The Tragic Beautiful Girls (Patreon)

I've been thinking a lot about writing more manga recommendations for patreon but as I reflect on manga that really resonate with me and the characters that I get most attached to, I feel like there's an overarching theme to my interests that I want to ramble about that I think says a lot about me and my "brand". I get interested in just about anything that focuses primarily on relationships and/or community. I know myself well enough that I would even read the junk-food low hanging fruit manga with saccharine, fanservicey art or scenarios so unrealistic that you know the author is over-indulging in my search for that deep tucked away kernel of romantic truth. Guilty reads that I feel comfortable enough divulging are things like Bijin Onna Joushi Takizawa-san or The Dangers In My Heart.

A truth about me, and maybe this comes across in my work, is that I am someone who lives to emotionally support my loved ones. I think I'm particularly quick at sensing when people I'm close to are feeling bad or off in some way. I feel like this aspect of my life has me constantly looking for fiction that taps into this aspect of human relationships to give me more of that GOOD stuff, I want to understand the many ways people experience inner turmoil to understand how to be more empathetic in my real life. At the same time, I also go STUPID for pretty ladies. Both as an obsession with their beauty, the shapes and curves, but also with my personal understanding of femininity and an openness to emotional expression and vulnerability. With that said, I am basically hook, line, and sinker for women in manga that are beautiful within their fiction but are burdened with some sort of personal struggle that being attractive either exacerbates further or does nothing to ease their problems.

It's so specific! These poor girls are going through the ringer and are looking for a way out and can't find the help they need because beauty has become an inhibitor to them forming connections with others beyond a surface level for one reason or another. I think giving some examples can help sell what I'm talking about better, but that idea of "they're pretty so people will be nice to them or help them when they need it" getting challenged is such a carefully considered approach. The author has some sort of experience or understanding of how looks affect the way people perceive and interact with others and having that acknowledged and even worked into the story feels sooo good. The bar is generally so low for representation of good female characters in works drawn by people who value cute/attractive aesthetics, finding someone who can write pretty girls without reducing them to just whatever visual trope of girl theyre particularly attracted to is like striking gold.

In the examples I'm going to talk about, not all of them are equal in how important the looks are to the character but I think they all have their struggles that make them really easy to empathize with and root for. I'm going to be laying out the characters' struggles and walk through what they experience to complete their narrative arcs or what the authors are working through if they don't happen to be finished works yet. It's not so much of an essay or thesis but me telling you all about these really impactful moments that might convince you to read these stories. This is kind of functioning as a Rudy Recs post but for all 4 of these different series that thought would be more interesting to write about together. I think the characters I focus on might expose a lot of my own interests and give more understanding to the work I try to make too. It's going to be A LOT of information so I'm honestly expecting to lose a lot of you by the end, but that's ok because I need to get this out there. This post will contain spoilers for March Comes in Like a Lion (3gatsu no Lion), Skip and Loafer, and Interviews with Monster Girls (as well as Pokemon: Twilight Wings, but I'm sure no one cares, lol). Also, pardon some screenshots if they've got icons on them. I'm trying my best out here!!

Pokemon: Twilight Wings is a miniseries of short episodes that expand on the characters of Sword/Shield in what I assume was mostly to promote game sales, but it really brought to life a lot of the major NPCs of the games with personal backstories in their own dedicated episodes. I was already a fan of Nessa when her design was first revealed; Pokemon never had a lot of POC representation and it was so refreshing to see her added to the lineup of gym leaders. After writing this whole post out and going back, Nessa isn't even particularly that sad of a character! I think I just threw her in as a honorable mention because of her canonical beauty and how that plays into her story. Her particular episode started with a dilemma: Nessa is having a bit of a slump in her career as a gym leader with her second loss and her boss, Rose, approaches her to passively light a fire under her ass, hinting at her second job as a model is possibly taking away too much of her attention. 

Right off the bat, this is a setup that is EXTREMELY my shit. She's beautiful! She knows it and it's a core part of her experience within her world but she also is someone with more to them, also having a competitive nature with a desire to win and succeed in a profession that demands a lot of skill, discipline, and drive. She takes Rose's prodding as a challenge to her pride and is very upset to be made to feel like she can't handle pursuing these two aspects of her identity without one of them suffering. We hear a lot about marginalized folks that operate in a world that is stacked against them, often having to rise well beyond the level of their peers in their workplaces or communities to be treated on the same level socially. In just the passage of a single minute, we know so much: What Nessa values, what she's good at, and how she's perceived and treated.

