Title: How Do We Relationship? Vol. 2
Author: Tamifull
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 192
Genre: Yuri, Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: December 8, 2020
The Story
Vol. 2 of How Do We Relationship? focuses on a simple theme: Jealousy. During band, Saeko and Miwa get split up into different groups and this ends up causing Saeko to feel jealous of Miwa. She sees other people talking to her, some of them trying to get friendly with her, and it ends up angering Saeko but she can’t bring herself to admit it… especially to Miwa. While this is the common theme for the majority of the volume, a bit of a side story begins to unfold with our new character Kan.
Kan seems to be highly suspicious of Miwa and Saeko, suspecting that the two of them are dating. He ends up being pretty blunt about it a few times which causes Miwa a lot of discomfort since the two of them are paired up in one of the band groups. Right away, you end up getting a vibe that Kan is going to be one of the main antagonists of the story arc but, surprisingly, they kind of go a different direction in a more passive-aggressive way. You end up catching some glimpses of Kan’s backstory which actually make you feel bad for him. The way he acts towards Miwa isn’t super damaging, either but it’s enough to make you wish that the two of them would have a proper conversation.
At the end of the volume, Saeko and Miwa end up having a bit of a heart-to-heart talk about the way Saeko has been feeling this entire time. Meanwhile, Miwa has been doing her best to try and change the way she is as a person so it wouldn’t be so much of a burden to Saeko. The ending leaves us on a bit of a mystery, though which seems to be the set up of a plot point rather than some major cliffhanger but it’s just enough to make you interested in reading volume three.
While I thought the story was pretty good, I just felt that it dragged a bit too much. Repeating the whole conflict of jealousy got pretty old. There wasn’t enough major drama to really support Saeko being jealous around Miwa. Sure, there were people talking to Miwa and all of that while some of the characters openly tried to hit on her but the ones that were knew that she was already dating Saeko which made everything a moot point. The people in Miwa’s band group didn’t know about the relationship but they knew that Miwa didn’t want a relationship with any of them, yet, they still tried (and got nowhere). I just don’t think there were enough major moments to really hit a home run with the jealousy angle.
Characters
Saeko and Miwa got the most attention here in this volume.
With Saeko, it was the whole jealousy thing. She claimed that she was pushing Miwa away because of it but I didn’t really get a sense of that… like… at all. Sure, she let Miwa go off and do her own thing with other people but that could be seen as Saeko giving her some extra space and letting her get used to interacting with other people rather than pushing her away. Pushing her away would mean something like refusing to go somewhere with her, not returning her calls or texts, canceling dates, avoiding her completely at school. Things like that. Here, she let her do her own thing and even spent quality time with her. Hell, they even got a bit dirty with each other at times. Those are not actions that you could really consider as pushing someone away so that didn’t really make much sense to me.
Again, without any major conflict to support it, the jealousy angle felt a bit force and superficial. There really wasn’t much to get jealous over. If Rika, in her playful ways, actually got serious and tried to steal Miwa away, rather than just joke about, it would have justified the way Saeko felt a bit more. Maybe is one of the guys in band tried to get super serious and Miwa, in an attempt to change, unwittingly played right into it, that would have been another way to justify it. It just felt really weird and unnatural.
Miwa, on the other hand, did show some legitimate development. She realized that Saeko was always sticking up for her. At one point, Saeko even blurted out that she needs to take care of herself, only to retract her statement when she thought she was a bit too brazen with it. This caused Miwa to think and, slowly, she began to fight her own battles. She would become a bit more forward in her conversations… especially when it came to Kan. When Kan figured out the two of them were dating (they were making out in a public setting so it wasn’t too hard to discover the secret), Miwa took the initiative and confronted Kan about it before they were interrupted by Saeko and company.
Miwa ended up taking some big steps forward in this volume but she isn’t quite there yet. She’s still super passive and timid but that’s one of the best qualities about her as a character. Hopefully, she doesn’t change too much and maintains a lot of that innocence!
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed the first volume but the second one lost a bit of its punch. Saeko was still very outgoing and tomboyish which brought a sense of charm but the whole jealousy thing was overplayed way too much throughout the whole book. It caused the story to drag and drag and drag to where I was actually starting to lose interest in it. Plus, there were times where it felt as if the story just wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Hopefully, the pacing will get fix in volume three where a new plot point seems to be beginning. Also, I found it weird that Miwa’s mother said that they needed to have a serious talk at the beginning of the volume and then just never did. Maybe they are saving it for a future volume or it was just meant as a short gag without the intent of any real resolution? Either way, it was weird to mention it and not follow up on it.
I still like the series and I think the characters are pretty diverse and while the story points were fine, their execution and pacing were not. Again, I’m hoping this will all be fixed in the third volume but this one took a bit of a step back after a killer debut.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
