Sougou Tovarish
This was a series I had reread recently on a trip and was thinking about talking about so I figured eh, why not? Anyways most of these posts are just a way for me to archive my thoughts haha.
Sougou Tovarish is I think one of the earlier yuri manga I read, and one of the ones I really fell in love with. The cast of characters are hilarious and the author does such an incredible job with expressions that I found myself laughing constantly just from the expressions themselves. Some prime examples:
And these are just from the first chapter. The wide variety of expressions the main character had is what really captured me with this series in addition to the many fantastic quirks the main cast has. To put it lightly, it’s a ensemble of characters with eccentricities that lead to extremely comical situations.
The art style works really well with the comedy, as Kanna’s (the main character) reactions amplify how hilarious things get. It’s definitely one of the strong suits of a visual medium when it comes to comedy, in that the author/artist is able to convey visual jokes in addition to the actual joke content itself. It’s partially why I value reactions/expressiveness a lot in these kinds of manga, I think it really helps certain jokes land.
(spoilers? follow, I realized I haven’t figured out if I want to spoil things in my ramblings lol)
The progression of the relationship between Kanna and Yuu is I think pretty nicely paced for a 2/3 volume series (it got recompiled I believe, I haven’t read the original version but I believe the author made a comment about it). It ends with them getting together, and then has a few extras about their relationship. I feel a lot of yuri series kind of fall into either going too long and dragging out things, or they’re too short and either the relationship feels rushed or sometimes not even getting together. For that, I think the recompiled version adding on a few extras near the end really help because without it, I would’ve felt the series ended a bit too soon.
Their duo as a dynamic is great too, with Kanna being a bit over the top and extreme whereas Yuu is more reserved and polite. This dynamic isn’t too uncommon, but I think when combined with this author’s art style the two different extremes make it extra enjoyable and it’s one of my favourite examples of it.
If there was one critique I had to make, is that while I thought the series length was good enough for the main couple, the side couples don’t get enough to shine. With different dynamics I think the side couples were really fun and whenever there was a chapter focusing on them I was even glad since I had fun seeing the rest of the cast. I just wished we got some more time with them (maybe even like one or two chapters per side couple).
Overall a great manga, I’ve reread it a few times and I still think it holds up!