She vents her frustration to her friend Sonia about the ultimatum that was asked of her. It's Sonia that makes her spend time thinking about if she should drop her modelling as was asked of her or push back if it's something she really values and is fulfilled by. The rest of the episode is Nessa recalling a formative memory with a wild pokemon she encountered as a child and ends up seeing it again during a photoshoot which reminds her of her connection to pokemon and inspires her to get back on the horse and be great at both of the things she wants to do. I don't have much to say about her, but we love to see a girl thrive! It certainly gave me a stronger connection to her than literally any other character in the pokemon universe if that means anything.

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The character that inspired me to start writing about this idea was Yuzu from the slice of life manga Skip and Loafer, which is in my top 3 favorite manga currently and I have a lot to say about her. I absolutely love her soooo much. Skip and Loafer has some of the most densely packed and well developed character writing across almost all of the cast that pop up through the story, and there are plenty of characters I also have an incredible love for, like the mean, but emotionally vulnerable Egashira Mika (who I went from HATING to really loving in an incredibly organic way) to the main character's trans (I think? Japan has a different understanding of this type of thing) Aunt "Nao-chan". But Yuzu fits into that trope that really landed her straight into my heart. Yuzu is the type of girl that has other people thinking of her as a "10", the top of the top. She’s by all accounts beautiful, mature, confident, and has an interesting life experience, returning from a few years of school in the US, which raises her cool factor in the other students' eyes. It’s with this combination of traits that her classmates elevate her into the upper echelon of students. What they don't know about her is that she had a particularly rough middle school experience BECAUSE of her appearance.

She's the type of girl that wants to be friendly and not cause trouble for anyone, and this happens to apply to the guys in her class that would flirt with her even when they may have girlfriends of their own (which she didn't know about because people are afraid to tell her things). She buckles to try to keep everyone happy at the cost of her own emotional well being and it’s made her highly attuned to reading people's subtle feelings towards her in social situations. I personally feel that same pressure to just not rock the boat for other people because it just makes navigating the places we have to be in most of our lives (for her, school. for me, work) generally easier than if you make enemies somewhere.

We can’t really talk about Yuzu without talking about another character, Makoto, the standoffish bookish girl who feels like she's an outsider while other-ing everyone else in her brain for one reason or another. It’s through Makoto’s (which I'll refer to as Mako from here on out) perspective that we get to build our understanding of Yuzu as well as see the two of them grow from their shared experiences becoming best friends. The two have their first significant interactions when Mako wants to invite a girl named Mitsumi (the actual main character of the manga), her first chance at friendship, to a movie but some of Mitsumi's other friends assert themselves into the scenario and make it a big event. As the group breaks the ice at a cafe before the movie, Yuzu sees similarities between herself and Mako among several of the light topics that come up and is trying to form any kind of friendly connection. Mako has already written Yuzu off in her mind that since she's so pretty, she must be a ditz and they'd never be able to understand each other. Several awkward exchanges of Mako's emotional defenses blocking any headway at friendship lead to Yuzu trying to be the bigger person, pulling Mako aside en route to the theater to tell her she understands that people might feel uncomfortable when she's around and she's sorry for everyone getting in the way of her original plans with Mitsumi. Poor Yuzu immediately picked up that someone doesn't want to talk to her and she just wants to try to get ahead of it and not be hated! To even assume any sort of responsibility for the group at large ruining Mako's plans despite not being the one that initiated it is part of her coping mechanism she's developed. It's only as much for the person she's talking to as it is for her to try to gracefully accept outwardly that she's failing again at making a meaningful connection.

It's through Mitsumi's unique perspective as an out-of-touch country girl from outside the city, fumbling through her own attempts at making friends during the movie, that Mako takes the first step to open up to friendship with Yuzu, understanding that Yuzu is actually a kind person and not as scary as she first assumed. This is the beginning of an emotional arc for both of these girls that just sort of burrows underneath the main plot to peek its head out in the exhales of story beats where Mitsumi learns more about her new friends.

