is now part of the story Mana writes, with assistance from Ikka and later Yuka. Mana and Ikka provide commentary on what's going on, elaborate on the motivations of characters, and sometimes sum up events with a sense of, "Oh, yeah, okay! Sure, I can see that happening." The framing device starts off similar to a rakugo performance, complete with shots of Ikka and Mana in kimono kneeling on a stage, and cuts to a prop fan and shamisen being played. The stage play/workshop session is an odd turn for a series that, aside from these few chapters, is grounded exclusively in realism, but it's a reminder of how people will hear of what we've done and construct their own separate versions with their own particular lessons from it.
One of the major challenges people have with Shimura is that there are really, really few people to hate. There's a lot of pleasure in being a hater—that is to say, there's a lot of pleasure in hatred. Infidelity, as a narrative, attracts a lot of hate. People are tired of the genre—it's boring, overdone, not serious enough, and so on. We hate the cheater for their callousness, the cheated upon for being pathetic, the third party for enabling the humiliation and degrading themselves. None of this has anything to do with the actual story or characters in question; the mere genre enrages a particular type of reader. The hatred is our fear of being mistreated, betrayed, and abandoned by our loved ones, but that hatred cannot guarantee freedom from suffering either at the hands of others or from our regrets over how we've lived our lives.
The series opens with the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" only to reveal that it's a flashback. The girl we see at the beginning is Akari, who wants her teacher to like her. Ayano also poses this question to her students towards the end of the series and gets students who say they want to be a teacher like her. Throughout the series, Ayano's uncomfortable with the admiration she gets from her fellow teachers and from her students. Her marriage failed in an explosive and spectacular way; she's happy now, but happy in a way that's illegible to her parents and society at large. But instead of admonishing herself for being a foolish person, as she did earlier in the series, she answers the admiration with the determination to "at least live honestly from now on."
Okay, whew!!!! That wraps up my thoughts on Even Though We're Adults. A ton of classic Shimura strengths in the art, paneling, emotional honesty, cool tone, and some really great writing. The ending has some great parts and some things where I'm like, "All right…….." but it's probably the most consistently paced and written longer series of hers that I've read. One thing I appreciate about Shimura's queer stories is that self-actualization is never the endpoint of her narratives. There's also little angst about identity labels, which, honestly, I really appreciate. In a Shimura series, realizing you're queer is only step 3 of 8. Your horrible break up is step 6!
It does feel unusual for Shimura to so explicitly focus on social forces, but I feel like infidelity narratives are soooo inflammatory that she had to incorporate some elements into it. Recommended for divorce enjoyers and the Shimura-afflicted manga readers in the crowd.
Now for our standard finisher: a big helping of bullet points.
- The ending of Wandering Son also ends with Nitori writing an autobiographical story of her life, and I was also just okay with that. I can't tell if this is just a move that Shimura likes or if it's a narrative convention??
- I still lmao hate how the Morita abuse narrative went. It ends with Mizuki still working at the salon with Morita… lfkmdn okay. sure. I would've had her and Morita decide to work in separate places??
- I do think it's a little funny how Shimura has Ayano's little sister, Kaede, get married and move her husband into her parents' house… but it's okay, because the husband hates his family and is excited to join the Miyake one!! I feel like, lol there are these moments in Shimura's writing process where she's sitting there and then goes, "Wait a second… I do know people who want to move into their parents' house. I need to take that into account."
- The title, Even Though We're Adults, has a double meaning of both having childish or immature thoughts/feelings, but also engaging in lesbian behaviors and relationships as adults. The emphasis Shimura chooses does focus on heteronormativity and expectations around marriage, but she's pretty concerned with correct behavior and what people owe another. I don't think her argument is that adulthood is all about treating one another with consideration and respect, which would be a pretty trite set of conclusions to draw from the problems laid out… it's more like people are going to act out and treat each other badly no matter what age they are, and part of adulthood is finding the courage to accept blame when necessary, to be honest with what you need, and to confront the fact that the future is uncertain.
