Shinobu Amano's "Last Game"

I have never regretted finishing a manga as much as I did this one. Shinobu Amano. How dare you make me fall in love with these characters. How dare you create such a light, fluffy romance. How dare you make me feel these //emotions//

Published by Hakusensha in the shojo magazine LaLa, Shinobu's massively popular "Last Game" ran from August 24, 2011 to June 24, 2016. Longer than any relationship I have ever had. It was a monthly publication anthology of sorts, and that meant only one chapter of this emotional rollercoaster of a manga per month. I can only imagine that this is what hell is, but I wasthlucky enough to find the completed series without having to anxiously wait for the next chapter. I liked the speed I was able to devour this series with, but I definitely missed out on the tension from well-placed cliffhangers and the emotional unstableness of falling in love.

Let's look at the art: nice. Okay, it is nice and aesthetic, but it's not iconic. It's not revolutionary or unique, it is very much a shojo manga with a shojo style. Big eyes, thin (yet fashionable) characters, sappy, heart-fluttering girl-in-love romance. But uhm from the guy's perspective.

The speech bubbles were a little hard to decipher who was talking, but the reversed shojo perspective and Yanagi and Kujou's relationship make this a manga worth reading.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

"As long as we're friends, we can stay together forever."

So. The plot begins with an arrogant, spoiled child named Naoto Yanagi and bland, emotionless Mikoto Kujou. Yanagi first meets Kujou when she transfers into his fifth grade class and he absolutely LOATHES her. She scores better than him on all the exams, she beats all his athletic records, and she doesn't even bat an eye to his presumptuous good looks. Flabbergasted with a wounded pride, Yanagi makes it his goal to defeat her in something.

He confronts her about her being poor and lame and pathetic, but she doesn't care about him in the least, saying "Your father may be amazing, but you're not." Triggered, this sets him on a 10-year plan of stalking, friending, and loving his first and greatest rival. And she doesn't even know it.

Yanagi follows her to middle school, high school, and university. Like a stalker. But with good intentions. But still a stalker. He just wants to claim some sort of victory over her, but he still can't compete in academics or athleticism with her superhuman abilities (which isn't really superhuman but just her being studious and hard-working). He constantly antagonizes her, which turns into playful teasing that almost everybody around them sees them as a couple--a newlywed one at that. Even though they can't see each other like that.

"The real last game is if I can make you realize your feelings for me, then I'll be the winner."

A majority of the story takes place in their second year of college, years after their fateful encounter. And Yanagi and Kujou are friends. Really, really good friends. Yanagi wanting to be more than friends, Kujou satisfied with her precious only friend. Their intentions flying over each others heads and fostering misunderstanding upon misunderstanding.

In order to become a good friend, one who is as dependable and as welcoming as Yanagi, Kujou decides to join the astronomy club with a fun cast of characters. There is the mischievous country-boy Souma Kei (who also falls in love with Kujou), insecure yet strangely devious princess Momoka Tachibana, Kujou's BFF Shiori Fujimoto, richboi Yanagi himself, and several other characters who are added for comic relief and club membership quotas.

The story revolves around this club and their misadventures, especially in trying to get Kujou and Yanagi to realize and confess their feelings to each other. Yanagi needs no help in realizing his feelings for Kujou are romantic, but Kujou is perfectly content in letting their comfortable friendship stay where it is. They go on dates without calling it dates, they walk each other home, comfort each other, act like a kawaii couple in every frickin' way possible but just without the label.

And Yanagi is freaking the fuck out. He's terrified of losing her, of missing his chance to be with the person he fell in love with since elementary school and he doesn't know how to progress their relationship forward. He's not too pushy and he always always ALWAYS takes Kujou's feelings into consideration, but this kindness turns against him as it keeps him from outright asking her out on a date. He also has this phase where he wants Kujou to confess to him first, but it eventually becomes a necessity for Kujou to recognize her feelings for Yanagi on her own if they are to progress at all. And there is no easy way to get this logical, analytically dense girl to realize something as abstract as love.

I loved how this took place in college, as a college student myself. Most shojo style genres take place in high school, where the whims of the heart are overwhelming and the love is the kind you can only find carefully wrapped and anointed with innocence in the breast of a young maiden.