Throughout the chapters to come, we start to see the two girls paired together any time they come into the view of the reader, we don't know what they were doing exactly before Mitsumi showed up but we just know that they continue to form a bond beyond our view. From simple shots of Yuzu and Mako getting snacks to more platonically intimate moments like Yuzu braiding Mako's hair, we know that these girls are making an effort to be friends 1-on-1 without needing others around to facilitate conversation. That first shot of Yuzu braiding Mako's hair made me lose my SHIT when I first read it. During the school festival, Mako even extends herself to try to help some of her old friends feel more comfortable around Yuzu, seeing an echo of her own initial anxiety of talking to her and understanding how Yuzu struggles to make friends.

Their relationship crystalizes for us when we see Mako has an opportunity to go on a "date" around to some book stores with a literature club member she has good chemistry with and Yuzu pounces at the opportunity to support her close friend. She helps Mako try out a new hairstyle and borrow clothes to make a good impression and Yuzu has what must be the first time she can vent her trauma to a trusting friend. She goes on about how she had "dated" someone before but just because a friend set her up and everyone was watching his confession and she couldn't say no to him, only to hurt his feelings later by not really matching his effort in their relationship. She had completely written this experience off as character weakness of hers but Mako finally gives her some clarity and validation that she got the short end of the stick in so many different ways. Yuzu also gets to share that because of this bad experience, she is sort of vicariously getting to see what an actual romance is like through Mako's date, which encourages Mako, who's still at this point a little on the fence about it, to give it her all.

Despite how close these two have grown, it's very hard to unlearn viewpoints and mentalities that society can box us into. While the date is going pretty well, Mako mentions Yuzu and her date casually refers to her as "that pretty girl". Mako spends the rest of her date spiraling downwards through every intrusive thought comparing both herself to Yuzu and how her date would be going different if it was Yuzu here instead. It's so sad to watch self confidence issues completely spiral out of control. You just want to shake them and tell them they're being insane! But sadly we all have our moments. The date ends prematurely after they looked at all the stores they had planned and after texting Yuzu the update, Yuzu rushes over to meet with her and comfort her. Yuzu doesn't care about whatever wild thing Mako imagined, she has a true friend and puts her whole heart into caring for them. This issue comes up again in this most recent arc where the girls are all starting their second year of high school and Yuzu ends up in a different class than the rest of her squad. She luckily found a group that really took the time to understand her and now that she's seperated from them, she finds herself back in the loop of other kids treating her with some sort of elevated status, putting an invisible distance and tension between them. Yuzu knows what it takes to make friends but it doesn't seem to be working and she is getting overwhelmed. She's still such a fragile sweetheart that has a hard time being honest with her struggles and can barely communicate to her friends that she needs them.

Even though Yuzu is struggling to stay afloat in the new school year, her best friend Mako seems to be missing the signs. She still has feelings that even knowing what she knows about Yuzu's past experiences with dates and friendships, there's still a part of her that wishes she was as beautiful as Yuzu and be on the other side. It's when she ends up learning about Yuzu getting set up on a date against her will with a guy from her new class that she remembers where she stands and calls Yuzu out of her house that night. She opens up that she wishes Yuzu would treat her like the best friend she presumed she was and talk to her when something is bothering her, knowing she has someone truly in her corner even if she doesn't always have the answers.

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In preparing to write this piece I've been going back through March Comes In Like A Lion, which is a manga that I've wanted to write something about for a while. It's about a young boy in early high school, Rei Kiriyama, who has already become a professional shogi player, and on top of the struggles of competing at a professional level at such a young age he also comes from a tragic and dysfunctional family situation that has ultimately led to him removing himself from his foster home to live independently in an attempt to become as little of a burden as possible for others. The rest of his life looked bleak and unsustainable but by sheer luck of the draw, after collapsing drunk outside of a bar that his shogi colleagues took him to after a win, he is taken in and nursed by Akari who becomes his lifeline to building a found family and a positive self image.

The oldest granddaughter of the head of a traditional japanese sweets store, Akari is has a lot on her plate that would never surface to those that don't get a chance to really spend time with her and her family. She also works part time at her aunt's bar (which Rei had gotten drunk at) and most people experience Akari as an entertainer; a beautiful, young but mature woman (She's around her early/mid twenties). Rei gets to see the homely side of Akari and almost questions if the two images he sees of her are truly the same person. The Akari that Rei sees is someone that acts like a doting mother, always looking for great deals at the grocery store that activates her neurotic budget management. Someone that looks after her middle school age sister Hina and baby sister Momo, keeping them fed and on schedule with bath and bed times. She has a sweet tooth and will forgo her penny pinching when delicious treats are involved. She's over the line obsessed with cute things which led her to bringing in 2 stray cats regardless of if she thought she had the means, as well as having a thing for chubby guys and their roundness. As Rei spends more time with this family, he learns that Akari has taken on the role of the parent as their actual mother passed away when Momo was just born. He also catches a glimpse of the other problem that goes deep to her core, their father goes basically unacknowledged because he abandoned them.