- So, so funny to me that Ikka and Mana clock Ayano as a gay teacher they can talk to when Mana develops a crush on Yuka and needs advice. "Oh, she lives with another woman? No name plate on the door? They're tooootally dating. I guess sensei really was cheating, then."
- Didn't include this in the main write up, but in volume 9, the parent of one of Ayano's students confesses her love for Ayano and then says she got married because she wanted a child but knows she's a lesbian. And she might have cancer. And she's separated from her ex-husband. And now she's worried she's going to die and isn't sure who's going to take care of her parents or daughter if she passes. A lot of things are happening in these parent-teacher conferences… Later, Wataru and Eri have a conversation about how Wataru will support Eri as long as he's alive, but it'd be best if she could live independently, because they'll need to take care of their parents. Aging and caring for one's parents end up being big topics later on in the series.
- Really, really cute moment in the final chapter where Ayano meets up with her first love, Nao. Nao confesses that she used to have a crush on Ayano. Ayano says she also had a crush on Nao, and that she's now living with Akari. Nao's thrilled for her. Cute. Cuuute.
- Ayano and Akari move FAST with their relationship once they start dating! All of this happens in volume 7: they reunite after Ayano's divorce. They go on a day trip, followed by Akari taking Ayano back home to meet her mom and older sister. They have a serious conversation about whether this relationship can last and if they can be happy together ("You didn't think about this before getting divorced?!"). Two pages later, Akari and Ayano kneel down in front of Akari's mom. "We've decided to move in together." "Oh, okay? Good luck with that," Akari's mom says. It makes sense to me—they've been into each other for ages, they've been in relationships before, and they're both currently living with their parents—but writing it all out, I'm like, dang, Ayano really does floor it every chance she gets.
- Akari doesn't tell her mom and older sister she's dating Ayano until they ask her point blank in volume 10. Akari's shocked… how did they know? Sensibly, Akari's mom points out that the last time Ayano came over, it was to announce they were moving in together.
- I know. I know we're all thinking it. "Does Akari call Ayano sensei in bed?" No definitive answer to this question in the series, but I feel like the odds are like, 5:2 on yes.
- Piss kink returns!
- This is one of her more chaste series. Come to think of it, Love Glutton was also lighter on the sex and nudity. Maybe a Kiss magazine convention, or Shimura being like, I'm only doing BL sex scenes this year… please check in later.
- The end of the Eri storyline is SO SO SO funny to me. "I'm going to die. I'm going to get the death penalty" → "Mom, please take care of this for me" → "Um, if you've both decided the damages cancel out, do I still have to pay? I'm not trying to get out of it, it's just that I'll have to pay in installments…"
- Also, really funny to me that Eri becomes the pivot point for Three Awkward Dinner Conversations. Great character trait.
- Another great Eri moment: she recalls going to a new high school and agreeing to befriend the girl sitting next to her. A few panels later: Eri standing next to the other girl in a black panel, neither of their eyes visible. Eri looks exhausted. "I am not having fun with this girl at all."
- The resolution with Ayano and Okubo Yoriko, Wataru's mom, is also incredible… Yoriko uses Eri's phone while Eri's in the bath to send Ayano a text asking to meet. Ayano, always supportive of Eri, goes to meet her, only to find out that it's Yoriko. Yoriko angrily thanks Ayano for helping Eri through the affair and with getting a job outside the house, then demands to know what was so bad about Wataru that she had to marry and then divorce him. Ayano, out of reflex, calls her "mother," only for Yoriko to snap, "I am not your mother!" Divorce complete! Ayano still takes Yoriko home after the fight.
- Shimura's favorite character to draw in this manga is undoubtedly Yoriko…. she gets all the best faces.
Shimura posting is officially DONE but I'll be doing a few more manga reviews over the next few weeks. Just not like, with the same obsessive fervor… The next manga post will still be Shimura-inflected due to reading these series as either references or because Shimura mentioned them in her afterwards. Up next: quick reviews of Kiwa Irie Yuria-sensei's Red String of Fate and Battan's Run Away With Me, Girl and My Sister's Best Friend. And. normal books with no pictures in them.