Bitch please, love doesn't have an expiration date or a strict timeline to follow. I love shojo, just not how stereotypical and unrealistic it is...since it's given me expectations shooting out of the roof for how my love life should be going BUT ISN'T. Showing a romance that takes place in college, as adults, is important for their characters and also as a tool to reject the high-school shojo stereotype. True love doesn't have to come in high school. Hell, relationships dont have to show up in the prime of our youth because love found at any age is still beautiful and worthwhile. And it also shows that not all love has to be violent or physical or sexual. For 10 years, 10 goddamn years, Yanagi stays by Kujou's side because he loves her. He doesn't expect anything from her and he just wants to make sure she is happy and okay.

"When I think about you, I get so confused I don't know what's going on anymore."

[[Okay so he may have been trapped in the friend zone for an ungodly amount of time, but he manages to break free from that so you go Yanagi baby! ]]

My poor, innocent boi. He doesn't try to make Kujou jealous and doesn't play dirty, underhand tricks to get her attention because 1) she is completely oblivious and 2) he can't bring himself to do that to her. What a noble gentleman.

He loves her, for her. She is bland and unemotional and sees only him. She doesn't see his father's shadow behind him or his wealth or his good looks. To her, Yanagi is Yanagi. He is comfort, he is home. He is and always will be the most precious person in her life.

THEMES

Appearance vs. Reality

There are several characters who give off the appearance they would like to have instead of who they really are. Kujou is not like that. She is blunt and straightforward and guileless to every one she meets. She brings out the best (and sometimes worst) of people but that is who she authentically is, regardless of the world calling her uncute or weird. She makes the cool, confident Yanagi smile and goof around and break down these barriers we all set up to protect ourselves.

Some other characters are hiding their true selves. Souma wants to be known as a fashionable city boy, despite coming from the country side and having a noticeable accent. He is desperate to start over in Tokyo and wants to get rid of his former self because he doesn't hold that part of himself in very high esteem. You can't get rid of who you are. You can't abandon part of your identity, and Souma eventually realizes that his running away from home is really just him running away from himself.

Everybody has the face that they show to the world and the face they only show in private. Kujou defies that and unequivocally gives her true self to an unfriendly world all the time. It is a refreshing character trait, and one that convinces those who are lying to themselves to come forward.

Family Ties

Family is so important in this manga. Kujou is studious because she wants to make life easier for her mom and also because her beloved father died when she was young. Even as a child, she sees it as her responsibility to take care of her mom and earn a respectable living to honor her parents. If anything, she is the embodiment of filial piety for her generation.

Yanagi also has a loving family, but is shown to be slightly estranged from his father because of not wanting to be spoonfed such an easy life upon seeing Kujou's hardships and ability to overcome anything. He gets himself a part-time job and works hard to prove his worth to Kujou, but also to himself. He doesn't want to be riding on his father's coattails and feels that this independence is one way for him to control his life.

Family defines us. Family ties bring us into this world and keeps us there and family also hurts us the most. Sometimes, wanting to keep your loved ones safe ends up hurting more people in the long run, but these ties keep us together and make this life a little more bearable.

The Trap of Comfort

Patience or Procrastination? Throughout the manga, Kujou mistakes her love for comfort. In fact it is her fear of change that keeps Yanagi so far from her, despite his charisma. It takes prodding and emotional upheaval for her to realize that what she feels for Yanagi is love, so that when she confesses to him, he finally wins the only game that mattered.

Yanagi waited for 10 years. He gave her space and time, but he was also afraid of rejection so much so that he was almost complacent in not doing anything to help along his love. It was the sudden introduction of characters and love interests that spurred him to action or he may have lived to old age by Kujou's side, without ever holding her hand or embracing her.

There are strengths to being patient. Virtue in waiting for the right time and choosing your opportunities. Yet there is also a shame in using this ideal to run away and procrastinate moving forward. If we want change, we have to seek it ourselves and if we want to make a difference, there is nothing stopping us but time itself.

Don't be afraid to love.

Don't be afraid to try.

Don't be afraid to be happy.

"To risk a friendship...to turn those feelings into love are the true commitments one must make. To risk everything for that single person is what it means to love."