She has completely shut off her thoughts and feelings when it comes to her father, and there's not much that could get her to confront those issues directly. It's only later when Hina becomes a victim of a serious class-wide epidemic of bullying that we get to see the guarded Akari's thoughts that she hides in an effort to feign strength.

Akari wants to do her best to step up and raise her sisters to honor the way her mother raised her, but someone so young can never truly be ready to bear the weight of watching over the growth of another person. Akari is in her heart just as much of a young girl in need of support and guidance as her sisters, and struggles to feel like she's doing the right thing when Hina needs her most. The bullying problem is so severe that it completely takes over the minds of those trying to stand as the support system for Hina. As Rei feels deep in his heart that he needs to rise to the occasion and help to pay Hina back for the light she's introduced to his life, Akari faces her fears and rises up as the mother figure to give Hina a sense that someone will be there to help her navigate whatever comes next with the school. The bullying continues with drawings on desks and chalkboards until Hina decides instead of trying to hide their actions from embarrassment, she chooses to just say, "fuck it" and lets a teacher find it. This escalates things so quickly to confrontation that teacher ends up passing out and the principal sends a call out for parent teacher conferences. The pressure is on for Akari, not knowing if she can navigate such a complex situation and say the right things to get it resolved, but she knows that it has to be done.

....and she really can't meet her own expectations. Confronted with an aggressive mother of the bully in question, Akari completely shuts down during the conflict. Luckily, the principal has a sensible head on his shoulders and can intuit the truth from his conversations with both the guardians of all the children in question as well as the rest of the class when he removes the bullies to get them to open up. Akari wants to be the responsible caretaker for her sisters that she promised to her late mother, but she's not ready. And this doesn't stop Hina from loving her, they only grow closer together through it all. It's beautiful to see these sisters with their own traumas help each other up. Maybe you don't have the answers that would make everything better but you understand what it means to be hurt and what living through that pain feels like and that can be all it takes to be a helping hand.

Things make a turn for the better for Hina but after some time, Akari gets put through the ringer again when their father suddenly shows up in their home to try to weasel his way into living with them, aiming to bring along his new wife and child. I knew I wanted to talk about this moment after reading through it the first time, but as I was rereading the chapters it was making me SO upset. This dude is a fucking PIECE OF SHIT. It's the kind of drama that is so over the top that even in the fiction the characters questions, "is this motherfucker serious right now?" He left the family when Momo had not been born yet, which left their mother heartbroken and sickly, only to pass away shortly after. After something like that, he really decided that he was just going to come back and pretend like nothing happened.

Rei has become an essential part of what makes up this family by this point and Akari relies on him for support, knowing full well that she has no way to stand up to this man by herself. He learns from the accounts of the Aunt and Grandfather that he used to be a decent guy, until he had a particularly bad day at his job and quit. He slowly started getting more and more emotionally toxic and using his words to get out of being responsible for his own actions, blaming the mother who worked her ass off and made her feel like her hard work was making him look like a lazy ass. He someone developed his sharp tongue to really cut to the heart of everyone's deepest weak points, and it comes out strongest on poor Akari. He understands fundamentally that she is stuck as the child she was when he left and the situation is bigger than her understanding, trying to tell her that he knows what would be best for the family. This break my heart! Sweet baby Akari has tried her best to take care of her family at her own expense despite only knowing how to copy what she remembers from her mom and to cut her right where it hurts is just so truly evil, like to weaponize your daughter's sacrifice against herself is more evil than any cartoon villain I've read in a long time.

Rei is the only defense Akari has, being both an outsider that her father has no ammunition on and an expert at clashing minds with very smart folk in his age range. Rei butts heads with him on many occasions, being forced to make a bold claim that he wishes to marry Hina and has a stake in the future of the family to curb the father trying to shut him out of their private affairs. Rei's sharp mind was quick to figure out that there must have been some sort of reason for someone who was completely absent in their lives to come crawling back and does some social media sleuthing with the help of some friends to find the truth. The girls' father had lost his new job and was going to try to mooch off of the sisters' kindness and inability to say no in an effort to remove the burdens his family continues to accumulate and spend more time with a new girlfriend.

Rei reads the man's soul to death which leads him to flee and try one last strategy, bringing the child of his current wife into play to try to guilt the sisters into buckling to his whim. Akari is still deeply troubled knowing that her sisters don't have a true parental figure and trying to stir those feelings when confronted with their half sister would normally make her succumb to the pressures, but Hina steps up after going through her own hardships that Akari support her through to tell their father off. She declares for both her dad and Akari that they don't need him and if Momo asks them about it in the future, they can tell her that Hina and Akari decided it together, knowing that it was the best option for their overall happiness.

Even after this moment of pain which can lead to healing, the older generation of family still have their concerns for Akari. She still in her heart feels a need to be a mother figure to Momo until she becomes independent and starts college. The family is worried that Akari will miss out on her own happiness and they recollect moments in Akari's past where the baggage of raising her sisters cut off her ability to establish any kind of romantic life.

Akari is by all accounts a great catch, but people find her situation to not be worth whatever gains they perceive they could get from her. Rei tries his best in his own way to get her friendly with a lot of his friends that happen to be either older and wiser or just generally well compatible. Akari gets to have a second shot at being the young woman she is with men doting on her and giving her positive energy, knowing more about her from their passing conversations with Rei and still finding her desirable, which gives Akari a well deserved boost in her confidence. Despite this not really leading to much (currently, the manga put her on the backburner for a bit), everyone around her can get a sense that Rei being a part of their family has helped Akari open up and be her most truthful and honest self. I really love this aspect of a found family story, sometimes we form bonds with others that help restore us to how things could have been if we weren't missing fundamental pieces in our development and need for community.

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Even though I love Akari to death and she's so tenderly written as a complex and sad young adult, this last character is someone that I have a RIDICULOUS love for. I do not subscribe to even the ironic idea of waifus but god damn if Sakie Sato is not the closest I've ever gotten to catching those feelings. I mentioned that Nessa was a character that was right up my alley but Sakie is someone that I am so incredibly envious that I did not write her myself.

To set up this manga called Interviews with Monster Girls, we have a fresh(ish) out of college biology professor named Tetsuo Takahashi who had attempted to study demi-humans for his thesis, the types of characters you would hear about in old folklore and superstitions. He's not so much interested in science experiments with them but rather very interested in learning about what their lives are like and how it differs from his own experience. In the way that no ideas are born from thin air, this manga's interpretation of demi-humans is rooted in the idea that these stories came from literal experiences of people with augmented bodies that are so unique and rare that they are deeply misunderstood by the common person, only to get turned into the stories we know today from unquestioned assumptions. This story does SO good with exploring the anime side of just throwing in some goofy idea like "what if monster girls were real", but using them as metaphor to express the thoughts and feelings of real marginalized people and their unique individual struggles trying to fit into a world that was not made for them. It's less interested in using the metaphor to explore race the way anthros are used in works like Zootopia, Brand New Animal, or Beastars, but rather to explore the challenges of those that are neurotypical or not fully able-bodied. 

Tetsuo gets his very first chance to do the serious work of studying these demi-humans (who in fiction reclaim calling themselves Demis, which used to be semi derogatory) when he starts a new school year with a new teacher introducing herself to the faculty, A succubus named Sakie Sato. All in the same day he learns that are are actually a handful of students this year that are also Demis, and he is so excited to learn about them and their individual struggles and needs. Seeing that he's a fully grown adult, we also get the perspective that most of these Demis that he's interviewing are still just kids that are learning not only how to understand their augmented nature, but also the same struggles every other student goes through like interpersonal relationships or finding what they want to do with their lives.

There's really only one Demi that isn't a child, but she's maybe the most emotionally stunted of any of the Demis we meet throughout the story. Sakie is a succubus, and as you could imagine, having the powers to activate peoples libidos is really not conducive to a normal stress-free life. Combine that with all the other issues of being a woman in a man's world, Saki was so put off by her powers and the way it made men dehumanize her, she took as many precautions as she could to hide away anything that could be mildly interpreted as sex appeal to just get through the day. She has a general control over sending these signals out in her day to day, but if she falls asleep, her powers invade the dreams of those around her completely unfiltered. Unable to live in the city where people's homes are packed so close together, she lives out in the boonies in a single house with no neighbors, completely isolated. Back at home when her guard is down, we get to see her innermost feelings come out. Sakie is like anyone else deep in her heart, longing for a true meaningful connection with someone as a lover and partner. She understands the gravity of her powers and knows that she could use them to be with anyone, an incredible privilege, but believes that they wouldn't truly be in love with her as a person.

The author uses this scene to show the reader that even though Sakie puts an effort to be as plain and uninteresting as possible in public, we are meant to see her as beautiful. It's a bit more obvious when you look at the author's twitter, but they find Sakie as sexually attractive as anyone within the fiction would see her if she let her true self show. I mean, just look at the type of doodles they toss off of Sakie on their twitter, they know exactly what they're doing and I aim to live that life when it comes to my own characters.

Sakie's first experience with Tetsuo is a love a first sight, or first touch rather. She bumps into him in the hall and expects a reaction out of him, but being aware of the struggles of Demis, he does his best to play it cool to not send a bad impression to Sakie out of respect. She's so puzzled that there could be someone that her powers don't work on, she feels like its her chance to really make a connection with someone that will see her purely on the merits of her character. Little does she know is that her powers still work exactly the same on him as they do everyone else, and he waits until she's gone to lose his shit about how sexy she is.

As we learn more about Sakie, we see that she's got a lot of personality. Not all of it is flattering, but its genuine and no different from any other socially awkward but earnest adult. Lacking in love experience, she's a big daydreamer back in the safety of her own home, quick to explore her sexual fantasies with her crush, just excited by the idea that there's a man she can be interested in. She's also a bit childish, jealous of students that might have more experience with romance (which can be as basic as hugging or getting nice comments), but at the same time she is a wise woman that can guide the students through any of their emotional lows with answers she's learned through all that time spent in her thoughts over the years.

We meet some other characters soon after that are linked with Sakie, one being an older gentlemen that functions more or less as her father figure. He is a detective that is mostly in charge of care for Succubi, making sure they have a supportive figure to help them navigate society and stay safe with such a dangerous power which has led to a lot of sexual assault cases with succubi that become legally complicated. He has been in charge of Sakie since she first tapped into her powers X-Men style by accident in high school and has been guiding her through her decision to stay a part of normal functioning society and attempt to make an honest living as a teacher.

I have an aunt who works as a judge for a Native American reservation and hearing about cases of drug abuse and family problems that tear apart Native families, I can't help but feel like Succubi are experiencing a similar type of displacement issue that many do not have the means to survive without turning to some form of abuse. In the real world, these Native families are so limited with how they can pull money in while living on their land with all of the crazy laws in place, and in their struggle they become addicted to drugs that jeopardize their ability to take care of their families and leads to separations which can kill off a culture that's already struggling. I could see Succubi having an adjacent experience trying to survive in the world but they end up using their powers for quick money that gets them in trouble, but only because they've felt like they've run out of options.

Sakie expresses to her guardian agent (lol) that she actually might be interested in someone and he becomes incredibly supportive, seeing the pain she's gone through ever since middle school and how alone she's been. Now that she has someone she's interested in, he encourages her to start easing into using her succubus powers on Tetsuo, functionally to help develop a normal adult relationship with sex appeal and flirtation that most girls would have learned much younger in their lives. She is easily goaded into trying to put the moves on him to see him break his poker face and show his attraction to her, and being the awkward lady she is, she stumbles through her attempts in a funny and endearing way.

She really solidifies her feelings for him when they get to have a discussion about her powers and asks him a personal question on his view of if she can really be attractive to someone without her powers influencing someone. He can only give his interpretation of how he imagines the powers working, but he fundamentally believes that Sakie's succubus powers of attraction function similar to the way any normal woman manipulates their sex appeal with changing their clothing, hairstyle or demeanor. Her powers may augment her sex appeal exponentially, but they are only working off of the beauty that Sakie has naturally.

Sakie continues to try her best to shock Tetsuo into accepting his attraction to her so that it can turn into love with really funny reactions each time. 

The two end up going out for drinks after work one night and the vibes are good! They've gotten a lot closer over time. They start talking about how they came to be teachers and Tetsuo confesses he didn't really want to be a teacher but stumbled into it after he couldn't pursue his Demi studies in college, not being suited for traditional office work. When Sakie is confronted with the same question, she doesn't really know why she became a teacher. She is also at this point in their conversation completely drunk off her ass and lays down for a minute as Tetsuo steps out to escape the leaking sex appeal that Sakie is giving off in her inebriated state.

As he's out of the room, he bumps into the younger partner of Sakie's guardian agent, Kurtz (an incubus). Tetsuo talks to Kurtz as they return to the room together and Sakie pretends she's asleep and eavesdrops on their discussion. Kurtz tries to help Sakie plant the seed of the idea that Tetsuo could consider living a life as her partner, also sharing that succubi get enough government support to essentially never have to work a day in their lives. Sakie chose to return to the workforce despite having one of the highest succubus affinities which makes her life extra challenging, but she desperately wants to live the life of a regular woman, which includes settling down and starting a family. Sakie is more than just her desire for love, she has her goals for her personal life but has struggled to find meaning in the specific line of work she chose in her attempt to fake normativity.

It's only when Tetsuo helps her seek out an arrangement to stay at the school around once a week in the night duty room instead of traveling all the way back home that she gets the answer to this question. The Demi girls that we've been getting to know throughout the story (that I've completely skipped over but they're all good characters, especially the vampire girl) sneak onto the campus to visit their Demi teacher they have that connection with. As the hours pass and they're going home, Yuki the Yuki-Onna (snow woman) tells Sakie that she also wants to become a teacher after spending a lot of time thinking about her future while the other Demi girls explored their own paths. Yuki looks up to Sakie as a teacher who really cares about her students and, also being a Demi, has her own struggles that help her understand and guide students like Yuki when they're uncertain and wants to do the same for others. Sakie find her answer in Yuki's confession that even if she wasn't called to the path of teaching by some insane drive that came deep within, there is still personal fulfillment and meaning to be found if you are receptive to it.

As time passes and many pleasant moments are shared, Sakie and Tetsuo have a really cute thing forming in its own little awkward way. Tetsuo was never really someone that was good at romance, usually a bit too caught up in though experiments and study of Demis to pursue anything. He's grown quite close to Sakie and after one of the Demi students confesses to him before her final school year ends, he denies her and comes to terms that he is in love with Sakie. After his realization, he starts to make a better effort to spend time with her, asking her out on dates while trying to play it cool. After knowing how much Sakie struggled with her powers and her sense of self worth, I was so overwhelmed with emotion the first time he suggested to watch a movie with her. Sakie deserves love and now that she's finally getting her chance, you can't help but be happy for her.

This is more or less where the manga is at currently with US releases, but we see Tetsuo and Sakie be comfortable with the knowledge that they are interested in each other. Saki gets her chance to be more adventurous, getting to explore the idea that her succubus powers are innately linked to the mind and her own perception of sexiness. She wants to experiment with wearing more flattering clothing that makes her feel more confident and she can start to see herself in the situations she used to only daydream of. She even goes far enough to wear something cute out in public on her date and she's chasing her fuckin' bliss and I am soooo happy for her. The author also gets their excuse to draw her in every kind of cute outfit too and when you spend this much time building up purpose and reasoning behind those choices, you've earned the right for a little sexy cheesecake of your succubus character. 

She's more than just sexy for sexy's sake, she is a person with struggles and feelings and aspirations and THAT is the kind of representation we need more of. I don't need Joss Whedon girlbosses or moe through helplessness girls with no agency over their objectification, let a girl be sexy because she wants to be! She can be sexy, and then she can be something else when she so chooses. Reading stuff like this really does such a better job of making you fall in love with these ladies, it's so much more believable. Maybe I'm just getting older and I can't deal with the high school embarrassing panty shots by accident or whatever, I hope as comics storytelling grows and reaches more types of people that we can just get more of this character writing out there. If these manga (and I guess Nessa in pokemon too lmao) are any indicator, I'm pretty excited to see the way the romance landscape evolves and more care is put into their characters.

That's all I got really! I wonder if you can see any of these through lines in stuff I've been making? I really want to finish Weekend With Yuka and get it out for everyone to read because I think I've taken a lot from these stories and tried to channel them into my own thing. Maybe it could inspire someone to write about Yuka in the way I've gushed here for too long, but here's to hoping!